Lucky Me
Chapter 013
They were sick and twisted people! I promise you! They found the cruelest way of getting an innocent bystander (okay, so I did throw the shoe) into the worst possible places.
Have no idea what I mean?
You try doing backed up laundry for about twenty people in a single afternoon.
Not only was I forced to do all the dishes every other day without the help of a dishwasher, but I also had to do the laundry, fold it, and put the baskets in front of everyone's door. Think that's the end? Wrong. Apparently that blue oozy stuff of Dr. Hank's I destroyed was some sort of rare goop that took him about a month to conjure up and had about a lifespan of three days. I killed it on the first day.
And Robert? Well, he has the 'oh so hideous' job of washing the cars, picking up the laundry, helping me do the clothes, doing the dishes when I didn't and some other odds and ends. This was my first stinkin' offense! Shouldn't they go heavy on him who had been here for-well I don't know how long but longer than me darn it!
I should just get a slap on the wrist! Not punched in the face by the uniforms that hadn't been washed since the late seventies! Ick. After another work out with Mr. Warren, who was trying his best to get me to lift my wings on my own like he's been trying to do for the past week, I had to do breakfast dishes and was hauled into the laundry room.
Talk about disgusting.
There were about four washer and driers, at least two of them were broken and that left me with only two working driers. Luckily, there were strings everywhere for line drying. That wasn't the worst of it. The worst was the endless rows of baskets. Each basket was stuffed, crammed, and overflowing with clothes. On each basket was a name of who the clothes belonged to but the most cursable thing was the long list each person had of how they wanted their clothes done.
Dr. Hank didn't want his lab coats washed in anything but Downy, while Mrs. Jean only wanted Tide to be used in her loads. Jubilee had some black value brand stuff that smelt like bubblegum and she wanted it sprinkled on all her clothes an hour before they went into the washer. But I couldn't wash Mr. Remy's clothes after Mrs. Jean's because the weird guy was allergic to Tide...Argh!
After the first three hours of trying to faithfully follow the ridiculous guide lines, I started to cram all the clothes together and heck with them! Did I mention I wasn't thinking that I'd actually have to sort the clothes out? That was another nightmare I didn't happen until a while later.
Maybe the washing powder got to me, or the dust that had me sneezing and crying all at the same time, whatever it was, a little demon got inside me. At the moment I started to shove this 'special' load into the wash my halo (haha) broke and turned upwards into horns.
'Wash in cold/cold only' and 'let air dry' lost all meaning as I stuffed certain button down shirts with Hawaiian print on them into the washer. Not only those, but some shirts and pants with very delicate natures and probably were once attached to very high price tags all met the same fate. A cruel smile spread across my fully ivory toned face as I 'accidentally' dumped a cup of bleach into the loads and slammed the lids shut.
That'll teach them to get me into trouble and then have me do their laundry within the same year they punished and took my cookies away!
My genius attack of just ramming everyone's clothes didn't go as planned, after I was released from my prison to eat lunch and do the dishes, I had to go back to sort out the clothes. I mean all sorts of articles of clothing. From socks, to bras, to boxers, everything was mixed and muddled and waiting for me on top of the tables that lined one of the walls in the room. After discovering something dubbed a 'man-thong' I just shut my eyes and put people's things where I thought matched their tastes and considering I didn't know anyone that well (how many times do I tell myself to stop hiding?) I just pushed and shoved.
And then, after dinner dishes were done (I spent an entire day in that cursed room! Even Professor excused our appointment so I could get my work done) I had to give everyone their things. If I was smart I would have guessed Mr. Logan would have been the last person to have pink rabbit boxers.
But at that point in time I didn't care, it was around eightish when I was dropping off the last of the clothes. The last basket was Mr. Remy's, these people must not have any idea that some of us (namely me) like not to touch their under clothes clean or not. Anyways, back on to the topic, I knocked on Mr. Remy's door, ready to go to bed, but when the door swung open, the basket wasn't taken in; me and the basket were taken in.
