Mind Traps
What was going on when the Terror Bears mind trapped our heros? This explains what was going on
in their minds. This and the questionare should help you get your FF fix until I finish the next
chapter, tentavly titled "Night of the Living Dumb."
Daria's Mind Trap:
A wail of sirens asaulted Daria's ears. This was followed by an earth shattering blast. A
brilliant white light blinded Daria. Some unidentifiable fource sent her hurdling through the air.
She landed with a thud. She slowly rose, no injuries to speak of. She looked around. She was outside.
The sky was ash gray and she was surrounded by- nothing. There were piles of rubble as far as she
could see, but otherwise, a flattened landscape. Where am I? she wondered. "Rogue?" she called out.
only her echo answered.
Daria trecked through the ruined landscape, stepping over piles of rubbish. She saw telephone
poles lying in the street, wires sparking madly. Every now and then she would see the remains of a
tree with no leaves and hardly any branches. What did that stupid bear do? she wondered. Teleport me
to a war zone in some country? Where am I? Suddenly, Daria saw it. It was the Giant Strawberry,
a huge fiberglass fruit hippies errected long ago in Lawndale as a sign of peace and love. It was
lying on one side, the top caved in. It all became clear to Daria, she was still in Lawndale.
"No," she said. "NO!!" she knelt by the side of the Strawberry and pounded her fists against
it. "YOU MANIACS!!" She screamed. "YOU FINALLY GONE AND DONE IT!!!" She always knew nuclear holocaust
was a posibility. She didn't think it would happen to Lawndale.
Daria had to get home, if she still had a home. She ran through the wreckage. She found the
place where her house used to be. "Mom! Dad!" she yelled out. "I'll even settle for Quinn!" Daria
sifted through the wreckage that was her house. She found a few familiar items. The plastic cheese
model she kept in her room. Some of Dad's golf clubs. Mom's cell phone- now dead. What she found
next caused her to become violently sick. It was Quinn's head. Only a few long strands of her red
hair remained. Her clear eyes were wide open in horor, her cute lipstick mouth frozen in a grimace
of pain.
Daria ran down the deserted street, trying not to cry. She found the Lane's house. Or half
of it. Daria saw a sillouette on one wall. She rememberred reading somewhere that when the bomb
dropped on Hiroshima, the blazing light of the bomb, stronger than the core of the sun, vaporized
some people, leaving only their shadows as grim snapshots. Daria recognized this shadow. She'd
know that asymetrical hair-do anywhere. Her final pose was one of someone cringing in terror from
a giant.
She went inside the ruined house and was greeted by an ulcerated figure lying prone on the
floor. She dared touch it. He groaned in pain. "Trent!" she cried, knealing by his side.
He looked up at her. She tried to get him to stand up , but couldn't manage it. She held him,
his body was covered in several tumorous welts. His skin looked like a topographical map of Hell.
He was trembling with pain. "D-Daria." he tried to smile at her. "You made it. Y-you're alive."
"Let's get out of here, Trent." she said. "I'll find you a doctor."
"Daria," he gasped. "I love..." He never finished his sentence. He died in Daria's arms.
Daria held him closer to her. She could feel tears rolling down her cheeks. She closed Trent's
eyes. She quietly cradled her lover for the last time.
After a while, Daria whiped away her tears and layed Trent's body down. She covered him with
a curtain and left. Jesse, she thought. If anyone can survive a nuclear holocaust, he can.
She found that the Moreno house was one of few left standing. An entire wall had collapsed,
making it look like a doll house. The stairs fell apart as she climbed them, but she made it to
the top floor. She had been to the Moreno house for the intervention and had at one point excused
herself to the bathroom. Out of curiosity, she had peeked into Jesse's room. It had standard bedroom
furniture and a weight bench converted into a hamster habitat. The only thing truly unusual about
it was that all four walls were covered in a collage of rock posters.
She found his room and opened the door. The outside wall was gone, leaving a view of the
ruined landscape. The posters were but tatters of colored paper. Jesse sat on his bed, barely
cognizant of Daria, but cradling Danny in his lap. The scene reminded Daria of Michelangelo's
sculpture, /La Piete./
"They killed him, Daria." he said quietly. "They killed all of them." his voice was choked
with tears.
No, she thought. Not Danny. Innocent, plucky, clever Danny. She sat next to Jesse.
Jesse hugged his brother for the last time and layed him down on the floor. "Did you find
them?"
"I only found Jane's shadow." Daria's voice was a duller than usual monotone. "She was
vaporized."
"Then, she didn't suffer much." Jesse reasoned. "Trent?"
Daria tried hard not to cry. "Radiation burns. Jesse, how the Hell did this happen? I can
expect you to live through a nuclear blast, you're practically invulnerable. But why me?"
