The house was completely deserted. The open windows and well kept-ness of its exterior would suggest that it had inhabitants, but the scent of old stated otherwise. She could smell it as she walked through the black iron gates. It was swung wide open, almost expectantly. The thought that someone could even be in there barely brushed against her mind as she looked over her shoulder. Her breath came quick; they were following her. They had been following her for days and hadn't shown themselves until earlier that day.

She had been in the mall with her best friend Riley. She had said she would be right back; all she wanted to do was go buy them some ice cream. As she left though, she who was left behind had the growing feeling of sickness in her stomach. She felt like she was being watched. She had only been gone for a few minutes when she started having another one of her mild panic attacks. When her pulse would beat faster and faster and her mind would make her see everyone turning to watch her. Then it started happening. She would feel two burning holes in her back, on either side of her head, and one on her tailbone. She felt her skin start pulling; she never could keep it under control. It had been happening a lot more lately, and it was now to a point where it just started whenever.

She should have told Riley; it never would have happened if she had said that they were following her. They were dangerous, and she shouldn't have had anything to do with them. She wanted to save her, even though she knew it was too late.

Come on Riley, she had said as she ran up to her waiting in line. We need to go.

Her big brown eyes asked her what was going on; they hadn't even gotten their ice cream yet. But she didn't say anything. And that was when she saw them. She saw her inhuman mutation start. All she had to have done was tell Riley that she was.that she wasn't a human.

The police were out everywhere looking for mutants after recent attacks by some of the lesser good kind. They stereotyped and assumed they were all like that. And they had been suspiciously watching her all this time, not bothering to tell her parents. But she hadn't told them either, so it was just as much her fault, she supposed.

Riley was staring at her in utter shock. She was inhuman now. Her horrible, ugly little batwings were back. And so were her horns and her stupid tail. Her ears had always been un-naturally pointed, but she told everyone that was just a defect she was born with. But the look in Riley's eyes showed that she was suddenly adding things all up. And as she stared at her in horror, she felt like a mannequin wearing a devil's costume on display. She was just standing there for everyone's eyes of repulsion to stare and point at, as more and more people noticed her sudden change in appearance. Some panicked. Some screamed and ran, and others just stared in awe.

Then she heard one of their voices: the police. The men in the blue suits that had been following her around for the past few weeks, stalking her and gaining more and more information that lead to her being a mutant.

Riley, we need to go, she cried.

Her friend only stared in horror. She didn't blame her; her best friend had just unwillingly exposed her horrible secret in front of an entire mall, and now a dozen or more police officers were surrounding them.

They pulled out their guns and shouted things at her, but all she did was tell Riley that they needed to leave. She cursed herself for even trying to talk her into running away from twelve policemen aiming guns at them. All she did was stare back.

And that was when it happened.

The stupid, young policemen accidentally shot off his gun. And it hit Riley right through the middle of her back. Screams echoed at the sound of the gunshot, and every witness dropped down onto the floor. Riley gasped fell forward onto the marble floor, and in seconds she was gone.

Gone.

She the mutant watched in horror as her friend faded from her. The policemen kept shouting orders at her, but she couldn't hear anything. She looked down at Riley's body, and slowly lifted her eyes up to them. The eyes those were full of hate, scorn, anger, and revenge. . . eyes of the girl who had just lost her best friend. The policemen shouting at her noticeably grew more nervous and shifted his gun in his hands. Then, all hell broke loose.

She leaped high into the air, over the police, and they started firing at her. She landed in front of a young couple amongst the crowd of other witnesses, and they screamed and ran out of the way. Simultaneously, all the other shoppers in the mall started screaming and she ran as fast as she could, past all of them. She knocked some people over, but she didn't have time to help them.

Then, a random shopper about twice her size pushed her over, attempting to help the policemen. He stood over her, calling for someone to come get her. She quickly sat up and scratched at his arm in a mad attempt to get him away from her, and he screamed as if it hurt greatly. She glanced down at her nails and saw that they were now more like claws, and realized that she had cut into his flesh. She let out a cry and just keep running, destination unknown.