"Hey dere, petite." Mr. Remy almost seemed to purr in a friendly voice as he shut the door after me. I stood there, mouth hanging open, my wings twitched, and my eyebrows arched so high they looked like part of my hairline. Not only because I was yanked into some guy's room, it was because of that and that the room was filled with the other residences of the hall.
"Great, another victim!" Bobby-Jerk chirped as he shuffled a pack of cards.
"B-but I didn't-!" I stammered, feeling very awkward holding a basket with some guy's clothes in front of some guys. Mr. Warren, who was straddling a computer chair, just smiled and shrugged.
"Ah didn't want to do this either, Kerry." Sam announced, that got him bapped on the head from Bobby-Jerk.
Mr. Remy took his clothes and shoved them into his closet, after which I started to back up toward the door. I should have moved faster.
"Ah, come on, fraulein, it'll be a getting to know you game," Mr. Kurt tried to reassure.
"It's the least you can do seeing as I would be working on my projects had not two certain persons destroyed it," Dr. Hank said with a creepy smile.
"You can't be scared of bein' in de same room wit' us seein' dat not more den a week ago you were wearin' nothin' but a towel in front of us," Mr. Remy pointed out.
My cheeks flamed red, "T-That was different!" That was survival, this was suicide! There was a difference thank you very much!
"And no worries about money, this is a secrets betting." I didn't understand what a 'secrets betting' was, but I didn't like the way Bobby-Jerk and Mr. Remy both started to crack up at the sound of it.
"I-I don't know how to play!" I was desperate, and it was the truth.
"That's two for the slaughter then."
They should have just shot me.
It was close to two in the morning when I was finally released to go on my way after the severe beating. Just as a 'joke' they made everyone get into pairs, and this meant Sam (the other novice) and I were together debating about what this and this card added up to. After about an hour and a half of laughing at us, they made us regroup. Another sick joke was that they paired me with Bobby-Jerk. I went from one of my fellow clueless players to debating everything, Dr. Hank thought it was amusing that the criminals should be fighting.
"That's how your blue stuff got broken," I said, glaring at Bobby-Jerk as he switched out the cards I had wanted to keep.
"If you didn't always have such an attitude problem, maybe we wouldn't fight so much." Bobby-Jerk offered, grimacing as the cards we received were worse than the ones I told him to keep. Dummy.
"I do not have an attitude problem," I informed them, feeling very sure of myself. It was bad to be full of yourself; you might pop and have to clean up a nasty mess later on.
"Oh please don't say that this is your personality!" I wasn't sure if I was shocked or hurt, but whatever it was it was forgotten when Mr. Remy chimed in.
"And he wonders why he's single."
And so on, until almost five hours later they let me and Sam out of the nightmare they called poker to go into our rooms since we were close to falling asleep. Little did I know there was still a lesson to learn that night.
They gave me the survival to the X-Mansion book thing, but I never read rule books. They were boring and mostly had the same things, like where to and not to smoke, where to exit during a fire alarm, etc. You understand right? Well I looked later in the book, read through it thoroughly and did not find a thing about not investigating strange noises.
Maybe I should have suggested it.
There was a sound coming from the side of the hall without the staircase, it was a munching sound. Not so much as a ice crunching sound, more like metal crunching, like a trash compactor but more stealthy? I had never heard it before, of course, I had never been leaving Mr. Remy's room in such an odd hour-heck, I never left his room before!
But as I have said before, I have a huge cat of curiosity that devours the canary of common sense. In dummy terms, I went closer to the sounds. Anyone who had as many notches in her belt with seeing scary movies would have told you not to hang around, to take off in the opposite direction at top speed, but not me. Oh no, that would have been way too logical for me. Sometimes I swear there was nothing but air in my skull.