"I don't know. Looks like you and me are in the same boat. Our lovers and best friends are
both dead." he got up and walked over to the hamster cage. He took Nibbles out. She looked chipper
as ever. "Hamsters and cockroaches," he said ironically. "They'll outlive us all." He put her on
the floor. "Run, Nibbles, you're free." She skittered away. "And I will be too." He opened a drawer
on his nightstand. "I was prepared for this day." He took out a bottle of sleeping pills and a
bottle of Jack Daniels. "I'll understand if you don't want to join me. No, who am I kidding? I
don't understand why anyone would want to attempt to live through this. All I'm asking, Daria,
is for you to stay untill it's over. I don't want to die alone."
"Jesse, I don't want to die alone either!" She grabbed a handful of pills and swallowed
them. Jesse calmly gulped down a few pills and took a swig of the Jack. He offered it to Daria,
as casually as if they were at a party. She took a gulp, feeling the alcohol burn her throat.
They laid on his bed next to each other, taking pills and drinking the Jack in turns. "I'm sorry."
Daria told him. "You probably wish Jane was with you instead of me."
"You're not so bad." he answered. "You probably wish I was Trent."
"I wish this never happened. It isn't fair. We we're all getting married. Dad was going to
give me away at the wedding."
"We'll be with them very soon." Jesse said groggily.
Daria wished she could agree with him. She didn't believe in an afterlife of any kind. You
got one life and that was it. Now, more than ever, she believed her No God theory was correct.
"Do you think it will hurt?" she asked. No answer. Jesse looked like he had gone to sleep. He wasn't
breathing. No pulse. No, thought Daria. I took just as much pills and booze as he did and I'm still
alive. GOD DAMMIT! WHY CAN'T I DIE?!"
Jesse's Mind Trap:
Jesse found himself walking through a blank white void. What's going on? he thought. Where
am I? Where's Kurt? Where's that bear? Where's anything? He walked on untill he saw a figure in
the distance. He ran up to it. Even from the back, he could recognize him. Tall, with long black
hair, like their father. Wearing his favorite Guns'N'Roses T-shirt. "Matt," said Jesse. "Matt,
is it really you?"
Matt turned to him. his eyes were angry and hollow. "You shoulda tried to stop me, Jess."
"I-i-it's not my fault, Matt." Jesse found himself stuttering. Matt took out a gun. "Matt,
please don't do it again!" he begged.
"You could've saved me." Matt accused.
"I was 10 years old! What could I have done?"
"I didn't want to die, Jesse. But I couldn't live either." He put the gun's muzzle in his
mouth.
"NO!!!" Jesse screamed. The back of Matt's head exploded. Blood, brains and bits of skull
flew everywhere, some of it spattered on Jesse. Matt fell lifelessly to the ground. A stream of
blood poured from his head. Jesse felt his heart race. It became hard for him to breathe. "No,
Matt, No!" he sobbed. He collapsed on the ground next to him. He burried his face in his hands,
only to find that they were heavily stained with thick red blood. "Oh God, oh God!" he cried out.
Suddenly, a wet, red drop fell on Jesse's arm. He felt what felt like a raindrop hit his cheek.
It was warmer and stickier than a raindrop. Crimson droplets fell from the infinite sky above.
The horrid acrid smell assaulted his nostrils. It was raining blood.
Pools of blood formed at Jesse's feet. It was wet, warm, and coming for him. He was to
frightened to do anything but quake in fear. "All the blood," he gasped. "M-make it go away!" he
cried out, hoping that someone- anyone would hear him.
The torrent of blood continued.
Kurt's Mind Trap:
"Get him!"
"Kill the demon!"
The mob of high school students rushed at Kurt. He turned and ran for his life. Adreneline
made his legs pump faster as he tried to outrun his persecuters. As he ran down the streets of
Bayville, he looked for a place to hide. He ducked inside a convienience store. A little girl
let out an ear piercing shriek.
"Mommy, it's a monster!" she cried. "Make it go away!"
"Get out of here, you freak!" The woman struck at him. Kurt was all to glad to leave. It
seemed he had traded one angry mob for another. He was running through the streets again. He went
into a quadrupedic gallop. He worried if this made him look even more demonic. What happened to
his immage inducer? Why were these people chasing him? He hadn't done anything, he just happened
to look like a hairy blue demon.
Kurt ducked down an ally and tried to catch his breath. He clutched at his chest as he
panted. What am I doing? he thought. I'll just teleport somewhere safe. He thought of his
comfortable room at the X Mansion and tried to teleport. Nothing.
Kurt thought of the Lane's living room where he had such fun just the night before. It
seemed like a lifetime ago. Nothing. He thought of his girlfriend's bedroom. Still in the deserted
ally. His powers had failed him, even as his inducer had.
"There he is!" someone yelled.
"Kill him!"
Kurt ran down the ally, where a tall chain length fence stood in his way. He swiftly scaled
it, but just as he got to the top, someone struck him in the head with a brick. He fell to the
ravenous mob. Kurt's head throbbed. He wished he would just black out, but something was keeping
him awake. He was fully aware of the grasping mob roughing him up. He pleaded with them as they
kicked and pummled him.
