So here's comes the mandatory disclaimer…. I, unfortunately, do not own nor claim rights to anything Xmen, including any character or events from the movies. I do however, own my OC, Zezelia and the journey she is being forced into! With that being said- ENJOY! Xoxo- NickyLynn
Zezelia's eyes snapped opened as she shot up from her bed, her body covered in a thin layer of sweat. She had a hand clutched against her chest, the rapid thumping of her heart vibrating through her ribcage. She took a deep breath, letting her head fall back as she closed her eyes, the images of the nightmare still etched into her vision.
She kicked the covers off of herself, swinging her legs over her bed as her heart rate slowly retuned to a normal level. She tried to shake off the bad dream, but unfortunately for her, her dreams were never just dreams. Her memories haunted her not only while she was awake, but while she slept, too. It seemed like there was no escape from them. Although, she wondered if she even deserved a reprieve. After all she had done, maybe she deserved this torment.
She pushed herself off the mattress and padded her way through the small apartment, heading to the bathroom. She needed a shower. Maybe the hot water would not only wash away the sweat, but the nightmare as well. As she adjusted the water temperature and kicked off her clothes her mind drifted back to the subject matter of the dream. It had been so long since she had dreamt of Erik. She wondered what had brought on the sudden return of his presence in her thoughts. Perhaps the move to Montreal had drudged up old feelings. She had only been here a few weeks and new moves always tended to set her off in the worst ways.
However problematic moving was on her, it was vastly superior to the alternative. She had been on the run from Schmidt for over ten years. And while she had gotten very good at covering her tracks and staying off his radar, he still managed to encroach upon her too close for comfort every few years. She had to move frequently to keep him off her tracks. She would be damned if she would let him pull her back into hell with him. She had barely managed to escape from his tight grasp the first time, she doubted she would be able to do it a second time.
The water beat down her back in a cascade of steaming water. It washed off her accumulated sweat, but unfortunately the uneasiness the unwanted memories brought with them refused to unlatch itself from her mind. She sighed before turning the water off and pulled back the curtain. Wrapping a towel around herself she stepped out of the porcelain tub and clung onto the edge of the sink as she stared into the face she had grown to hate.
Her un-naturally grey eyes stared back at her as she took in her features. Her long red hair clung to her pale skin, made darker by the water that saturated it. The face staring back at her was young-younger than she actually was. While chronically she would be passing her thirty-second year on this planet-she hardly looked much older than twenty. She was forever stuck in her twenty-two year old body. Never changing. Never again aging.
She let out a grunt as she pulled her vision off of her reflection and went back to her room to get dressed. She dressed herself in layers of thick fabric, for once thankful she lived so far north. The long layers she had to cover her skin with tended to make living in more southern areas more than uncomfortable most days. But here in Montreal, the thick, covering layers were not out-of-place and no one batted an eye at the girl bundled up completely from the neck down. She ran a brush threw her hair and pulled it into a ponytail before sliding on her leather gloves.
She needed to get out of the apartment, and luckily for her she had been running low on supplies and a run to the local store was a perfect excuse. She made her way through the temporary living space and grabbed her bag off of the kitchen table before slipping out of the door. She clicked the latch of the deadbolt into place behind her with her powers before slipping her hands inside her pockets and making her way down to the store.
As she made her way down the streets, her mind again drifted to the boy who haunted her sleep. Or, really, she should say man. He was only two years younger than her so she supposed by now he would be a full-grown man. Although it was hard for her to picture. The last time she saw him he had been sixteen and her eighteen. The memory of it overtaking her senses with a wave of sadness.
Her hand gripped tightly onto her shoulder, in an attempt to stop the heavy flow of blood that seeped out of it. They ran up to the truck that was meant to get them out of their prison, both of them panting from the physical excursion they had been pushed through. Erik swung open the driver's side door with his powers as they approached and he quickly slid in.
"Come on!" he yelled at her, as he fumbled with the keys as he pulled them out of his pocket. She made it to the truck slightly after him, latching onto the frame where the window was rolled down. "Get in!" he told her, shoving the key into the ignition in a hurry.
She took a moment to catch her breath before she swallowed and looked sadly at Erik. "What are you doing?! Get in!" he said franticly, knowing the guards they had not been able to subdue would be upon them at any moment.
Zezelia shook her head ever so slightly, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks. She pushed the door shut with Erik inside the vehicle while she remained in her spot outside. "I'm sorry." She told him.