"Hello..?" I questioned, slowly making my way down past the bathroom and further into the darkness of the hallway. The closer I got to the last bedroom door, which was slightly open, the noises became louder, and then as I gently knocked on the door...they stopped.
The hair on my neck stood on end at this, I think it turned gray and fell out when two sets of blood red eyes looked at me. My eyes must have increased three times their normal size as I backed away from the bright red eyes. They followed me. I didn't mean that they watched me as I stumbled out of the doorway and staggered backwards down the hall, no I meant they-the owners of the freaky eyes— followed me out.
They were these metal bug things, and they could move fast. Not as fast as me when I noticed one of them finish off a piece of shoe leather. They weren't nearly as fast as a tired, freaked out girl who was also letting lose an ear piercing scream but they tried.
Why was ever mishap imaginable happening to me!
"Kerry?" Someone questioned as I ran smack dab into some other body.
Poor Sam. I squashed him between me (who as soon as I landed, tried to crawl under him or something to get me away from the creepy critters) and the hard wood floor.
"What on earth..?" Sam muttered as I rolled off f and behind him as the creatures just looked at me curiously. If that's what you call them having a curious look.
"What the heck are those?" I demanded, pointing to the slugs. And if I knew that everything I did would provoke laughter from that bunch of guys, I'd go to Hollywood and play opposite of some funny guy.
"Maggot," Mr. Remy screamed, and from the depths (sounds neat doesn't it?) of the room I had run screaming from, came that man I'd seen when I met Miss Snob-to-all Monet and Jubilee. He was tall, tanned, and had this little cow lick of white hair.
"Wot?" He yawned, then seemed to understand the dilemma, and called those things by their names. Not that it was hard to know what was wrong since I was making stupid noises that on a good day would pass for words, and my arm poked out from around Sam at the creatures.
As the things slithered back down the hall, my eyes slowly went back into my head. This was a good thing considering it took all of three seconds for most of the guys to either chuckle or poke more fun at me.
"There, big, bad buggies are all gone!"
"Man, she's going to prematurely age if this keeps up."
"I think I see gray hairs already."
"I see crow's feet around her eyes; maybe we should get her Cher's plastic surgeon's number?"
I hate guys. I'm becoming a nun in a closed convent!
It was a shock enough being woken up by a blaring alarm clock or an annoying co-inhabitant that threatened to freeze your covers-but it was something close to death being rudely awaken by flashing red lights and the loudest siren ever created.
"Ahhh!" I shot up from my bed-okay, so I kind of did the jerk-awake-while-having-a-heart-attack-causing-me-to-roll-out-of-bed-and-land-on-my-rump maneuver. I saw red lights dancing under the crack of my door, and for a brief second I wondered how the cops got outside (it was four in the morning!). The blaring, yet shrilling noise seemed to echo off the walls the closer I got to the door.
Finally deciding to stand, I tripped over my own feet a few times, and managed to make it to my door, and cracked it open. Outside my room was just as disheveled as my mind at that moment.
All the guys were running about in their spandex and even Mr. Remy was wearing a long trench coat and carrying a metal stick in his hand. I watched, almost stupefied, as the people I lived with turned from your average (some of them slightly annoying) citizens getting a free ride from some rich man, into-well, into the X-Men.
It wasn't the uniforms, they looked goofy to me, but it was just something that -that something! It was hard to explain! It was early, I had just gotten up, there were red lights swirling on the ceiling of the hallway, and the alarm was driving me nuts.
I opened my door a bit more to stick my head out of it-just in time to almost get it taken off by Sam.
"Hey!" I protested. This got the guy's attention, he's face wasn't so warm and friendly now, it was serious and focused. For a split second, he reminded me of Scott.
"Kerry, get back in your room," he ordered. Where the heck did he think I was going to go?
"Why? What's going on?"
"Don't worry about it, you'll hear about it later, get in," Sam repeated, I nodded, and shut my door. I sighed, and banged my head on the closed door. To my amazement the alarms were shut off shortly afterwards. In fact, the house became completely quite.