"Please, stop!" he begged. "I've done nothing! Stop, for the love of God!"
"God doesn't love you!" someone retorted.
"Let's burn the abomination!" someone suggested.
Kurt felt the thick ropes cruelly bind him. His arms were forced behind his back and joined
at the wrists with a rough hemp rope. His legs were bound so tightly he could feel his circulation
being cut. They didn't stop there. Ropes bound his arms to his torso. A thick strand of rope went
around his throat, making it hard for him to breathe. They dragged him against the ground, out into
the open. A large wooden stake had been erected, wood was being piled up around it.
"Burn the demon!" someone yelled as he was tied to the stake.
"Send him to Hell where he belongs!"
"No," he tried to yell out, the rope chafing his throat. "Ich Nicht ein Daemon!" He felt the
sting of tears in his eyes. Why can't they see? he thought. I'm not a demon. Demons don't plead
for mercy. They don't weep when faced with death.
The wood was lit. The flames crawled higher and higher. The heat was smothering. The smoke
choked him even more than the rope did. Kurt struggled against the ropes futilly. He tried
teleporting somewhere, anywhere. His fur was singeing. The smell was rank. Kurt let out a howl
of pain as fire licked at his tail. He was burning. He cried out in agony, begging someone to help
him. All he heard was a chant of "Burn the demon! Burn the demon!"
Kurt could feel his flesh sear under the flames. He tried saying a prayer. He stopped. He
realized his persecuters were right. God did not love him. Worse, it seemed that nobody did.
Scott's Mind Trap:
The next thing Scott knew, he had his hands tied together with thick rope. They seemed to
be attached to a pully system. He was suddenly being lifted higher, higher and higher. Scott felt
his arms give under the pressure. His head spun with vertigo. Then he was dropped.
Scott felt a sharp jerk in his arms. He was saved from being splattered on the stone floor
beneath him, but at the cost of nearly having his arms ripped out of their sockets. "Let's do that
again." someone he couldn't see said. Scott was being hoisted into the air again. His stomache
turned as he was forced to fall again. The sudden jerk of pain that stopped him made him cry out
in pain. "That's enough." said the voice. Two huge figures appeared before Scott. He couldn't
believe it. They looked just like the tax collectors from a "Hagar the Horrible" cartoon. Only
not as humorous. They wore dark pants and executioner's masks and little else. One of them went
to a forge and took out a metal rod. "I say we poke his eyes out!" he said.
"That won't be necessary." said the other executioner. He approached Scott and started to
take off his sunglasses.
"Not such a smart move." Scott warned.
"Oh?" said the executioner. "Why don't you take a look?"
Scott opened his eyes. Instead of shades of red, he saw the color he remembered from childhood.
Not that there was much color to see. The chamber he was in was dark and foreboding. As were the two
executioners. The iron rod the first one was holding glowed a brilliant red.
"Your eyes can't hurt us now." he was saying. "And we want you to see what's happening. But
first," He nodded to the other. He ripped Scott's shirt open.
"No! NO!" Scott begged. The red hot iron was pressed against the center of his chest, just
over his heart. The burning was unbearable. Scott could hear his skin sizzle and smell it being
burned. All he could do was scream. The iron was taken away. The executioner took it back to the
forge. "Why are you doing this?" Scott asked. "What have I done?"
"SILENCE!" The reheated iron was held to his left nipple. Scott screamed as the sensitive
skin was burned until it was black. The hot iron torture went on for nearly an hour before the
executioners seemed to grow bored.
"Cut him down." Said one of them. The ropes holding Scott in place were cut. He collapsed
to the floor, feeling as if he'd never be able to move again. He was forced to his feet.
"Please, please stop." he begged, tears pouring from his unveiled eyes.
"It will stop." said one of them. "If you co-operate."
Scott's hand's were shackled and he was taken to a room. It seemed to be an observatory of
some sort. One wall had a window covered with an opaque black curtain. Four levers were under it.
The curtain drew back a quarter of the way. Scott saw his younger brother, Alex, standing on a
scafold. His hands were shackled and a noose was tied around his neck. He looked frightened.
"Alex!" Scott yelled, throwing himself against the window.
"One way glass." said the executioner. "He can neither see nor hear you. Don't bother trying
to break it." The curtain was pulled halfway, revealing Jean also trussed up to be hanged.
*Jean,* he concentrated. *Jean, it's me, Scott. Can you hear me? Are you alright?* It was
no use. Scott was no psychic and Jean was just to scared to pick up his thoughts.
The curtain was pulled all the way, revealing to Scott the most shocking sight of all.
"Mom! Dad! No, this can't be! They died in the plane crash so long ago!"
"They managed to live." said the executioner. "We found them and have been keeping them here
ever since. Don't they look lovely?"
"You bastards! You've been hiding them from me all these years? You better not have hurt them!"
