Lizzy

Every single time, I hated to admit this to myself that I didn't think my plan through as thoroughly as I thought I had. Bus routes, taxi borders, local maps, and foot paths had all been taken into account as well as money, food and water. Though my body could survive mostly on sunlight and didn't need food, water, or sleep on a very sunny day, I didn't think about blisters and how long the journey would actually take. My GPS remained faithful to me and was charged whenever I could stop at a civilized place. After a particularly long taxi ride, I was dropped in front of a gravel road that had no signs or addresses anywhere near it. I paid the man the last of my money, more than he probably deserved, and started down it with the nice sun shining on my face and bare skin as my hoodie swung side to side on my hips.

Trees were scattered throughout the area as distant houses. Slowly, my memory of the old time came back. I remember driving down this pathway after a day in town, and also of coming here for the first time. Kamua and me relied completely on out animal instincts in the lab, and we had taken the trip in back of the darkened van badly. Both of us had been on high alert while Maddie slept between us. Actually, she had passed out after a huge fit of hers at one of the labs. It had let us escape, but then we were recaptured by Alan who promised food and shelter AFTER he drugged us and threw us in the back of this van. The drugs weren't the knock out ones the scientists used, they just made us really weak.

Slowly I smiled and laughed at how different we all were now. Both of us still had those primal instincts, but they were now buried a little by the emotions that were born from our time with Alan. As I thought deeply, I realized that Maddie never seemed to have those instincts. There was always a certain innocence to her; maybe because she was taken at a later age than the rest of us. She could still remember what life was like before she was changed, the rest of us couldn't.

I kept thinking about my family until the two storied, red paneling house came into view. I closed my eyes for a few seconds before opening them to stare at different sections of the house as I remembered certain things. There was a dirt circle in front of it for when Alan came in his helicopter, along with a stone path leading to the front door. The back of the house was angled half to a dense mass of trees and half to the lake, where a floating dock bobbed up and down occasionally. The back half of the house was raised on high stilts because of the hill underneath the front half, and had black painted, wrap around stairs leading up to the plexus-glass screen door. I remembered that the door lead into the screened off patio which held extra beds that had probably been long since forgotten by now.

I jogged right to the back door in anticipation of seeing Alan, but then I stopped on the second stair. I stepped back to the ground and retrieved the key from underneath the third stair before actually going to the door. Quickly I opened the door and rushed inside, locking the door behind me. Tarps covered the stacks of plastic covered beds which went half way to the ceiling and surrounded all the walls, leaving only enough room for the double doors to open fully in case of any emergency. I dropped my bag and went right to the white doors. I unlocked one of the doors and stepped into the dim living room.

It was decorated completely in white with plastic covering all the furniture. I kicked off my tattered shoes and slowly walked through one of the two arch doorways. It opened up into the kitchen where two skylights lite up the yellow walls and pale furniture. My heart swelled with memories and I turned right, toward the stairs, before tears could overtake me. I didn't want to think about all those who were dead and who also might be dead that were once here with me. My gaze still wandered to the left and it kept fixing on one area or another.

The second floor was only about half the size as the first because nothing above the kitchen had been built for those more "moveable" mutants. I forced my gaze away as tears flowed down my eyes and I headed to a green loveseat below an air duct. The room was decorated in comfortable greens with multiple chairs and couches to accommodate for the huge TV, Stereo system, and multiple bookcases. I carefully stood on the cushions, holding my arms out to keep my growing belly from unbalancing me too much. Once stable, I propped open the vent and reach in. I grasped the plastic bag with the satellite phone and carefully sat down with my legs curled under me. I pulled the phone out and dialed Alan's number that was taped to the bottom. I put it to my ear and waited with nervousness for him to pick up.

"Hello?" Alan answered with his lasting easiness.

"Alan," I breathed with almost a cracked voice. Relieved tears streamed silently down my eyes.

"My fire drawing Elizabeth?" He asked seriously.

"Yeah," My voice sounding weak even to myself.

"Stay there. I'll get the electric and water running. Are there alone?" He questioned.

"Yeah," My voice cracked again.

"I'll be there," he responded hurriedly before the line went dead. My body froze as I finally admitted it. I was alone, now and forever maybe. Tears dripped from my eyes and I buried my head into the plastic covered loveseat.

TWO WEEKS AFTER LIZZY LEFT

The bedroom was deadly silent as it was every night for the past two weeks. All three were awake with their grief and emotion, but unable to enter than now forbidden room that had once been their friend's. Lizzy's family of two was left to be dragged down with the guilt of not sharing what they knew with the others. Kamua knew what Lizzy's disguise was, and yet he didn't tell the professor when he asked, nor did he tell his worried roommate who couldn't sleep and barely eat. Maddie struggled with her own idea of why Lizzy left, but she couldn't bring herself to break the promise to her sister. Lizzy wanted the pregnancy to be a secret, but was letting Lizzy run worth seeing Kurt's heart break more and more as each day rolled by? The guilt ate up at Maddie and he own tears over came her when she saw Kurt's hollowed face. Twice she's hurt him, and once she helped.

