DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'Mutant X'. They're not
my property. They belong to Tribune Entertainment.
***
"Emma..." Jesse looked at her more carefully.
She turned to him. "Shalimar. She's, she's dying."
"How?"
"She won't reach out to me... she is scared but she doesn't want me to save her."
Her words sunk inside him like heavy rocks. Emma would not give out misinformation like this. But he hoped she was. He hoped she had misjudged her abilities and noticed something different in Shalimar rather than the dreadful plunge towards death.
"I..." Emma did not receive the chance to say more when Jesse abandoned her hurriedly to reach Shalimar. As he sat next to the blonde mutant's body, Emma lowered herself to the floor until she sat securely on her bent legs. Shalimar was slipping away and she was helpless... this wasn't right. I shouldn't be like this. She should be able to help. A stronger blow to the inner walls of her brain temporarily removed the concentration attached to those thoughts. Trying to tolerate the following, loud throbbing of her head, Emma pressed her hands against it with such might that she must have wished to crush her skull in that instant. The pain left her temporarily impaired with her hearing and for a moment completely isolated from her surroundings. "Stop it!" She screamed with her entire might at the inside walls of her body and mind.
The pain disappeared soon after, like a storm - quick and short but violent and horrific. Emma would murder him now. She would rip out Caleb's guts out with her mind if she were capable of such doing.
"What the hell do you mean 'she's dying'?" Brennan approached the Psionic with a look abandoned by everything except anger.
The reoccurring headache had left her slightly disoriented when she was intercepted by Brennan's attitude. She stared at him with lost eyes for a moment, trying to correctly interpret his question. A bitter taste in her mouth prevented her from providing an immediate answer. It would serve no purpose for Emma to conjure up a lie. "She's tired, she can't fight anymore... she..." her voice faded as she gathered her hands tightly against her chest. "She wants to sleep."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't know."
"You were in her brain! What do you mean, you don't know?!" The erratic behavior grew. It signaled nothing positive.
"I have my limitations," she spoke patiently.
"Well, get past them! It's not about you! It's about her!"
"Stop it..."
"I won't! Why can't you do more??"
Despite her state, Brennan's reaction disabled her calming mechanism. He was usually calmer than this. "You tell me!" she sprung up, returning his darting gaze with her own flaming one. "She's dying, alright?! Is that what you want to hear?! She's dying, Brennan!"
But the flaming arrows soon fell deeply into the cool ocean of her eyes as her face fell victim to the scrupulous bearing and slow exposure of feelings she feared to have branded against her heart. Taking Shalimar's body with her gaze, Emma rushed to her side and fell on her knees. "Don't do this," her voice pleaded with the struggling coolness. She grabbed her hand, squeezing it until the warning of blood under her skin appeared. "Shal, no... no, no, no, no... stay, don't..." she could take a physical hold on Shalimar's hand but she had failed to attain the emotional one.
"What is it?" Jesse asked while holding back the disparaging scenario of a darker ending than he had hoped and prayed for.
"Stop being so damn stubborn! Let me help you!" Emma shouted at the motionless, peaceful face of her friend. While the men were seeing a physical, fleshy image of a woman drowning pleasantly in her own slumber, Emma was enduring a colder, shivering image of this woman's psyche drowning almost willingly; allowing herself to be swallowed by the spiky grains of sand into the abyss of no return - cold and shallow death.
The weak throbbing signal made its presence known through the walls of her mind, disconnecting the Psionic's attention which only served as a tool that pilled away the few remaining layers of weak patience. She tried to force herself through the invisible shield that kept her away from the last remaining life signals of the Feral but growing emptiness stubbornly kept her back. Her muscles tensed and her heart raced with such speed that it could burst from the enormous pressure of the moment.
And then there was silence... cold, moist, unearthly silence.
The sudden abandonment of the colorful elements which shaped Shalimar's mind and the arrival of the shallow and silent emptiness wrapped a frosty blanket around Emma as she stiffened with a horrid, emotionally destroying gaze.
This was a dream; an ill-planned game between the concrete walls of reality and the fluffy, gentle drapes of a person's fantasy. It could not be real. It was impossible to be real.
The constant calling from her friends was received as a distant and faint echoing. Everything stopped, nothing dared to move. Even her heart had eased with its beats as not to place an even bigger sense of abnormality to this confusing but painfully familiar, frozen moment in time.
The shaking of her left shoulder by a warm hand with a strong grip managed to mechanically switch her eyes away from Shalimar and toward the person standing next to her. But she had trouble recognizing his face. The lines were confusing, the voice - foreign. Emma returned her eyes on the blonde mutant. "I..." the voiced letter threatened to choke her as it began sliding towards her throat. She struggled to push it away with the tiny currents of air she had managed to control.