She had run past all the people on the street, and they gasped or screamed at her appearance. Down, down, down into the suburbs. Eventually, a helicopter was chasing her as well, trying to spotlight her in the dark. She finally reached a wood and ran inside without hesitance, and the helicopter stopped before it. They wouldn't be able to see her for the trees.

Running, faster and faster and faster, branches cutting into her, stumbling and tripping over roots. It became unbelievably dark, but she kept going, praying that she wouldn't run into anything to terrible. Finally, she came out on the other side, having no idea where she was. Somewhere in a town, and then she saw the seemingly vacant house before her. And that's where she was now.

Turning around, she made sure that she had lost the officers. She could see the light from the helicopter far off in the distance, and deciding not to take any chances, stepped inside the gate. She walked up the cracking sidewalk, around the house once to check for lights, and then finally slipped in through the back door.

+ + +

The girl climbed unsteadily into the house. She had to escape! Lightning flashed outside, causing her to jump a little, and she hurried inside. The roll of thunder made things seem even uneasier as she slowly walked through the house's interior. Everything seemed so dark, until the lightning flashed and for a brief moment she was able to see where she was walking.

"Hello. . .?" she called, "Is anyone here?"

She received no answer. Still, she took slow, steady paces to the end of the hall. There had to be a light switch somewhere. This whole stopping- every-two-seconds-to-wait-for-a-flash-of-lightning-to-be-able-to-see thing just wasn't working out. Suddenly, from down the hall where she used to be, something fell onto the floor with a loud bang. She spun around and gasped, backing up against the wall in fear. Suddenly. . .

*BAMF!* "HEY GUYS!! HOW MUCH DID I MISS?"

The unexpected interruption to their movie caused Kitty, Jean, Scott and Rogue all to scream and jump out of their skins. Kitty slammed a pillow over her head, Rogue grabbed onto hers and would have been suffocating it- had it any lungs-and Jean and Scott latched onto each other for dear life.

"Jesus Christ!" Jean shouted, and they turned around to see none other than Kurt standing behind them with a bowl of popcorn in hand and a confused look on his face.

They all heaved an agitated sigh and Rogue tossed her pillow behind the couch. "Kurt, you really are the annoying little brother figure in this household." Her southern accent was filled with annoyance as she slumped down in her seat and rested her cheek on her fist.

She was right though; Kurt seemed to be the happy-go-lucky character in the school they were staying in. The Xavier Institute for the Gifted, to be exact. A school for mutants to come to and learn to control the powers they have received and use them for good. It was also, the home of the infamous X Men: a somewhat small force of mutants that were actually sent out onto missions to use their powers to protect humans and mutants alike. Of course, nearly everyone but the students and professors knew the institute as just a regular school.

Scott grabbed the remote and put the movie on pause, his face trying to hide his aggravation. Kurt ignored her comment and scuttled around the couch and resumed at his seat between Kitty and Jean.

"You could have just walked back in here, you know. The kitchen is the next room over." Jean announced, moving further away from him. They had sent him to go get more popcorn as they continued to watch the horror movie, because he had seen it before.

"I know, but it's so much more fun that way!" he replied happily in his thick German accent. "Besides, how many times do you need to see some girl run around in sluttish clothing and scream at the top of her lungs?"

Rogue gave a silent agreement on the clothing.

"Like, hence the title Scream!" Kitty said, shoving the movie case in front of his nose. He sighed and flicked a piece of his blue hair out of his eyes, made himself comfortable, and started eating most of the popcorn. Again. Scott shook his head and pressed the rewind and play button, and the movie resumed.

A few moments later, Logan came down the stairs and passed by the living room. He was putting his riding gloves on for his motorcycle.

"Where are you going?" Scott asked immediately. He backed up to the doorway and stopped, fixing his last glove.

"Xavier's found another mutant with Cerebro," he said casually, "Seems like the cops have found her. Sent me to go fetch." A small smile crept across his face as the others immediately asked if they could go; he had been expecting it.

