When Brennan woke up, he felt worse than ever. He was damp and very cold. He clutched at his side where the bullet had ripped into him. It had left a large tear in his side. He couldn't understand what had happened or where he was. He looked at his left hand and wiped the blood off of it to see if his ring was there. It wasn't. Why would they have removed his ring and not governed him? He had no idea what time it was. They seemed to have taken his watch as well. "Fuck You!!!" he cried out in frustration. "Who the fuck are you? Let me out of this God damn hole, you coward, and face me!" He was desperate. The pain and the cold were almost too much for him to bear and he knew that he would die soon if something didn't change. Just then a light came in from above nearly blinding Brennan. Draper had opened the door at the top of the chamber. Brennan watched a shadow peer in.
"My, my now, it isn't nice to swear like that you little fuck." Draper spat. "Let's see if you can recognize my voice. It should be very familiar to you. I was with you when you were young, Brennan. At your darkest moments as a youth, I was there … making them worse. Just as I am here in your final moments making them worse." Draper laughed then and Brennan suddenly flashed back deep into the recesses of his memory where he had buried his childhood.
He remembered that shadow now. The small cell they used to put him in. It was wet, too. Just like this one. They were always afraid of his powers so his room was made of rubber and concrete and always wet. He couldn't remember how many times he had nearly died from pneumonia. The doctor who tested him was called Draper. Brennan remembered him. He was heartless, a sociopath by no other word. He didn't care how much he hurt him or any of the other subjects. In fact, he enjoyed watching their pain. Brennan thought that he actually saw him smiling as he watched Brennan scream in pain from the experiments. Brennan wanted to kill the pervert then. He used to dream of how he would. It was those dreams of justice that kept him alive in the chamber when he was young.
When he finally did get his chance, he was nearly11 years old. Brennan rarely failed at anything he attempted, and he didn't fail then, either. He put Eckart down that day as well. Damn near killed him, too. He would have if it weren't for the one scientist who had worked with Mason. Brennan later found out his name, Adam. He was the only one who ever showed him compassion. He actually cured him when he was ill and comforted him when he could. Brennan remembered the last time he had seen Draper. The method was simple. Brennan played dead on the floor of his chamber. Draper got a little too close. He was going to govern him again to transport him to the lab; Brennan grabbed the short little piss and choked him down. As Draper woke up, Brennan took great joy in electrifying the water he was lying in and killed Draper where he lay. He waited until the spasms stopped and he'd breathed his last breath. Then, Brennan ran.
God, that was over ten years ago. There was no way he was standing here looking at him. "NO WAY! I killed Draper, I watched him die!" Brennan cried as loud as he was able. His pain was severe. He realized that he must have been thrown into the chamber. Some of his bones were broken for certain.
Draper cackled a very familiar laugh at Brennan's anguish and mocked him. "Guess again you little fuck. I dreamed of this day for a very long time. You thought you were stronger than me ... smarter. Well you weren't then and you aren't now. You see, do you really think that we only experimented on you pathetic little maggots? Do you really think that? We were experimenting on ourselves the whole time as well. We used you as guinea pigs to find ways to modify us. We saw your powers and wanted them for ourselves. You see, Brennan, I am an elemental as well. Only I am able to control energy... like the energy in my heart to control my sinus rhythms, Brennan. I revived myself after your pathetic attempt to kill me. And the small voltage required in your communication links with Adam," Brennan cringed as he heard Adam's voice come out of a little speaker Draper had with him. "It was so much fun watching you at the pier...how confused you were. Hearing the fear in Adam's voice was icing on my cake. Now, I get to play with you a little more. The time is getting close where elements meet elements, a clash of the titans shall I say, for the tide is comin' in."
At that, Brennan heard a roaring noise coming from the shadows of the chamber. The entire room seemed to shake and then a large amount of water began spilling from somewhere above. Very cold water. Brennan felt as though he would be sick. "You sadistic bastard!" Brennan cried out as the force of the water pressed him to the floor of the chamber. His side was on fire and he was so weak. He finally remembered the implant Adam had given him and had hope again. Even if he couldn't hear them maybe they could hear him. He had to warn Adam that it was Draper. Draper was insane. God knows what he had invented in the past ten years.
"Adam," Brennan choked, holding his implanted arm up to his mouth. "Adam, if you can hear me, it's Draper. He has me in a cellar of some sort. I think it must somehow connect with the ocean because the tide is coming in. Adam, I think he's going to kill me and I know he wants to kill you." Just then, the door from above closed again and Brennan was engulfed in darkness. It was soothing in a way. He wasn't kidding about feeling like he was about to die. He really felt like it. He was incredibly dizzy and extremely tired. He was fairly certain the fall had done some skeletal damage especially around his lungs because breathing was becoming a chore. He was still losing blood but he had no idea how much. The water had mixed with it.
"God, he's going to drown me." Brennan kept talking aloud now, trying to keep himself awake. The water was at least a foot deep in the chamber and if he passed out now, he would surely drown. "I gotta get out of here. If I can only just keep treading water. Maybe it will get deep enough to float me up to wherever it is coming in at. Maybe I can get out." Every time he moved he thought he would pass out. The pain from the bullet wound was unbearable. "God, what did he shoot me with?" Brennan thought. To still his budding panic, he began to scan the sides of the concrete walls. It was difficult to see because it was so dark, but his eyes had gotten used to the darkness somewhat, and he was beginning to see shapes. He thought he saw a rather large alcove in the wall where the water appeared to be coming out of. Brennan kept his focus on that. He was treading water now. He could not touch the bottom and he was beginning to float up. The alcove was only about 3 feet above his head now. He figured that if he could not swim into it as the water rose, he might be able to get into it as it receded. But then, what if it didn't recede? Brennan thought. Why was the water getting so deep? What if this is some type of holding tank? No, he couldn't think about that. He would get out. Whatever this chamber was it would not be his tomb. But, God, he was cold.
As Brennan was struggling to tread water, he realized that he was beginning to go under it. He was so weak and all of his extremities were numb. He was going to sleep. "Maybe that is not such a bad way to go," Brennan said to himself. He closed his eyes and thought of Sanctuary and Adam and the rest of the team. Water was seeping into his ears, his nose, his mouth, his lungs. He gagged on filthy water with every breath he tried to take in. And with each surge he took to breathe, he sunk further and further under the water. The water didn't seem as cold inside his mouth as it seemed on the outside of his body. He was out of breath and needed to take one but didn't have the strength to swim up to the top. He decided to just breathe it in the rest of the way and it would all be over then. No more pain, no more fear, no more fighting, no more anything. The cold had finally won. He was in severe shock from loss of blood volume, and hypothermia had set deep within his body. Brennan was no longer thinking clearly. Death would come easily and Brennan's short, tortured life would end in a watery grave.
He was on the bottom of the chamber when he heard Emma scream at him. "Brennan!" Brennan saw Emma in his minds eye and saw her reach for him through the water. "Come on Brennan! Come on. You can't leave me here. I love you. We all do and we need you. Get mad, Brennan, don't give up. We are coming!"
With that, Brennan was startled back to reality. The water didn't feel good in his mouth or lungs; in fact, it hurt. And he didn't want to just die. He wanted to live. He had to live, for Emma, for everyone on the team, for himself … for all of the New Mutants that Draper and Eckert tortured…to finally kill the lunatic that put him here. It took every bit of strength he had but he managed to swim to the top and choked in a breath of air.