When she succeeded, Emma took a barely settling breath and said: "She left..." with the last word holding onto her, begging not to be released but with a heavy heart, she had to let it out.
*********
The wall felt cold against his back. The raising of the tiny fibers, signaling short goose bumps were an indication of how his skin was taking the release of imaginary heat replaced by real cold. The thick clothing weren't enough to isolate those feelings... not that he had been bothered to notice. It had been the broken pieces of furniture, a couple of framed pictures, two vases, scattered flowers, remains of glass that had the loose focus of his eyes.
Anger could be such a terrible thing; Denial - even worse; the stubborn refusal of acceptance, blocked entry to the insistent and sharp pieces of inescapable reality; the truth, the unmasking of its unwanted glare. The vase crashed violently against the wall, leaving a colorless wet mark behind as the pieces of dry clay fell on the floor. The objects around him could not provide him with an answer and he felt angered because of it; it fueled the growing flame of intolerance inside him, burning the blooded, inner walls of his body. Perhaps everyone wishes those dead pieces of processed material could give a verbal or any kind of a reassuring answer, one that could, temporarily at least, smoothen the edges of an irritated, enraged mind.
He looked at the fingers of his left hand. He could still see the traces of tears on them, almost embedded into the rough texture of his skin. Were they going to remain there? Can't they disappear? Tears always did that... there shouldn't be an exception now.
What happened to him when he heard Emma's response? It was vague, such a vague moment. He thought she had been lying. He'd hallucinated that she had deliberately said those words to get back at him for the way he had treated her that night. But it would have been too harsh from her side to dive into such tasteless deviousness.
The wetness covering the deep brown of his eyes was beginning to thicken. It could temporarily blind him if it continues like that.
He had reached over to feel her heart... it was numb. His fingers touched the skin of her neck. it was calm and lifeless. Her aura had disappeared; the glowing light around her fainted instantly, leaving nothing but a piece of dead flesh and bone.
His eyes traveled over to the window. It had stains, red stains. What was their origin, he could not remember. It was dark outside. Night had already fallen. The sun had already left them without warning. Or maybe it had given them some signs but the gray fuzziness of the last seven hours had been ignored by the grieving mist of earlier.
Brennan closed his eyes. For a moment perhaps, he could feel lifeless and numb like her body... he could escape and be nothing but a memory... for a moment perhaps.
*********
***
"Emma..." Jesse looked at her more carefully.
She turned to him. "Shalimar. She's, she's dying."
"How?"
"She won't reach out to me... she is scared but she doesn't want me to save her."
Her words sunk inside him like heavy rocks. Emma would not give out misinformation like this. But he hoped she was. He hoped she had misjudged her abilities and noticed something different in Shalimar rather than the dreadful plunge towards death.
"I..." Emma did not receive the chance to say more when Jesse abandoned her hurriedly to reach Shalimar. As he sat next to the blonde mutant's body, Emma lowered herself to the floor until she sat securely on her bent legs. Shalimar was slipping away and she was helpless... this wasn't right. I shouldn't be like this. She should be able to help. A stronger blow to the inner walls of her brain temporarily removed the concentration attached to those thoughts. Trying to tolerate the following, loud throbbing of her head, Emma pressed her hands against it with such might that she must have wished to crush her skull in that instant. The pain left her temporarily impaired with her hearing and for a moment completely isolated from her surroundings. "Stop it!" She screamed with her entire might at the inside walls of her body and mind.
The pain disappeared soon after, like a storm - quick and short but violent and horrific. Emma would murder him now. She would rip out Caleb's guts out with her mind if she were capable of such doing.
"What the hell do you mean 'she's dying'?" Brennan approached the Psionic with a look abandoned by everything except anger.
The reoccurring headache had left her slightly disoriented when she was intercepted by Brennan's attitude. She stared at him with lost eyes for a moment, trying to correctly interpret his question. A bitter taste in her mouth prevented her from providing an immediate answer. It would serve no purpose for Emma to conjure up a lie. "She's tired, she can't fight anymore... she..." her voice faded as she gathered her hands tightly against her chest. "She wants to sleep."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't know."
"You were in her brain! What do you mean, you don't know?!" The erratic behavior grew. It signaled nothing positive.
"I have my limitations," she spoke patiently.
"Well, get past them! It's not about you! It's about her!"
"Stop it..."
"I won't! Why can't you do more??"
Despite her state, Brennan's reaction disabled her calming mechanism. He was usually calmer than this. "You tell me!" she sprung up, returning his darting gaze with her own flaming one. "She's dying, alright?! Is that what you want to hear?! She's dying, Brennan!"