Too quite.
That was what started to scare me. From what I could recall, there was only one other time that the mansion had been that quiet and that's when I was in the Danger Room with D-M, right before we were introduced to the 'Mansion Population Control' laser beam guns. Minutes passed slowly, I didn't move from my door. I was happy by my door.
Okay, so I was pretty much too scared to move-until the first thunderous boom shook the house. That got me to move, in fact it got me to nearly fly (not with my wings) to my bed and tackle my stuffed Stitch doll. I sat there like a true coward shaking with fear, clinging to a stuffed animal as if he could protect me from whatever was going on outside.
Another earth shaking noise erupted and then the crackle of electricity lit up my window. Like a sick fascination, I slowly edged my way off the bed and with all the fake courage I could muster, pulled back my curtains.
I was surprised I even had time to scream.
This thing that looked like a human was hovering right outside my window and when I peeked out the curtains-I didn't have a window anymore. I barely had a life anymore!
Whatever it hit me with knocked me halfway across the room with the glass and wood debris.
"Mutant identification in process." It looked like a man with gray hair, but its voice sounded like a computer, an angry computer that had just shot me.
I couldn't move. I hadn't been so scared in my life. It wouldn't be until later that I would notice the cuts from the glass all over my body and my singed hair.
"Identification: Unknown. Expendable."
Expendable! I felt my life slip away from me, and the stupid pink and black thing hadn't even done anything yet but stare at me with its glowing yellow eyes. Slowly, almost teasingly, it raised its hand to strike. The fingertips of this creation were shading deeper and deeper red, like it was collecting power to kill me.
I stuttered and did my best to move, which was only backwards and didn't help at all. Stitch was long forgotten and had some fluff poking out of him where the glass had shredded his furry body. Why the heck was I worrying about a stupid doll at a time like this!
Just as the fingertips drew closer to one another, and I could almost hear the jingle of the keys of Heaven opening up the pearly gates –it froze.
Literally.
"No fair trying to pick up girls at a time like this." I knew that pompous voice. It was Bobby! Or at least that's what it used to be! It was a walking ice person who fell into my room; the monster machine was completely frozen for the time being. I was still scared out of my mind. I panicked.
"Kerry, are you okay?" He asked, bending down, and trying to shake me out of my stupor. I got out of it all right, and not thinking, only busy being scared and thinking briefly of my dad.
"Get away from me!" I screamed and I scooted away from him. Tears sprung to my eyes as I fought my own battle of trying to get my heart under control, and my sanity to stay with me.
"Kerry it's me! Bob-ahhh!" Suddenly, he was flung over me, the big hunk of ice on top, glass and wood on bottom. Groaning, the man looked over his shoulder toward the thing that was still hovering outside my window.
Only its hand was free from the ice.
"Iceman!" I heard another familiar voice shout, and then a stench filled the air. The person addressed climbed to his feet and glared at the creature slowly melting its prison and still pointing its hand toward us.
"Get her out of here, Kurt," came a distinct female voice, and then I remember a hand grabbing mine and yanking me to a body, then-then I was in the 'big shinny room' at least that's where I woke up.
And, oh man did I wake up. D-M was bawling for some reason, I felt sick to my stomach, and my eyes were doing some weird dance move in my sockets. I groaned as I propped myself on my elbows.
"Oh thank God you're okay!" Daisy whimpered, helping me to a sitting position.
"Enhh-what happened?"
"Ah-Ah don't rightly know!" She gushed, nearly breaking her words up with whimpers. "But they're fightin'!"
Well duh, it wasn't some late night movie marathon and even with us buried far beneath the earth, the sounds of the conflict where still heard. I smelled something awful, and picked up the top of my tank to and sniffed it, eegads! It made me sick; I briefly (and vainly) wondered how hard it would be to wash the stench out of my hair.
