Ch. 6

Sam watched in horror as the truck bore down on Glen. He heard the driver blow his horn, heard the squeal of brakes. He turned away, praying he would not hear the sound the truck made when it hit his friend.



Scott floored it and made a beeline for the intersection, hoping to perhaps get in front of the truck, or that maybe Jean could get close enough to use her powers to move Glen out of the way, or to stop the truck, or to do… something. Anything would be preferable to seeing this new mutant run down before he could even be made aware of who he was. The truck was now just a few feet away from Glen, coming closer and closer, now 15 feet away, now 10 feet, now 5. And then suddenly, there was a flash of whitish-purple light, and Glen was gone.



Blackness. Glen could see nothing but blackness. The last thing he had remembered seeing was the flash of light, and then darkness. "Am I dead?" he wondered. He did not remember feeling any impact, just the flash. He realized that he was still covering his head. He opened his arms and looked up to see a world gone mad.



Everything he could see was glowing, engulfed by a whitish-purple shroud. The buildings, the people on the sidewalk, even the sky was the same color. There was the truck, stopped mere inches in front of him, small wisps of color flickering off its surface. Glen saw streaks of color flashing across the sky like lightning. It was like the ultimate fantasy world. "I AM dead, and this must be the afterlife. So why does it look so much like the real world?" Just then something slowly glided past his ear. He turned and saw some small white ball wafting towards him. He turned back to see similar balls gliding through the air, drifting towards a nearby alley. Not fully comprehending, he got to his feet and followed them.



Scott and Jean both saw the flash of light, and when it faded, they could see that Glen was no longer there. "He must have used his powers," Jean said. "Do you think he teleported somewhere?" Scott asked. "I don't know," replied Jean. "I can still feel a faint trace of his presence. It leads into that alley there," Scott quickly parked the car on the side of the road, and they got out and ran to the alley.



Sam forced himself to look up, to accept the inevitable. He looked toward the intersection, expecting to see Glen's body lying in the street. Instead, he saw nothing. No sign of Glen, no body, not a thing. "Could he have dodged that truck somehow?" he wondered. He saw two people running towards the truck, and saw them keep running until they got to an alley. "Is that where he is?" he asked himself. He followed behind them, discreetly.



Glen entered the alley, following the trail of lights. Inside the alley, he found a large column of swirling lights, similar to the ones that he had followed here. He gazed at it, curiously. He could feel it pulling him in, somehow. Cautiously, he reached out with his hand and touched the column. As soon as he did, he felt himself go ice-cold as several of the lights broke out of the column and snaked up around his arm and spread around the rest of his body.



"This is where his trail leads," Jean said to Scott. "I don't see anybody here," Scott said. "Are you sure he's here," "I know it doesn't make sense, Scott, but he IS here. I can feel it," She reached out on a different mental wavelength. "Professor, it's Jean. We've found Glen, but there's something wrong. He was about to get hit by a truck, and he just, well, vanished out of thin air! We've tracked him into an alley nearby. We can't see him but I KNOW he's still here somehow,"



In his car, Professor Xavier heard Jean's message. "Stay where you are, Jean. We're almost there. I think I have an explanation for what you're sensing. Glen has the power to phase objects in and out of time. When he saw the truck coming, he may have phased himself out of time. Even though he IS in the alley, you can't see him because he's in a different time as you and Scott. Ah, I can see Scott's car. I'll be right there and we'll see what we can do for Mr. Hilliard,"



"Ok, I think I can explain what's going on," Jean said to Scott. As she opened her mouth to relate the Professor's account, they heard another voice behind them. "Hey, are you guys looking for Glen?" They turned to see a boy with black hair behind them, looking at them curiously. "Hey, you're Jean!" said the boy. "You're the girl he was telling me about, the one who helped him. Which makes you…" he said, eying Scott. Scott rolled his eyes, the realization of what the boy was saying started to set in. Jean quickly fired off another mental message to Xavier. "Professor, we may have another problem,"