Diary Entry: Death After Death

Let me tell you about the first time I died.

I was fourteen, a year after the Mutant Murders, and they were bringing in a nurse to test us for the mutant gene. I wasn't really worried. Sure, grandpa had been a mutant, but I had never manifested any powers, and my mother wasn't a mutant. Most of us weren't worried, and we joked about how some of the dorks in class must be mutants as we waited for our blood test results.

Then I was called in front of the class, and our teacher told everyone that I was one of the hated mutants. There was a shocked silence, and then someone started laughing at me. They pointed and clapped and I hated them all. I was put in a chair at the front of the room, outcast, and sat there for the rest of the day.

After school, a bunch of boys were waiting for me and took me to the playground, where I was beaten and fondled and kicked until they got tired and strangled me. They then dumped my lifeless body in my back yard.

My mother found me that night and took me inside the house. I woke up to her angry voice on the phone, trying to berate a funeral home director to take my corpse. I giggled a little and she stopped talking, paled, and hung up the phone.

She explained that I would need to go away. I had actually died, and there was no better way to keep pursuit to a minimum than for me to try to make my way to a haven in Mexico or Canada while those who had killed me still believed I was dead. (Xavier's school, tragically, had been firebombed out of existence just three months before, or I would have gone there.)

The second time I died was in Mystique's arms. I had managed to make it down to the Mexican border, hitchhiking and doing occasional prostitution for money, when the guy who'd promised to take me over beat me nearly to death, fractured my limbs, and stole my money. Erik, her beloved, found me and took me to her. I told them about my powers and asked them to kill me, as there was no way I would be anything but crippled from my injuries. When they learned of my previous resurrection, and how I had healed all physical damage to my body afterward, they reluctantly agreed to do it. Mystique held me as I died from the poison they fed me.

So I was not afraid of dying when Remy's blast slammed into my chest at the prison. I was afraid I would come back to life there after the prison break and be trapped there forever. But then Mystique came again to hold me into death, and I welcomed the change.

When I awoke after my third death, I stretched out my left knee to test it. Not a bit of pain anywhere. I opened my eyes. I was in a dark place with a lot of people in it. Vic was holding up a flashlight. "Back with us, honey?"

"Yes," I said, confused. "Where's Mystique?"

He frowned. "Back in Canada at the meeting point." He moved to take me into his arms, and I scooted away.

"Don't touch me. Don't touch me, Vic. I don't want to be touched." I cried as I spoke, holding my arms at my sides.

"Hey, what's the matter? We're out. We did it. Sure, you had to die again, but no one much on our side died."

"What about Wanda? And Johnny? And Scott? Did you get them out?" I spat the names of my friends among the guards out. "Or did you just kill them off because they were unable to face the tortures of being a mutant in the United States? They didn't want this, they were as bad off as anyone else."

Vic retreated from me and turned off the light. "Okay, okay. We'll give you a little time out. Sorry."

I felt others moving away from me too, whether in guilt or because of my anger I didn't know. I didn't care. I cried for my friends, and for my life, and for my losses over the past eternity in hell. When a hand reached out to hold one of mine, I let it. The tears fell and the pain burned inside me. My body might be healed, but my mind was not.