Realization dawned on him and he shook his head franticly. "No-no, no, no!" he told her. "Get your God damn ass in this truck Ze!" he nearly bellowed.
"Erik, this wound is bad. I can't-I'm not going to be able to make it further." She told him, voice growing thick with emotion. "I'm going to distract them. Give you as much as a head start as possible."
"NO ZE!" Erik said, trying to open the door. Zezelia kept the door shut with her powers, giving him a sad smile. "I'm not leaving you behind."
"I'm not giving you a choice, Erik." She told him, reaching through the open window to cradle his face. "I need you to make it out of here. Make it out of here and live that life we always dreamed about. Free of Schmidt. Free of this hell."
Erik reached up to hold her hand against his flesh, tears soaking into her skin. "It's not a life I want if you're not there with me." He told her.
"Erik I've made so many mistakes in my life-" She began, her voice breaking. "Let me do this one good thing. I need to know that I was able to do ONE GOOD THING WITH MY LIFE!" she nearly screamed out in frustration, so many emotions fighting inside her.
Erik opened his mouth to say something when a shrill alarm pierced the air, startling them both. The barking of dogs and shouts of men could be heard getting closer and they knew that they had run out of time. "You need to go Erik! NOW!" she told him, pulling her arm free from his grasp and turning. She forced her feet to begin walking back the way they had come from, her heart shattering with every step. She turned to give Erik one last look, his face looking just as broken as she felt. "GO!" she screamed at him at loud as she could before tearing her eyes from his face. "Goodbye Erik Lehnsherr." She whispered to herself as she heard the tires behind her throwing gravel as they spun, propelling the truck and the man inside away from her.
Her hand subconsciously rubbed at her left shoulder, at the scarred tissue under her clothes. She shook her head and pushed the memory back down into the pit of her mind as she stepped through the threshold of the store. After gathering what she needed, she paid and left with her few bags slipped around her arms. She made her way back outside and headed in the direction of her apartment, determined not to let any other memories rise to the surface on her trip back.
She made it a few blocks back when she was stopped at a crosswalk, having to wait for the traffic to let up before she could cross. She made eye contact with a small girl across the street, waiting alongside what Zezelia assumed to be her mother and sibling, being pushed in a stroller. The little girl lifted her hand ever so slightly and waved her fingers at Zezelia in a hello.
A smile pulled itself onto her lips at the sweet girl's gesture and she returned it with her own small wave. The little girl's eye lit up and she turned to her mother, pulling at her sleeve to gain her attention. Zezelia shook her head in amusement and adjusted the bags she was carrying. When she looked back across the street, her eyebrows drew in confusion as the little girl was not where she had last seen her next to her mother. Her mother was busy fussing with her baby inside the stroller that she did not notice the small girl slip away as a small blanket flew off of the stroller and onto the street. The little girl had begun chasing the runaway blanket, blissfully unaware of the danger she was putting herself in.
Zezelia's heart dropped as she noticed the small girl in the street, a car heading directly towards her small body. She reacted fast. She dropped the groceries she had been carrying, sprinted onto the road, avoiding two other cars, before wrapping her arms around the girl and turning her body so that her back was towards the vehicle that was trying desperately to stop.
At the sound of screeching tires, the mother's head shot up in alarm before letting out a scream as the car collided with Zezelia's body, who had her arms locked around the small girl in an iron grip, protecting her from the brunt of the damage. The pain was instant, her back exploded in a tidal wave of paid as she was sent flying forward through the air, and onto the cement with a sick crack of bone as she hit the ground and rolled several times, her arms wrapped around the girl, creating a protective barrier.
Zezelia's body was on fire. The pain was everywhere, and she felt the life slowly draining out of her as she lay unmoving on the asphalt. The little girl had managed to wriggle her way out of her embrace and was swept up into her mother's arms. Zezelia could hear the woman sobbing as she fell once again into a pool of darkness.
Erik and Charles both lurched forward in their seats. They had been on their way to find a mutant Charles had pinpointed in this area using Cerebro in hopes they could convince her to join their fight against Shaw when their car had come to an abrupt halt on the road as the cars ahead of them all did the same. Erik dropped his hand, having used his abilities to stop the vehicle as they came dangerously close to hitting the car in front of them. He looked over to Charles who had been the one driving with a look of relief.
