An Angel of Shadow
"Who is she? Where did she come from?" I struggled to keep consciousness when the voice echoed painfully in my head. Pain, well, at least I'm alive.
"We don't know. Her driver's license expired four years ago, and I don't think it's even hers." The voice reverberated inside my head just as painfully.
"Where did she come from?" There was that excruciatingly deep voice again. I labored to open my eyes, but the left one was swollen and the other caked with blood.
"We found her lying beneath a train." The owner of the voice, who was probably the doctor, was right next to me.
"So why not just dump her at the local hospital?" I was in agreement with the guy with the deep voice.
"Because she materialized out of no where." Oh crap. What had happened? I racked my brain for memories, but my mind was one of the few objects I couldn't control. Go figure.
Then I remembered. Darlene – no, The Mistress of Darkness - had chased me into the shadow realm and beaten me into the state I was currently in. I'd probably be nothing other than a bloody smear in the train tracks if a couple of people in black leather hadn't come to my rescue. Great, not only was I the Damsel in Distress, but I had sunk so low that I had to depend on a freak show in form-fitting outfits.
I concentrated despite wanting to fall back into the dark abyss and willed my cuts and bruises to heal. The female spectator jumped in surprise, while her companion did nothing but laugh at his friend's surprise. "Really, Jean, you'd think you'd never seen a mutant before."
Mutants? Where was I? Well, I thought to myself, only one way to find out. Despite a serious longing to disappear again I stood up, blinked hard, and finally surveyed my two guards. The female was tall, or taller than me, and considerably clean. She looked like the type of girl who sent men over bridges when she said no. Her comrade was a taller male (I didn't know if either if them would be offended by the term 'human'), about six foot three-ish with big brown sideburns and hair that stood tall on either side of his head and dipped in the middle. I couldn't stand it anymore. Seeing this normal-looking woman and this side attraction from the circus was just too much. I began to laugh. Not a normal laugh, where you start out small and get louder, I just began to flat out scream in mirth.
"Great, she's snapped." The guy with the funny sideburns looked exasperated at his fellow.
I finally stopped clutching my side in laughter and wiped a tear form my face. "No, I'm not crazy. You might want to get your hair dresser checked, though."
This guy had obviously heard one hair-joke too many and stuck his knuckles in my face. But his knuckles had these bizarre metal razors sticking out of them. Most people would have cracked, and I know a few who would start to cry, but I just grinned and slipped back into the shadow realm. I was just going to leave, right then and there, but the room was air tight, and unfortunately I wasn't able to go through walls. Instead I snuck up behind the macho man and stuck my hands back into the light realm.
"Logan! Watch out!" Too late. I swept the poor sap's feet out from under him before he could respond to his partner's warning. He got up and dove at me, but because he couldn't cross into the shadow world he hit the floor at full force.
This was pretty entertaining. I went up to the ceiling and listened to the brute shout curses and threats at me for awhile, but soon I got bored and stood on the ceiling. That's the nice thing about being able to bend the laws of physics, you can just ignore gravity.
The freak saw me and dived at the ceiling. He missed. "Well, I give you a nine for the dive, but you get a two for the landing." This got a smile out of the doctor who had been watching with as much entertainment as I had. I had a feeling we might be able to get along.
"You're pretty brave up there on the ceiling, coward. Come down here and we'll see how brave you really are." He was finally standing still as he shook his fist at me.
I just ignored his comment and jumped and came back to his level. "Please, like I really need to prove myself to you." He swung at me anyway. However, at this point in my story I'd already put up with bigger jerks than him and ducked. He was balanced, but had put so much weight into the punch that his few seconds of recovery were all I needed. I punched back and none to lightly. He went sprawling across the infirmary floor with the impact. I could have further demonstrated my point, and in any other situation I would have, but instead I left him be. I don't know why, but I did it all the same.
"Now that you've finished terrorizing Logan, would you mind coming with me? Professor Xavier wants to talk with you." This came from the doctor. She was calm enough, but I could sense her unease.
Logan, if that was indeed his name, was standing now and rubbing his jaw in a defeated manner. He probably would have continued the fight, but I was already following the doctor out the door.