The executioner took out a whip. As it cracked, he felt it bite across his cheek. "You will
decide which of them will die. Every minute that passes without you making a decision, you will
be whipped. Now, choose a lever and pull."
"No, you can't ask me to do that! I love all of them!"
"Decide."
"I know what your game is. If I crack and decide to pull one of the levers, they all die. Right?"
"Decide."
"You can't use torture to make me a murderer!"
"DECIDE!" The whip came down on Scott, tearing into his already burnt skin.
Jane's Mind Trap:
The test came out positive. Jane was pregnant. She had to tell Jesse this in private. She
took him up to her room. Had Daria and Trent guessed?
"Jesse, I-I..."
"You're pregnant." he guessed. She nodded. Jesse shook his head and burried his face in his
hands. "Jane, I don't think I can do this."
"Jesse, listen, we're engaged, right?" Jane said hopefully. "We're getting married anyway
and between the two of us we have almost 14 million dollars." For the first time, Jane was actually
glad she went on /Slashers/. "We can take care of a kid."
"Jane," Jesse shook his head. "It's not all that simple. I'm not sure I want to be tied
down right now. We're both young and, well, let's face it, a baby's pretty hard to take care of."
"What do you mean you don't want to be tied down?"
Jesse sighed. "Look, I'll let you keep the ring. You need it more than I do."
Jane tried to fight the tears in her eyes. "Jesse, you can't leave me now!"
Jesse stood up. "I have to go now. I'll understand if Trent never wants to speak to me again.
Tell him I said good-bye and congradulations on being an uncle."
Jane was too heartbroken to move as Jesse walked out of her room and out of her life. Tears
streaked down her face. She had loved Jesse to the end of everything. He was Heaven and Earth, her
heart and soul. She thought he felt the same. She remembered that she had been his first. Maybe
he wanted to "sow his oats" or something. Well, one of those oats was starting to sprout.
Trent came in. "Jesse ran out the front door and drove off without saying anything. Are you..?"
Jane nodded. "That bastard. I thought I knew him better than that."
"Where's Daria?" Jane asked.
"She went home. After we came to the right conclusion, she said she couldn't speak to you
right now. I'm having a hard time doing it myself."
"What!? Like the two of you haven't been at it? And don't talk to me about using protection.
Neither of us were in our right minds at the time."
"Janey, if Mom and Dad decide to kick you out of the house, you understand there's really
nothing I can do, right?"
"They-they wouldn't, would they?"
"It is their house." Trent put an arm around her. "Listen, Janey, there's a clinic downtown
that does abortions. You might want to consider it."
Jane didn't want to go through an abortion. But she didn't want to go through having a baby
either. "What do I do, Trent?" she sobbed. "What do I do?"
"I really don't know, Janey." he sighed, just before she woke up.
A few comments. Yes, I stole Daria's reaction to nuclear holocaust from /Planet of the Apes/.
The good one. The Giant Strawberry was mentioned in the Daria Diaries and I thought made a good
replacement for the Statue of Liberty. (Interestingly, in the original novel, the protaganist
finds the Eiffel Tower. The author was French.) I did some research by reading about the bombing
of Hiroshima. I was expecting pictures of ruined buildings. Instead, everything had been flattened.
barely two bricks stacked together anywhere. There was also a photo of someone with radiation
burns. They looked more like tumors than burns.
Jesse's mind trap was especially horrific. It was hard for me to write because I'm a bit
of a hemophobe myself. Not as traumatically as Jesse, but it kinda grosses me out. Jesse's phobia
is severe. In role playing terms he 'failed his fright check'. Since Fear Bear had to keep up
two mind traps, Jesse's mindscape has less detail.
In the short lived comic book series based on X Evolution, it was revealed that Kurt had
nightmares about being chased down and burned at the stake. I don't know if this is something
that actually happened to him or just something his tortured subconscous came up with. Poor
tortured little Kurt. "Ich nicht ein Daemon!"="I am not a demon!"
I tried to do net research for Scott's mind trap. I typed "torture, Spanish Inquisition"
into the Yahoo search engine. You wouldn't believe the porn sites I nearly stumbled on! Anyway,
I decided emotional torture would be worse for Scott than physical. I think I combinded the two.
Yes, I know in the comics Scott's dad survived and became a Flash Gorden type hero named Corsaire.
I saw what Scott's dad looked like in one episode. He didn't look like Flash Gorden. He looked
like an accountant. Well, who knows. I know, Alex could use his powers to escape, but this is
a mind trap. There is no escape.
In Jane's mind trap, I realize I have Jesse COOC. (Completly Out Of Character) In mind
traps, you never know how someone will act, but it's usually for the worst. It illustrates my
views on abortion. If a man faces an unwanted pregnancy he has the choice of helping to take
care of the kid at least financially if nothing else or packing up and moving to another state.
The woman can go through nine months or more of pregnancy, untold hours of labor, and 18 years
of heartbreak and near poverty or she can have an abortion. Neither choice is pleasant for her,
but she should at least have a choice.