"Well, that was close." Said Erik. Charles gave him a grateful nod before turning his attention to the minds around him, trying to discern the reason for the abrupt stop. He swept across the mass of minds, all on edge and panicking due to the unexpected situation when he fell upon a mind who gave him the answer he was looking for.
"Oh God." Charles said, undoing his seatbelt and reaching for the door handle. "There's been an accident- someone's been hurt." He said before getting out of the car and making his way quickly past the growing line of vehicles.
Erik was out of the car and following Charles is a moment, his eyes taking in the scene as they approached. A car was stopped with a large dent in it's grill and hood, the driver standing in front of it, panicking and muttering "What did I do?" repeatedly. A woman was leaned down, holding a small girl in her embrace as she desperately searched the girl for injuries. She held her arm against her chest in pain and a few scratches covered her arms, but otherwise seemed okay. Charles searched the girls mind to ensure she had no other internal injuries before letting his vision fall upon the woman who laid unmoving in a growing puddle of her own blood.
"Oh my God." He muttered before running up to the accident. As he and Erik approached the mother began rambling, her words rushed and stumbling over each other.
"I didn't know! I only looked away for a moment! Oh God! She saved my baby! This is all my fault! It was only a moment!" she said, tears streaming down her face.
Charles sent a quick wave of calm into her mind before leaning down and reaching out to the woman. He used her shoulder to push her onto her back and get a clear view of her face. Familiarity rang throughout Erik as he took her in. It was difficult to get a clear view of her features through the blood, and there were slight changes that came with age, but he knew that face. And suddenly the pieces clicked into place for Erik and he knew that this had been the woman they had come searching for. Somehow Zezelia was alive. Somehow Zezelia was here. And as Charles reached out to check for a pulse, a surge of panic overtook him. "No Charles-WAIT!" he called in vain as Charles made contact with her flesh.
Suddenly Zezelia's eyes snapped open as she was pulled back from the comfortable numbness of darkness as a whole new wave of pain overtook her. A scream tore itself from her throat as her body arched and convulsed in the familiar pain that she had been forced to endure now for the third time in her life. Charles pulled his hand back in shock as he watched the woman before him writher and scream in agony, her mind filled with nothing but the echoes of her screams.
Erik grabbed onto Charles shoulder, forcing his attention to him and his mind. Charles listened to his friend's thoughts and the confusion that filled them. "I know her." He told Charles, trying to push images into his mind of Zezelia and his past with her. He kept his mind free of any specific memories, instead choosing to focus on what he knew about her powers. While her touch was an excruciating torture when placed upon humans, when in contact with a mutant's flesh, not only was the pain reversed, but she also absorbed the mutant's powers into her own. When she had touched him all those years ago, she had managed to inherit his powers over metal as well. And as Charles touched her neck, he inadvertently caused her to take on his powers as well.
Processing this new information Erik had given him, he stared down at the mutant with another wave of horror. "Oh God." He muttered again, for once not being able to find any other words.
Zezelia laid gasping on the ground, the initial wave of agony slowly retreating as she felt her body slowly stich and mend itself back together. Luckily, it seemed like her ability to heal also shortened the duration of the side effects of her touch. But as she lay there, gasping for breath, a whole new kind of pain overtook her. And this time, it was all in her mind. She reached her hands up to hold the sides of her head as the noise and confusion grew until she was drowning in a sea of chaos. Voices. She could hear so many voices. All of them speaking over each other, screaming, crying, shouting. She couldn't make out a single word of it. It was all jumbled up and loud. So LOUD. She couldn't even hear her own thoughts through the sea of voices and tears began streaming down her face as she clamped her hands down over her ear, trying to make it stop.
A voice suddenly cut through all the others, taking her by surprise. "It's okay." It spoke in a soothing tone. She shook her head back and forth, eyes squeezed shut. "Make them stop!" She cried out. "Listen to me, Zezelia, it's going to be okay. I need you to just focus on me." The voice told her. "I can't." she sobbed. "There's too many of them. I can't- PLEASE MAKE THEM STOP!" she screamed out. She was drowning and felt like her mind was going to burst. She couldn't take any more of agony and in a desperate attempt to stop it all she adjusted her hold of her head and took a deep breath.
When Charles realized the direction her thoughts had turned, he screamed out, reaching to stop her. "NO!" he screamed before she violently snapped her head to the side with a sickening snap. Zezelia's body went limp and her mind went silent as Charles watched helplessly, wondering how the hopeful trip had suddenly taken such a terrible turn.