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Shadowed Ghost

Chapter One

Tears were streaming down her face, falling gently into her opened hands as she sat in silence. She missed them, all of them. Her family and friends, she had loved them all and now they were gone. She was dead to them. Nobody wanted to be friends with a mutant, especially one like her. Sure, she wasn't the most powerful mutant in the world, not really a threat at all. She just couldn't feel anything. Well, she could touch things, physically touch things but mentally she couldn't feel anything. She was numb.

Shivering, she re-read the tombstone as the rain washed over it. "Here lies Kitty Pride. We loved her. Rest in Peace." She didn't really care about the date. None of it was real. She was a ghost. 'Wait,' she thought. 'If I am a ghost, then why can I still touch things? How come people still see me? Or do they see me? God, I'm so confused. What's real? I need to find out. I need proof.' Picking up a knife she cut deep into her wrist, unafraid of the pain, half expecting not to feel it at all. 'Glad to know I'm still alive, if only for a few more seconds.'

Her blood flowed freely onto her grave and she fell to her knees from lack of blood. Looking up at the sky one last time she took in the beauty of nature. Her eyes focused on the stars, twinkling down on her. Flying through the air was a golden butterfly, outlined by the glory of a full, silver moon. She closed her eyes and when she opened them she focused on a single blade of grass, bending softly in the breeze, a raindrop rolling down its stem.

'How did I get here?'

Her thoughts flashed back to a few days ago, when she received a letter from her parents. She had just told them the truth about the school and how she was a mutant and had waited anxiously for them to tell her it was ok and that they still loved her. She knew that's what they would say. They had to say it, they were her parents. Everyday for a month she paced in front of the mailbox waiting for the mail to arrive. The other kids made jokes and laughed at her, telling her she was paranoid but they didn't understand her. They had never understood her. To them she was just some typical teenager who couldn't say two words without adding a "like" in between them. Little did they know there was much, much more to her than that. It's just that nobody really cared to find out what was hidden behind her always cheerful eyes.

It had only been two days ago that she had received it. She ran into her room and cried, not caring if anyone saw her, not caring that Bobby had turned to Scott and said, "What's she so upset about? It's just a little piece of paper." Two hours later she had left them all, never to return again, blood dripping down her upper arm after she had re-opened old scars, a note left on Rogue's bed, hand clutching what her parents had sent her.

She had sat on her bed for an hour, sobbing, waiting for someone to come and comfort her yet nobody did. As she read and re-read it, she grew angry, desperate, confused, and finally she sank back down into her own depression. Wanting a quick release from the pain she cut open her upper arm, letting the blood stream down her arm, onto the letter, onto her own obituary, the note her parents had sent her. As she picked up her suitcase and tucked her obituary into her coat pocket, she turned to face the mansion for the last time and felt a single tear dance down her pale cheek as she realized the hard truth. 'Nobody cares about me. Not my friends, not my family. I'm dead to them all. I'm dead to myself.'

The raindrop rolled down the blade of grass as her blood flowed smoothly across her grave. Rolling onto her back she noticed single raindrops falling from the heavens, falling onto her face, mixing with her tears. And flying through the rain was a golden butterfly, wings flapping on her last breath. 'At last,' she thought. 'I'm finally a ghost, a shadowed ghost.' And then there was silence except the soft hum of butterfly wings on rain, the soft drip of blood on stone.

"Kitty? Kitty! You guys she's over here! Kitty, please wake up. Open your eyes, you're going to be alright, you'll be ok. Just open your eyes, Kitty. Open your eyes!"