What was going on when the Terror Bears mind trapped our heros? This explains what was going on
in their minds. This and the questionare should help you get your FF fix until I finish the next
chapter, tentavly titled "Night of the Living Dumb."
Daria's Mind Trap:
A wail of sirens asaulted Daria's ears. This was followed by an earth shattering blast. A
brilliant white light blinded Daria. Some unidentifiable fource sent her hurdling through the air.
She landed with a thud. She slowly rose, no injuries to speak of. She looked around. She was outside.
The sky was ash gray and she was surrounded by- nothing. There were piles of rubble as far as she
could see, but otherwise, a flattened landscape. Where am I? she wondered. "Rogue?" she called out.
only her echo answered.
Daria trecked through the ruined landscape, stepping over piles of rubbish. She saw telephone
poles lying in the street, wires sparking madly. Every now and then she would see the remains of a
tree with no leaves and hardly any branches. What did that stupid bear do? she wondered. Teleport me
to a war zone in some country? Where am I? Suddenly, Daria saw it. It was the Giant Strawberry,
a huge fiberglass fruit hippies errected long ago in Lawndale as a sign of peace and love. It was
lying on one side, the top caved in. It all became clear to Daria, she was still in Lawndale.
"No," she said. "NO!!" she knelt by the side of the Strawberry and pounded her fists against
it. "YOU MANIACS!!" She screamed. "YOU FINALLY GONE AND DONE IT!!!" She always knew nuclear holocaust
was a posibility. She didn't think it would happen to Lawndale.
Daria had to get home, if she still had a home. She ran through the wreckage. She found the
place where her house used to be. "Mom! Dad!" she yelled out. "I'll even settle for Quinn!" Daria
sifted through the wreckage that was her house. She found a few familiar items. The plastic cheese
model she kept in her room. Some of Dad's golf clubs. Mom's cell phone- now dead. What she found
next caused her to become violently sick. It was Quinn's head. Only a few long strands of her red
hair remained. Her clear eyes were wide open in horor, her cute lipstick mouth frozen in a grimace
of pain.
Daria ran down the deserted street, trying not to cry. She found the Lane's house. Or half
of it. Daria saw a sillouette on one wall. She rememberred reading somewhere that when the bomb
dropped on Hiroshima, the blazing light of the bomb, stronger than the core of the sun, vaporized
some people, leaving only their shadows as grim snapshots. Daria recognized this shadow. She'd
know that asymetrical hair-do anywhere. Her final pose was one of someone cringing in terror from
a giant.
She went inside the ruined house and was greeted by an ulcerated figure lying prone on the
floor. She dared touch it. He groaned in pain. "Trent!" she cried, knealing by his side.
He looked up at her. She tried to get him to stand up , but couldn't manage it. She held him,
his body was covered in several tumorous welts. His skin looked like a topographical map of Hell.
He was trembling with pain. "D-Daria." he tried to smile at her. "You made it. Y-you're alive."
"Let's get out of here, Trent." she said. "I'll find you a doctor."
"Daria," he gasped. "I love..." He never finished his sentence. He died in Daria's arms.
Daria held him closer to her. She could feel tears rolling down her cheeks. She closed Trent's
eyes. She quietly cradled her lover for the last time.
After a while, Daria whiped away her tears and layed Trent's body down. She covered him with
a curtain and left. Jesse, she thought. If anyone can survive a nuclear holocaust, he can.
She found that the Moreno house was one of few left standing. An entire wall had collapsed,
making it look like a doll house. The stairs fell apart as she climbed them, but she made it to
the top floor. She had been to the Moreno house for the intervention and had at one point excused
herself to the bathroom. Out of curiosity, she had peeked into Jesse's room. It had standard bedroom
furniture and a weight bench converted into a hamster habitat. The only thing truly unusual about
it was that all four walls were covered in a collage of rock posters.
She found his room and opened the door. The outside wall was gone, leaving a view of the
ruined landscape. The posters were but tatters of colored paper. Jesse sat on his bed, barely
cognizant of Daria, but cradling Danny in his lap. The scene reminded Daria of Michelangelo's
sculpture, /La Piete./
"They killed him, Daria." he said quietly. "They killed all of them." his voice was choked
with tears.
No, she thought. Not Danny. Innocent, plucky, clever Danny. She sat next to Jesse.
Jesse hugged his brother for the last time and layed him down on the floor. "Did you find
them?"
"I only found Jane's shadow." Daria's voice was a duller than usual monotone. "She was
vaporized."
"Then, she didn't suffer much." Jesse reasoned. "Trent?"
Daria tried hard not to cry. "Radiation burns. Jesse, how the Hell did this happen? I can
expect you to live through a nuclear blast, you're practically invulnerable. But why me?"