"Ah'm scared," Daisy-Mae whispered coming closer to me. What the heck would I be able to do? Feather them? Oh that would be great. Maybe the robots where ticklish, these fluffy baby feathers could make them giggle. Did I mention my brain lacks the ability to function reasonably when I was scared?
"Yeah, well, there's nothing we can do," I grumped out, a thought flickering through my mind that D-M would most likely use me as a shield should those things burst through the doors.
"Oh my goodness! You're hurt!" She said as I felt my arm getting picked up by her. I looked at where she was glancing, sure enough there were deep cuts in my skin, but what was really strange was there was absolutely no blood.
"Huh?" I checked out my legs and free arm, it was the same. No blood. Cuts, but no blood or even a sign that it had bleed.
"Ahhghhg," Then something heavy dropping on the floor caused my attention to turn back to my friend. She was passed out cold. It was the first time I wasn't the one to hit the floor. It took a second for me to notice what had caused her to go sleepy-bye.
My skin was pealing. Again. This was great! Just add to my freaked out state (anyone thinking I was kind of calm and collected, I wasn't) my skin decided to rebel on me again! Argh!
I stripped all that I could off, crying, and cursing in my mind as I did so. After taking and shoving it into a pile, I checked on my still unconscious cellmate.
"Daisy?" I rasped, shaking her shoulder gently. "D-M? Get up!" I tried to stir her again, this time I had more success. She groaned and cracked her eyes open and nearly swallowed her tongue.
"Wha-?" The brunette questioned sitting up, griping her head with one hand, and balancing on the other. A memory must have struck her as she looked over at me and cringed. I love that reaction; it's just so reassuring. "Your skin!"
"Yeah, it's doing that thing again," I confirmed half-heartedly.
"But why weren't you-" I raised a hand, and shushed her. There was something missing.
The sounds from the struggle were no longer able to be heard.
"It got quiet," D-M pointed out the obvious. I felt my eyes roll before I had a chance to stop them. This earned me an 'I-told-you-so' glare from the girl.
"But who won?"
As if they had timed it, the doors hissed open, and the shouts poured in with the light. The figure silhouetted was short, and had sharp looking things looking things sticking out of its hands.
"Ahh!" was my reaction, trying to scurry behind D-M. Heck, she was going to be my shield (again).
"Logan!" Was D-M's reaction, and before I knew it my shield was up and staggering to the man.
"You're needed kid." The girl nodded her head and ran out of the room. Mr. Logan looked at me, gave soft growl. "Are you planning to stay in here all flippin' day?"
"N-no." I stuttered, clambered to my feet, and made a quick exit.
The hallways were spotted with various people, but the closer I got to the med labs, the worse they looked. I felt my stomach turn and twist when Miss Rogue walked by me with her hair all a mess and dirt all down the right side of her body. Then Sam, nice and polite Sam, had a look of death in his eyes, like he was going to punch something and punch it hard. His cheek was swollen and there was going to be a nasty looking black eye come later.
This sent shivers down my spine. I didn't like hospitals, I hated anything medical (which was why I had to be lured into Dr. Hank's the first few times), and seeing all this blood and pain wasn't sitting right with me. Then I came to the medical lab. Every other person must have been there. I heard Dr. Hank shouting orders, Miss Munroe using a soothing voice to someone, Bobby-Jerk looking livid, and even Scott looked beat up, dirty, and mad as a cat in water. Of course, he couldn't see me. D-M had her hands on either side of his head, and her eyes clamped shut, and sweat trickling down her round face.
"Wh-what's going on?" I asked in a hushed voice. Mr. Remy looked over at me and his face visibly paled.
"You shouldn't be down here, petite," he answered softly, then tried to lead me past the medical lab by holding my arm and tugging me in the direction leading back up to the living area.
Try as he might, I still saw what Mr. Remy was so vainly trying to stop me from seeing.
