I must have lapsed into unconsciousness, for the next thing I knew I was being shaken awake. I opened my eyes and saw the face of an angel.
"Run, Scott," she cried, her face inexplicably torn between emotions of terror and tranquility. "Run away, as far as you can."
Why was she telling me to run? What had happened? I brushed her hands off of me and stood up, wavering a little as I regained my faculties. My first thought was what had happened to the classroom wall. My second thought was relief that the pain in my head was finally gone. My third thought was, oh my god, I did this. Somehow, without understanding completely, I realized that I was responsible for the destroyed classroom wall, the overturned desks, the people sprawled out on the ground. Everything in my field of vision had been devastated.
There was screaming. Pandemonium everywhere. The approaching sound of sirens. The two men who had so brusquely grabbed Jean struggled to their feet, fumbling with their cell phones, screaming to someone on the other end.
Bobby was racing to the front of the room, where Mr. Parker had been blasted through the giant crater in the wall along with the man in black. All of a sudden I noticed that everyone seemed to be looking at me. Gazes of shock at first. Then horror. Then accusing.
"What the hell? Did you see how his – "
"He's a freak, an alien – "
"Get him out of here!"
A hand jostled me. Then a hesitating kick. Then they began to advance on me, shouting, hitting whatever part of me they could reach.
"GET BACK!" A commanding voice pierced the air. Jean. Amazing that she was protecting me. Even more amazing that the students, my aggressors, listened to her.
Jean turned to me, her face locked in an expression of anguish. "Scott, GO!"
I didn't have to be told twice. I took one last look at the scene of panic I had so inadvertently caused, and fled. I ran from the classroom, ran through the hallways of the school where I could hear the sounds of doors being locked and whispered exchanges.
The school wide speaker blared, jolting me a little. "Dayton High School, we are in a Class-A lockdown. Lock you doors and keep your students away from the windows. I repeat, lock your doors – "
I burst out of the school front doors. No one tried to stop me. Not that anyone could have at the time – I was a pure running maniac fueled by sheer fear and adrenaline.
I continued running, with no sense of where I was going. I ran until my feet burned and begged for rest. I ran until my heart threatened to break itself against my ribcage. I ran until I could not run any longer, and then I ran some more.
Finally, I stopped. I had run all the way into the woods, it seemed. Collapsing onto the cool soft ground, my breathing came in short, choking gasps. Had I outrun my pursuers? Was I safe now? I didn't even know who or what I was running from, but the forcefulness of Jean's command had been all the persuasion I needed.
Utterly exhausted, I closed my eyes and let the sweet arms of sleep embrace me.
But even in sleep I was not spared the horrors of the living. My dreams were abruptly interrupted by a voice coursing through my mind. It wasn't a spoken voice – rather, it was more like the voice you hear when you think. Only ten times more pronounced.
Mr. Scott Summers. You are quite the gifted young man.
What was this? What was going on? Was I still dreaming?
I am not part of your dreams, Mr. Summers. I think you will find that I am as real as any person you might encounter.
Who are you?
The real question, my dear boy, is who are you? Or rather, what are you? You know, I had long suspected that Jean and I weren't alone in the world, but I didn't know the others would have abilities manifested in such…explosive ways.
What are you saying? What abilities?
Calm your mind, Scott. You will get all your answers in due time. For the moment, I suggest that when you wake up, you heed my instructions. I will lead you to a safe place, a place where you belong. We will talk more then.
And just like that, he was gone. The voice had brought me comfort, for the rest of my dreams were pleasant. It was almost as if he had manipulated my mind, pushing the buttons that brought reassurance.
Upon waking, I found that it was late evening. The sun was already quickly fading into the horizon. I dusted the grass off my clothes and with a jolt, realized that my parents were probably expecting me. I prepared to find a path out of the forest, but recognized despairingly that I was hopelessly lost. When I had run here, I had paid no heed to my surroundings. I probably shouldn't have done that.
But all of a sudden, I knew where I had to go. I didn't have a clear picture of exactly where I was going in my head, but it was like I had been given a set of GPS-like directions. A map without a destination. I followed it, knowing that I had no better option at the time. I needed answers, and maybe this new route, this new path, had some.
So I picked up my weary legs and followed the compass in my brain. The path brought me deeper into the forest, and my worries about getting lost escalated. I had no idea if this "internal map" was actually real or not – for all I knew, I could be going insane. Trauma from getting your ass kicked by your fellow students after you completely wreck their school can do that, you know. Especially if the girl you've been crushing on turns out to be some super-dangerous terrorist wanted by the government. And especially if, after all you've gone through, you still feel relieved about not having to take that geometry quiz at the end of class.