Kitty stood up and stretched. "We've been stuck in this house all day with like nothing to do. This actually sounds, like, entertaining at the moment."

"Yeah, please let us go, Professor Logan?" Kurt begged, getting down on his knees.

The Professor chuckled to himself and nodded. "No need to suit up this time. Don't wanna draw too much attention."

"Score!" Kurt exclaimed, putting his hand into a fist and bringing it to his side. They all hurried into the rather large garage-hidden, of course, from the outside-where all the cars and even a jet were parked. As they were driving, Logan gave them the 'lecture.'

"There's going to be cops on our tails, so you have to watch your back. If you don't have to, don't attack them, do you understand? We can't let them on to why we're there. I'm going to go in first."

There was a moan from the younger passengers in the car, but he kept talking. "I don't wanna hear it. I'm going in there first, and if I need help, you'll know. You'll hear gunfire."

He pulled to a stop on a suburb street, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Down the road they could see police cars and their flashing lights. They were parked outside what appeared to be an abandoned house, and some of the officers had their guns drawn and ready. Even a helicopter was flying overhead, shining a spotlight down onto the house. There was an awkward silence in the back and passenger seats of the car; things always got more complicated when a lot of police officers were involved.

"See what I mean?" Logan said, heaving a sigh and getting out of the car. He slowly slipped around in the shadows and made his way towards the house.

"I give him five minutes." Kurt said, folding his arms and kicking up his feet.

"Ten!" Scott immediately said, who had a lot of faith in Logan.

Kurt gave him a challenging look and then grinned. "You're on."

The girls in the car all sighed and shook their heads, mumbling about how immature and bigheaded boys could be. Sure enough, about five minutes later, the first gunshot went off. They quickly exchanged glances before Kurt thrust his arms up in the air victoriously.

"Ha! Scoreboard: Blue Elf one, Scott nothing! I told you, never bet with a German!"

Scott looked at him in disbelief. "Dude, no you didn't."

He folded his arms and turned his head to the side. "Well, I was thinking it," he said, sticking his nose up snobbishly.

The girls were already piling out of the car and running towards the house just as Logan did. Scott-although now that they were going to battle, he went by Cyclops-and Kurt, now Nightcrawler, went to chase after them.

Upon reaching the house, they were shocked to see bodies lying face down on the ground. Apparently Logan had gone off on them worse than they had expected. They quickly ran inside the house and found even more bodies lying around, and blood all over the walls. That's when they were beginning to get nervous.

"Logan?" Shadowcat called, and phased through a wall. After a moment, she came back into the hall where the others stood and shook her head. "He's not anywhere."

Jean looked down the opposite direction. "We didn't look down here. Come on."

They made their way down the hall, trying to be as quiet as possible. But they didn't even hear any more gunshots; they had only heard the one from when they were in the car waiting. Which could either be a good thing, or a bad thing.

Finally, they turned around a corner and saw Wolverine standing with his back to them, breathing hard.

Rogue gasped. "There you are! Are you alright?"

He didn't say anything, and they followed his gaze down to the floor. There was a body lying there that had been completely mangled, and a rather large pool of blood was underneath them. They also had two bite marks on their neck, almost as if a vampire had gotten to them. Shadowcat cringed and turned her head, but the others just stared.

"Wolverine. . .did you. . .?" Cyclops started, but Logan shook his head.

"She did," he said, pointing his iron claws at the wall. They all stepped from around him to get a better look and saw a girl huddled up in the corner just past the body. She was hiding her face in her knees, but they could still see two foot-and-a-half long, bat-like wings protruding from her back, horns on the top of her head and a red tail similar to Kurt's wrapped around her leg. She looked up at them and they saw that she had blood dripping from the corner of her mouth and vampire looking teeth. Her hair was a neon-red, obviously dyed, and her eyes were a light, almost golden, honey-brown.

"Three guesses where the new mutant is," Kurt mumbled to himself.