"I don't know. Looks like you and me are in the same boat. Our lovers and best friends are
both dead." he got up and walked over to the hamster cage. He took Nibbles out. She looked chipper
as ever. "Hamsters and cockroaches," he said ironically. "They'll outlive us all." He put her on
the floor. "Run, Nibbles, you're free." She skittered away. "And I will be too." He opened a drawer
on his nightstand. "I was prepared for this day." He took out a bottle of sleeping pills and a
bottle of Jack Daniels. "I'll understand if you don't want to join me. No, who am I kidding? I
don't understand why anyone would want to attempt to live through this. All I'm asking, Daria,
is for you to stay untill it's over. I don't want to die alone."
"Jesse, I don't want to die alone either!" She grabbed a handful of pills and swallowed
them. Jesse calmly gulped down a few pills and took a swig of the Jack. He offered it to Daria,
as casually as if they were at a party. She took a gulp, feeling the alcohol burn her throat.
They laid on his bed next to each other, taking pills and drinking the Jack in turns. "I'm sorry."
Daria told him. "You probably wish Jane was with you instead of me."
"You're not so bad." he answered. "You probably wish I was Trent."
"I wish this never happened. It isn't fair. We we're all getting married. Dad was going to
give me away at the wedding."
"We'll be with them very soon." Jesse said groggily.
Daria wished she could agree with him. She didn't believe in an afterlife of any kind. You
got one life and that was it. Now, more than ever, she believed her No God theory was correct.
"Do you think it will hurt?" she asked. No answer. Jesse looked like he had gone to sleep. He wasn't
breathing. No pulse. No, thought Daria. I took just as much pills and booze as he did and I'm still
alive. GOD DAMMIT! WHY CAN'T I DIE?!"
Jesse's Mind Trap:
Jesse found himself walking through a blank white void. What's going on? he thought. Where
am I? Where's Kurt? Where's that bear? Where's anything? He walked on untill he saw a figure in
the distance. He ran up to it. Even from the back, he could recognize him. Tall, with long black
hair, like their father. Wearing his favorite Guns'N'Roses T-shirt. "Matt," said Jesse. "Matt,
is it really you?"
Matt turned to him. his eyes were angry and hollow. "You shoulda tried to stop me, Jess."
"I-i-it's not my fault, Matt." Jesse found himself stuttering. Matt took out a gun. "Matt,
please don't do it again!" he begged.
"You could've saved me." Matt accused.
"I was 10 years old! What could I have done?"
"I didn't want to die, Jesse. But I couldn't live either." He put the gun's muzzle in his
mouth.
"NO!!!" Jesse screamed. The back of Matt's head exploded. Blood, brains and bits of skull
flew everywhere, some of it spattered on Jesse. Matt fell lifelessly to the ground. A stream of
blood poured from his head. Jesse felt his heart race. It became hard for him to breathe. "No,
Matt, No!" he sobbed. He collapsed on the ground next to him. He burried his face in his hands,
only to find that they were heavily stained with thick red blood. "Oh God, oh God!" he cried out.
Suddenly, a wet, red drop fell on Jesse's arm. He felt what felt like a raindrop hit his cheek.
It was warmer and stickier than a raindrop. Crimson droplets fell from the infinite sky above.
The horrid acrid smell assaulted his nostrils. It was raining blood.
Pools of blood formed at Jesse's feet. It was wet, warm, and coming for him. He was to
frightened to do anything but quake in fear. "All the blood," he gasped. "M-make it go away!" he
cried out, hoping that someone- anyone would hear him.
The torrent of blood continued.
Kurt's Mind Trap:
"Get him!"
"Kill the demon!"
The mob of high school students rushed at Kurt. He turned and ran for his life. Adreneline
made his legs pump faster as he tried to outrun his persecuters. As he ran down the streets of
Bayville, he looked for a place to hide. He ducked inside a convienience store. A little girl
let out an ear piercing shriek.
"Mommy, it's a monster!" she cried. "Make it go away!"
"Get out of here, you freak!" The woman struck at him. Kurt was all to glad to leave. It
seemed he had traded one angry mob for another. He was running through the streets again. He went
into a quadrupedic gallop. He worried if this made him look even more demonic. What happened to
his immage inducer? Why were these people chasing him? He hadn't done anything, he just happened
to look like a hairy blue demon.
Kurt ducked down an ally and tried to catch his breath. He clutched at his chest as he
panted. What am I doing? he thought. I'll just teleport somewhere safe. He thought of his
comfortable room at the X Mansion and tried to teleport. Nothing.
Kurt thought of the Lane's living room where he had such fun just the night before. It
seemed like a lifetime ago. Nothing. He thought of his girlfriend's bedroom. Still in the deserted
ally. His powers had failed him, even as his inducer had.
"There he is!" someone yelled.
"Kill him!"
Kurt ran down the ally, where a tall chain length fence stood in his way. He swiftly scaled
it, but just as he got to the top, someone struck him in the head with a brick. He fell to the
ravenous mob. Kurt's head throbbed. He wished he would just black out, but something was keeping
him awake. He was fully aware of the grasping mob roughing him up. He pleaded with them as they
kicked and pummled him.