All three had shed their tears, whether in private or with others, and still not even Maddie, who believed everything, could believe it. Kamua was the only one who could of the three. Lizzy had told him that He had found her a while ago, and yet he kept them here, thinking he could protect them both. If Lizzy striked a deal, she had given up on fighting Him, which was a scary thing for someone who might be the most powerful of all those who were "re-made".

Maddie nestled deeper into Kamua's chest as fresh tears fell from her eyes. A lump formed in Kamua's throat, but still her pushed back the tears and reassuringly squeezed his beloved. He bushed his nose into her hair and inhaled her scent to remind him why he always needed to be alert. He needed to protect the one last thing he had. Suddenly, his head shot up and he turned an ear to the window.

Outside, He floated in the air in front of the institute. His was face was red with anger as hurricane winds swirled in an oval shape around him. Energy cracked the air, but no one inside could feel it. Kamua could still smell it though.

"If she thinks she can hide, then I'll just have to smoke her out again," He muttered crazily to himself a moment before a grin spread across his already twisted face. He raised a straight arm slowly into the air. With it, the Institute rose too as it broke away from the underground floors with snaps, creaks, and groans. The rumbling awoke all the occupants of the building and slowly they started to question confusedly what was going on. Only Kamua immediately understood the entire situation before the worst happened.

"Kurt, get everyone outside," Kamua yelled. He gathered Maddie into his arms and climbed off the bed. Maddie completely froze with fear, and Kurt didn't move from his mopped position staring at the wall by his bed. "Kurt!" Kamua yelled before he punched the window open. He looked out before turning back to Kurt who was slowly getting up. "Get everyone out!" Kamua yelled again. Kurt disappeared and Kamua prepared to jump out the window. Before he could, the institute flipped upside down and collapsed into a semi-rubble heap on the grass.

A moment later, Kurt appeared near the edge of the trees with Rouge and Kitty. He stared at the building before he looked around for the cause of this destruction. In the air, he found a man floating. Brown locks whipped around his hair and moonlight glinted off of inch long claws growing from his fingers. Wind circled around his body, obscuring his muscled frame, bit his eyes were amazingly clear with hate and possibly insanity.

"This is her only warning," He said loudly and disappeared into nothing as well as the wind. The three stood still for a minute before remembering that everyone else was trapped in the rubble. All of them started running to the building at the same time a moment before a white tiger crashed through what had been a wall. It was a few feet above the ground, but the tiger clumsily jumped down with one of its back legs collapsing each time it put weight on it. Maddie clung to its back with her face buried into its scuff. The tiger slowly moved away from the building as the others ran to it, and then collapsed near the trees before they could get to it. Kurt teleported there and caught Maddie as she slipped from the tigers back as it transformed back into its human form. Kamua was breathing heavily with small cuts littering his body, but he was alive.

"Are you all right?" Kurt asked him.

"Yes," Maddie answered and tumbled out of his arms. She caught herself on the ground and crawled over to Kamua. She was completely unharmed with only a few smudges of dirt on her clothes and cheeks. Unable to handle seeing two people as close as he and Lizzy had once been, Kurt teleported to the building and helped the girls try to locate more people. Soon, Kamua and Maddie moved to help, Kamua limping greatly.

Lizzy

Alan didn't come until late at night. By this time, I had conquered my emotions and located flashlights to make the familiar house seem not as haunted as it felt. Even after I had drawn closed the curtains in the kitchen and lite up the walls, it still looked haunted to me as memories of ghost stories and power outages come back to me. I curled up on one of the wooden chairs around an oval shaped table, and waited for the familiar sounds of the helicopter. Instead, I heard a boat. Moments later, Alan stepped through the front door with paper bags of groceries in his arms. When he closed the door and took a look at me, I saw his shock.

I stood up straight and told him, "Emmy."

"Why the name?" Alan asked shaking himself from his shock. He put the bags on a counter and turned to look at me.

"I'm trying to hide from people for a little while," I responded, unable to meet his eyes.

"Okay then Emmy. Let's turn the power and water on," Alan said somberly and moved to the forbidden door behind the dining table. The doors lead down to an underground area that was really built as a huge garage. Alan's original idea had been to fill it with escape vehicles and then dig a tunnel to somewhere. It was short lived and the open space was converted into almost a hover jet garage for when his engineers finished building one. The door swung open, and together we descended the stairs, each of us with a flashlight in our hands.