But the flaming arrows soon fell deeply into the cool ocean of her eyes as her face fell victim to the scrupulous bearing and slow exposure of feelings she feared to have branded against her heart. Taking Shalimar's body with her gaze, Emma rushed to her side and fell on her knees. "Don't do this," her voice pleaded with the struggling coolness. She grabbed her hand, squeezing it until the warning of blood under her skin appeared. "Shal, no... no, no, no, no... stay, don't..." she could take a physical hold on Shalimar's hand but she had failed to attain the emotional one.
"What is it?" Jesse asked while holding back the disparaging scenario of a darker ending than he had hoped and prayed for.
"Stop being so damn stubborn! Let me help you!" Emma shouted at the motionless, peaceful face of her friend. While the men were seeing a physical, fleshy image of a woman drowning pleasantly in her own slumber, Emma was enduring a colder, shivering image of this woman's psyche drowning almost willingly; allowing herself to be swallowed by the spiky grains of sand into the abyss of no return - cold and shallow death.
The weak throbbing signal made its presence known through the walls of her mind, disconnecting the Psionic's attention which only served as a tool that pilled away the few remaining layers of weak patience. She tried to force herself through the invisible shield that kept her away from the last remaining life signals of the Feral but growing emptiness stubbornly kept her back. Her muscles tensed and her heart raced with such speed that it could burst from the enormous pressure of the moment.
And then there was silence... cold, moist, unearthly silence.
The sudden abandonment of the colorful elements which shaped Shalimar's mind and the arrival of the shallow and silent emptiness wrapped a frosty blanket around Emma as she stiffened with a horrid, emotionally destroying gaze.
This was a dream; an ill-planned game between the concrete walls of reality and the fluffy, gentle drapes of a person's fantasy. It could not be real. It was impossible to be real.
The constant calling from her friends was received as a distant and faint echoing. Everything stopped, nothing dared to move. Even her heart had eased with its beats as not to place an even bigger sense of abnormality to this confusing but painfully familiar, frozen moment in time.
The shaking of her left shoulder by a warm hand with a strong grip managed to mechanically switch her eyes away from Shalimar and toward the person standing next to her. But she had trouble recognizing his face. The lines were confusing, the voice - foreign. Emma returned her eyes on the blonde mutant. "I..." the voiced letter threatened to choke her as it began sliding towards her throat. She struggled to push it away with the tiny currents of air she had managed to control.
When she succeeded, Emma took a barely settling breath and said: "She left..." with the last word holding onto her, begging not to be released but with a heavy heart, she had to let it out.
*********
The wall felt cold against his back. The raising of the tiny fibers, signaling short goose bumps were an indication of how his skin was taking the release of imaginary heat replaced by real cold. The thick clothing weren't enough to isolate those feelings... not that he had been bothered to notice. It had been the broken pieces of furniture, a couple of framed pictures, two vases, scattered flowers, remains of glass that had the loose focus of his eyes.
Anger could be such a terrible thing; Denial - even worse; the stubborn refusal of acceptance, blocked entry to the insistent and sharp pieces of inescapable reality; the truth, the unmasking of its unwanted glare. The vase crashed violently against the wall, leaving a colorless wet mark behind as the pieces of dry clay fell on the floor. The objects around him could not provide him with an answer and he felt angered because of it; it fueled the growing flame of intolerance inside him, burning the blooded, inner walls of his body. Perhaps everyone wishes those dead pieces of processed material could give a verbal or any kind of a reassuring answer, one that could, temporarily at least, smoothen the edges of an irritated, enraged mind.
He looked at the fingers of his left hand. He could still see the traces of tears on them, almost embedded into the rough texture of his skin. Were they going to remain there? Can't they disappear? Tears always did that... there shouldn't be an exception now.
What happened to him when he heard Emma's response? It was vague, such a vague moment. He thought she had been lying. He'd hallucinated that she had deliberately said those words to get back at him for the way he had treated her that night. But it would have been too harsh from her side to dive into such tasteless deviousness.
The wetness covering the deep brown of his eyes was beginning to thicken. It could temporarily blind him if it continues like that.
He had reached over to feel her heart... it was numb. His fingers touched the skin of her neck. it was calm and lifeless. Her aura had disappeared; the glowing light around her fainted instantly, leaving nothing but a piece of dead flesh and bone.
His eyes traveled over to the window. It had stains, red stains. What was their origin, he could not remember. It was dark outside. Night had already fallen. The sun had already left them without warning. Or maybe it had given them some signs but the gray fuzziness of the last seven hours had been ignored by the grieving mist of earlier.
Brennan closed his eyes. For a moment perhaps, he could feel lifeless and numb like her body... he could escape and be nothing but a memory... for a moment perhaps.
*********