"Please, stop!" he begged. "I've done nothing! Stop, for the love of God!"
"God doesn't love you!" someone retorted.
"Let's burn the abomination!" someone suggested.
Kurt felt the thick ropes cruelly bind him. His arms were forced behind his back and joined
at the wrists with a rough hemp rope. His legs were bound so tightly he could feel his circulation
being cut. They didn't stop there. Ropes bound his arms to his torso. A thick strand of rope went
around his throat, making it hard for him to breathe. They dragged him against the ground, out into
the open. A large wooden stake had been erected, wood was being piled up around it.
"Burn the demon!" someone yelled as he was tied to the stake.
"Send him to Hell where he belongs!"
"No," he tried to yell out, the rope chafing his throat. "Ich Nicht ein Daemon!" He felt the
sting of tears in his eyes. Why can't they see? he thought. I'm not a demon. Demons don't plead
for mercy. They don't weep when faced with death.
The wood was lit. The flames crawled higher and higher. The heat was smothering. The smoke
choked him even more than the rope did. Kurt struggled against the ropes futilly. He tried
teleporting somewhere, anywhere. His fur was singeing. The smell was rank. Kurt let out a howl
of pain as fire licked at his tail. He was burning. He cried out in agony, begging someone to help
him. All he heard was a chant of "Burn the demon! Burn the demon!"
Kurt could feel his flesh sear under the flames. He tried saying a prayer. He stopped. He
realized his persecuters were right. God did not love him. Worse, it seemed that nobody did.
Scott's Mind Trap:
The next thing Scott knew, he had his hands tied together with thick rope. They seemed to
be attached to a pully system. He was suddenly being lifted higher, higher and higher. Scott felt
his arms give under the pressure. His head spun with vertigo. Then he was dropped.
Scott felt a sharp jerk in his arms. He was saved from being splattered on the stone floor
beneath him, but at the cost of nearly having his arms ripped out of their sockets. "Let's do that
again." someone he couldn't see said. Scott was being hoisted into the air again. His stomache
turned as he was forced to fall again. The sudden jerk of pain that stopped him made him cry out
in pain. "That's enough." said the voice. Two huge figures appeared before Scott. He couldn't
believe it. They looked just like the tax collectors from a "Hagar the Horrible" cartoon. Only
not as humorous. They wore dark pants and executioner's masks and little else. One of them went
to a forge and took out a metal rod. "I say we poke his eyes out!" he said.
"That won't be necessary." said the other executioner. He approached Scott and started to
take off his sunglasses.
"Not such a smart move." Scott warned.
"Oh?" said the executioner. "Why don't you take a look?"
Scott opened his eyes. Instead of shades of red, he saw the color he remembered from childhood.
Not that there was much color to see. The chamber he was in was dark and foreboding. As were the two
executioners. The iron rod the first one was holding glowed a brilliant red.
"Your eyes can't hurt us now." he was saying. "And we want you to see what's happening. But
first," He nodded to the other. He ripped Scott's shirt open.
"No! NO!" Scott begged. The red hot iron was pressed against the center of his chest, just
over his heart. The burning was unbearable. Scott could hear his skin sizzle and smell it being
burned. All he could do was scream. The iron was taken away. The executioner took it back to the
forge. "Why are you doing this?" Scott asked. "What have I done?"
"SILENCE!" The reheated iron was held to his left nipple. Scott screamed as the sensitive
skin was burned until it was black. The hot iron torture went on for nearly an hour before the
executioners seemed to grow bored.
"Cut him down." Said one of them. The ropes holding Scott in place were cut. He collapsed
to the floor, feeling as if he'd never be able to move again. He was forced to his feet.
"Please, please stop." he begged, tears pouring from his unveiled eyes.
"It will stop." said one of them. "If you co-operate."
Scott's hand's were shackled and he was taken to a room. It seemed to be an observatory of
some sort. One wall had a window covered with an opaque black curtain. Four levers were under it.
The curtain drew back a quarter of the way. Scott saw his younger brother, Alex, standing on a
scafold. His hands were shackled and a noose was tied around his neck. He looked frightened.
"Alex!" Scott yelled, throwing himself against the window.
"One way glass." said the executioner. "He can neither see nor hear you. Don't bother trying
to break it." The curtain was pulled halfway, revealing Jean also trussed up to be hanged.
*Jean,* he concentrated. *Jean, it's me, Scott. Can you hear me? Are you alright?* It was
no use. Scott was no psychic and Jean was just to scared to pick up his thoughts.
The curtain was pulled all the way, revealing to Scott the most shocking sight of all.
"Mom! Dad! No, this can't be! They died in the plane crash so long ago!"
"They managed to live." said the executioner. "We found them and have been keeping them here
ever since. Don't they look lovely?"
"You bastards! You've been hiding them from me all these years? You better not have hurt them!"