Luckily, wherever my internal map was leading me wasn't very far from where I started from. The last vestiges of light had just about receded from the sky when I saw the dim glare of fire in the distance. Approaching further, I realized it was a campfire. A campfire in a picture-perfect scene reminiscent of old Boy Scout campouts, complete with tents and hiking backpacks. There were even logs surrounding the campfire, their surface so inviting to my wearied body as I sat down on them. It was then that I noticed the two other figures sitting on the log opposite me, on the other side of the fire. One was a bald, middle-aged man that seemed to be dressed too formally for the occasion. He had a wide forehead and eyes that seemed to hold wisdom far beyond his ages. The other figure had strikingly familiar red hair.
"Welcome, Scott," the man said, his eyes fixated on my face. He was studying me, looking me over, analyzing me. "My name is Charles Xavier." He motioned to the girl beside him. "You already know Jean."
I chanced a glance at Jean, to see what she thought of this whole bizarre affair. Her usually sunny face looked wearied, and she seemed unfocused. She was looking straight at me with those piercing green eyes, but I got the feeling that she wasn't really looking at me – it was almost as if she was looking through me, perceiving something deeper than my physical form.
"You'll have to forgive Jean," Xavier said. "I'm afraid words fail her right now - she's just tired from dealing with that little incident you had back at your school. You'll just have to believe me when I tell you that she's very, very happy to see you."
I shook off the emotional undertones that came with Xavier's words and instead focused on more pressing issues. "What do you mean, that little incident? What happened back there?"
Xavier shook his head and sighed. "Greater men than me have tried and failed to explain the phenomenon you just experienced, Scott. I'll try to put it as simply as I can and hope for your understanding.
"You are a mutant, Scott. Somewhere and somehow along the evolutionary chain of your ancestors, your genetic code underwent a mutation. That mutation is present in your DNA now. It's lain hidden for years, dormant, causing no visible effects at all. Until yesterday, Scott. The day when your mutation brazenly presented itself to the world. And apparently, as part of its commencement, it decided to blow a hole in your classroom's wall and scare the living daylights out of twenty seven high school students.
"All except Jean here. You see, we two are mutants too. My mutation grants me a telepathic power – for Jean, telekinesis. Reading minds and moving objects. When you blasted that hole in the wall, Jean instantly recognized what you were. Realizing that it wasn't safe for you there at the moment, she urged you to run. And so you did. A wise move on your part.
"You ran and ran, and Jean mentally called for my help. I can read minds from quite a distance away, and it was impossible to ignore her cry compounded by the screams of the students. So, I came, and together we fixed up the mess. Jean telekinetically reconstructed the wall and I altered the minds of the people present so that they wouldn't remember anything.
"So you see, Scott," he concluded with a hint of a smile, "the whole incident never really happened."
I couldn't say anything for a full minute. It took a while for everything to sink in, for me to digest Xavier's explanation. It was crazy. He was crazy. People with superhuman abilities, hidden from the rest of the world? And I was one of them? Yes, crazy.
But was Jean crazy? She had been real enough, a fixture of my ordinary life. And yet here she was, accompanying some eccentric man who claimed she had to power to move objects with her mind. The same man who claimed he could manipulate thoughts and feelings. And what about me? What was my power?
"Your power, Scott, is a simple one," answered Xavier, as if he had read my mind. "You can shoot red-tinted concussive blasts from your eyeballs that are strong enough to level whole mountains. Such raw power is rare in an individual, even among mutants."
I instinctively reached up and touched my eyelids, as if they were suddenly foreign to me. "If that's the case, if what you're saying is even true, then why aren't I shooting out red beams right now? After all, it's my mutation, right?"
Xavier's brow furrowed. "That, my boy, remains a mystery to me. As are so many great things in the world."
Great. Could I be great?
Xavier leaned forward, his calm demeanor giving way to heartfelt emotion. "Let me help you, Scott. You are not alone in your struggles. I can help you make sense of yourself, your place in this world. You'd be among your own kind."
I considered it. I really did. But who these people said I was was detached from who I knew I really was. I wasn't an aberration of genetic code – I was a perfectly normally functioning human. It's how I had lived my entire life. And now this man – this Xavier – was telling me that I was different. That I didn't fit in with the crowd of homo sapiens.
That I was an outsider.
I feared that if I veered too far from my life, I would lose it. I feared the change that would come and the change that had already happened. I feared the loss of my identity.
So I said no.
I can't tell you that Xavier was relieved. I can't tell you that he was disappointed. I'm not the mind reader in the group. But I know I was relieved. In walking away, I felt like I was returning from an elaborate detour I had taken in life – I had seen new sights, experienced unparalleled sensations. But, like all detours, I always had to return to the main road. The main road that was Scott Summers the high schooler with a crush on a pretty girl, the high schooler who fumed over cafeteria food and procrastinated on his homework.
The high schooler who wasn't a mutant.
