lalalalalalaaaa… isn't life just absolutely SPIFFY when you're sick? >hackhackcoughcoughsneeze I hope I don't have this cold as long as I had the last onep; ten days, and I kid you not…AND IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER!!! >sighs It's impossible to go to the beach when you have to bring a box of tissues along with you. People stare, you get fuzzies on your bathing suit, and then they get all wet by that nasty little kid who just ran by you with water dripping off him…ya. Maybe if it snows before Christmas my snot will freeze and then I'll have nothing to worry about, eh? I've had my hair freeze over before, so there is hope…
Charlotte Whittaker. That is my name. Or should I say that was my name? No one ever calls me by it anymore. No one knows who I am.
Heck, I don't know who I am. I used to be a schoolteacher. Now I'm a freak.
I used to teach music to a sweet little bunch of children who would bring me cookies and apples and call me 'Miss Whittaker.' Little darlings. I still can't get over the betrayal and fear in their eyes when they found out I was a mutant, when the police burst in during the middle of class to arrest me and cart me off to some mutant facility.
I'll never forget my children's screams when I disappeared right in front of their little eyes.
The thugs fired their guns at me, but I was already gone. My gift – my disease – is to become invisible. I melted into the shadows and slipped through the open door. One of the officers heard me and tried to grab me, but I had the advantage.
My mutation had manifested itself quietly, peacefully, when I was a teenager. One day I came home from school terribly sick, and woke up the next day not able to see myself in the mirror. There was no 'traumatic experience' that everyone says is the trigger for mutations to surface. My parents – God bless their souls – helped me get through it, and swore that they would never tell anybody about my secret. With the whole world out for mutant blood, it was not only wise to conceal my mutation but necessary. They were dead by the time I was found out. I don't even know how I was found out – when I escaped from the police, it had been so long since I had last used my mutation I almost couldn't remember how to use it.
I see other mutants on the news at night, on the TV sets of different welfare hotels. I never spend more than two nights in one place. I know my fear is unnecessary, but it's powerful. I see these two groups of mutants the most, the ones led by the one man who shoots red light from his eyes and the other one who wears the odd helmet. Most of them that are fighting are just kids, teenagers…about the age my kids would be now if I had had the chance to see them go through school. I feel much older than I am. Sometimes, when I see other mutants – my 'brothers and sisters' – using their powers so openly, so unafraid, I want to use mine too. But I can't do anything so spectacular as throwing fireballs or levitating things. All I can do is become invisible.
It suits me.
yow…that one just kinda poured out of me. I didn't mean it to turn out that…erm…angsty or melodramatic, honest! puts a hand over her heart I didn't intend it to be in first person either. But characters run away with you sometimes…for crying out loud, I was intending Wraith to be a guy! Oh yeah, BTW, this mutant's name is Wraith. You'll see her later in my yet-untitled Xmen fanfic. You see, A Series of Mutants is kinda me 'setting the stage' of the dramatis personae for my next fanfic. I mean, it's kinda cool when authors just drop hints about their OCs' 'dark pasts,' but I think this is going to be good too, where I can drop different hints that refer to the past that the other characters in the story wouldn't be able to pick up on…dramatic irony! bells go off
So help me, I'm slipping into my 'literature professor' mode… >slaps herself
R&R, tell me what you think of Charlotte :-)
(REJOICE AND BE GLAD!! I HAVE JUST RECEIVED WORD THAT THE RAIDERS WON THEIR GAME TODAY!! HAHAHAHA!!!)
>coughs
morough