The executioner took out a whip. As it cracked, he felt it bite across his cheek. "You will
decide which of them will die. Every minute that passes without you making a decision, you will
be whipped. Now, choose a lever and pull."
"No, you can't ask me to do that! I love all of them!"
"Decide."
"I know what your game is. If I crack and decide to pull one of the levers, they all die. Right?"
"Decide."
"You can't use torture to make me a murderer!"
"DECIDE!" The whip came down on Scott, tearing into his already burnt skin.
Jane's Mind Trap:
The test came out positive. Jane was pregnant. She had to tell Jesse this in private. She
took him up to her room. Had Daria and Trent guessed?
"Jesse, I-I..."
"You're pregnant." he guessed. She nodded. Jesse shook his head and burried his face in his
hands. "Jane, I don't think I can do this."
"Jesse, listen, we're engaged, right?" Jane said hopefully. "We're getting married anyway
and between the two of us we have almost 14 million dollars." For the first time, Jane was actually
glad she went on /Slashers/. "We can take care of a kid."
"Jane," Jesse shook his head. "It's not all that simple. I'm not sure I want to be tied
down right now. We're both young and, well, let's face it, a baby's pretty hard to take care of."
"What do you mean you don't want to be tied down?"
Jesse sighed. "Look, I'll let you keep the ring. You need it more than I do."
Jane tried to fight the tears in her eyes. "Jesse, you can't leave me now!"
Jesse stood up. "I have to go now. I'll understand if Trent never wants to speak to me again.
Tell him I said good-bye and congradulations on being an uncle."
Jane was too heartbroken to move as Jesse walked out of her room and out of her life. Tears
streaked down her face. She had loved Jesse to the end of everything. He was Heaven and Earth, her
heart and soul. She thought he felt the same. She remembered that she had been his first. Maybe
he wanted to "sow his oats" or something. Well, one of those oats was starting to sprout.
Trent came in. "Jesse ran out the front door and drove off without saying anything. Are you..?"
Jane nodded. "That bastard. I thought I knew him better than that."
"Where's Daria?" Jane asked.
"She went home. After we came to the right conclusion, she said she couldn't speak to you
right now. I'm having a hard time doing it myself."
"What!? Like the two of you haven't been at it? And don't talk to me about using protection.
Neither of us were in our right minds at the time."
"Janey, if Mom and Dad decide to kick you out of the house, you understand there's really
nothing I can do, right?"
"They-they wouldn't, would they?"
"It is their house." Trent put an arm around her. "Listen, Janey, there's a clinic downtown
that does abortions. You might want to consider it."
Jane didn't want to go through an abortion. But she didn't want to go through having a baby
either. "What do I do, Trent?" she sobbed. "What do I do?"
"I really don't know, Janey." he sighed, just before she woke up.
A few comments. Yes, I stole Daria's reaction to nuclear holocaust from /Planet of the Apes/.
The good one. The Giant Strawberry was mentioned in the Daria Diaries and I thought made a good
replacement for the Statue of Liberty. (Interestingly, in the original novel, the protaganist
finds the Eiffel Tower. The author was French.) I did some research by reading about the bombing
of Hiroshima. I was expecting pictures of ruined buildings. Instead, everything had been flattened.
barely two bricks stacked together anywhere. There was also a photo of someone with radiation
burns. They looked more like tumors than burns.
Jesse's mind trap was especially horrific. It was hard for me to write because I'm a bit
of a hemophobe myself. Not as traumatically as Jesse, but it kinda grosses me out. Jesse's phobia
is severe. In role playing terms he 'failed his fright check'. Since Fear Bear had to keep up
two mind traps, Jesse's mindscape has less detail.
In the short lived comic book series based on X Evolution, it was revealed that Kurt had
nightmares about being chased down and burned at the stake. I don't know if this is something
that actually happened to him or just something his tortured subconscous came up with. Poor
tortured little Kurt. "Ich nicht ein Daemon!"="I am not a demon!"
I tried to do net research for Scott's mind trap. I typed "torture, Spanish Inquisition"
into the Yahoo search engine. You wouldn't believe the porn sites I nearly stumbled on! Anyway,
I decided emotional torture would be worse for Scott than physical. I think I combinded the two.
Yes, I know in the comics Scott's dad survived and became a Flash Gorden type hero named Corsaire.
I saw what Scott's dad looked like in one episode. He didn't look like Flash Gorden. He looked
like an accountant. Well, who knows. I know, Alex could use his powers to escape, but this is
a mind trap. There is no escape.
In Jane's mind trap, I realize I have Jesse COOC. (Completly Out Of Character) In mind
traps, you never know how someone will act, but it's usually for the worst. It illustrates my
views on abortion. If a man faces an unwanted pregnancy he has the choice of helping to take
care of the kid at least financially if nothing else or packing up and moving to another state.
The woman can go through nine months or more of pregnancy, untold hours of labor, and 18 years
of heartbreak and near poverty or she can have an abortion. Neither choice is pleasant for her,
but she should at least have a choice.