Red wings. Downy soft feathers coated with red— with blood!
"M-Mr. Warren?" I wheezed out, jerking my arm from Mr. Remy and going back to get a better look. What I thought I saw was fair from what was. There seemed to be a constant flow of the red from Mr. Warren's arms, his face was burned and dirty. His wings—they were twitching unnaturally. There were burn marks, and c-cuts on them. They were red. So much red.
I backed away shaking my head.
If this is what I had to look forward to—they could forget it!
"What is she doing down here?" I heard Scott roar, griping my shoulder and turning me around roughly. "Kerry, what are you-"
"Get away from me!" I screeched, hitting his arm roughly. Tears that stopped in the Danger Room started to roll down my cheeks again. All I could think of was my dad. My dad, the reason my mom hated mutants. The reason I was such an introvert. And Mr. Warren...his wings were hurt.
I had wings now.
"Get her out of here!" Scott commanded as I started to shake. I felt someone's hand on my shoulder, trying to get me to turn away from the fallen angel's bloody body and wings. My head throbbed with the events of the past hour and it's no wonder miracles (twisted and sick though they were) happened.
I was forced (dragged really) out of the medical area. I was about ready to lose whatever it was that I last ate. My stomach hurt from the way my nerves knitted it into knots. Less than six hours ago I had been with Mr. Warren, and some of the other in Mr. Remy's room playing cards. I lost. But they were all healthy and laughing. And now? Now they looked like the cat got the best of them and they got the worst of the cat.
Just like dad.
I didn't like thinking about him much, but as I was guided to a padded bench and then left, shaking, crying and freaked out. I couldn't imagine why these people wanted to do what they do. What did they do to deserve this? What did I do to deserve being attacked?
I felt myself get even lighter headed. There was no time for self pity than a time when the fantasy of a pleasant world was being butchered and replaced by a brutal, bloodied reality.
I don't' know how long I sat there before I felt a hand touch my shoulder.
Sam.
Trying to blink back my tears, I looked up at him, and bit down on my lower lip to keep it from trembling. There was a—a compassion in his eyes as he sat down next to me, pulled me to his chest, and held me as my tears fell without remorse. He didn't make any hollow promises or optimistic attempts, just rubbed my lower back and held my head close to his heart.
I didn't want to think about anything, I only wanted to go back to sleep and wake up pretending this night hadn't happened. I don't know when, but I must've fallen asleep propped against him. I vaguely remember him moving, and letting me lie down on the full length of the bench.
Even in a mostly asleep state, when I closed my eyes there was always him burned to the back of my eyelids.
"Hey!" Someone shouted, shaking me awake, roughly. "Come on, get up!"
I peeked through a slit of my eye. Bright yellow and pink meshed together in an ugly combination, and as I slowly blinked the sleep out of my eyes, Jubilee came into focus.
"Thought you were going to sleep there all day! Sheesh!" She dramatized her words by waving her arms around in mock anger. I think it was fake at least, who knows? "The Professor wants to see you out on the lawn."
I pushed myself into a sitting position, threw my legs over the side of the bench, and nodded in understanding. She mouthed off about something else, and then turned to leave. My stomach twisted in remembrance of what I saw last night. The horrible memory plagued me, Angel's wings bloody and nasty and I had wings now. I remembered ever detail clearly.
Was that the payment for being a mutant? To suffer while just trying to protect your home? This was giving me serious doubts about ever coming here, although at the time I had nowhere else to go, probably still didn't. Not to mention I wasn't really asked, more like just jumped on a plane and bam! Hello, welcome to Xavier's. Gah, I hate this.
I didn't even know what 'this' was. Whatever 'this' turned out to be, if this was only the beginning, then I didn't want to have anything to do with it! I wanted to go home! I wanted my family! I wanted to live! Was that so wrong? As I left the safety of the house, and took inventory of the destroyed lawn, I knew one thing for certain.
I wanted out.
