(A/N: This is probably not the place to say this, but the Decimation thing pisses me off. It's true there were way too many mutants, but cut the number in half, not by 90! Or even just make a rule against creating mutant characters outside of X-titles. Okay, I'm done.)
Was it true?
This thing they were calling the Decimation. Could it really be true?
Ninety percent of the world's mutants, suddenly powerless! If this was real, then Jack might be saved!
He quickly turned off the radio talk show he had been listening to and ran upstairs, brushing past his dad on the way up. His dad called out to him to be careful, but Jack just kept on barreling toward his room. He threw the door open and ran to the desk. Throwing open the drawer, he withdrew a pair of scissors, and stared at them.
He had accidentally cut himself with these scissors a year ago, and in the process discovered his mutant powers. It would be poetic justice if he now used them to reveal that his powers had suddenly disappeared…
Closing his eyes, he dragged the scissors across his arm.
He opened his eyes and stared at the wound. The blood was slowly pouring to the floor. So far so good.
But then it stopped.
The blood stopped coming. The pain disappeared. The edges of the wound closed in on each other until the skin rejoined into a tender scar, which promptly faded from view.
Jack stared at the unmarred flesh for a moment, then slowly began to cry.
Was it true?
This thing they were calling the Decimation. Could it really be true?
Ninety percent of the world's mutants, suddenly powerless! If this was real, then Nick might never speak to Claudine again!
He quickly turned off the television and closed his eyes, trying to make contact again. His mother called that it was time for dinner, but Nate just sat there with his eyes closed, searching for her voice, for her thoughts…
Nothing. There was nothing.
Nate slumped down into the couch. He had lost it all. He had lost the two things in life he cared about.
His powers…his telepathy…and Claudine…
Hello? Nate?
Nate shot upwards.
Claudine! Is that you?
Yes, Nate! What is wrong? I sense your sadness!
Nate breathed a sigh of relief and sat back down.
Nothing is wrong, Claudine, he thought to her. Not while I've still got you.
"Finally!" Cried Jack's father. "The damn muties are gone!"
Bill O'Reilly was on the television, and a huge smile was on Jack's father's face. O'Reilly was telling the world about how some mysterious phenomenon had rid the world of the "mutant menace." Jack's fat father was sitting on the couch in his wife-beater and jeans, as always. He would have been drunk, but he had run out of Bud last night, and hadn't yet gotten up the energy to leave the house. Jack was sitting next to him, trying his best to fake a smile.
"I tell you," said Jack's father, "My only regret is that it wasn't the Sentinels that did. Marvels of American engineering, those things are. It's too bad they didn't get the chance to incinerate every damn mutie! Especially that Miller bastard!" he took another swig of his root beer. Jack wasn't sure if his father was aware that the soda he was drinking wasn't actually beer.
"Dad, Miller's been dead for years."
"He didn't get a chance to really be punished. Them robots woulda blasted the bastard outta this world!"
Jack stopped smiling.
"Punished for what? Firing your drunk ass? Brian Miller was the best damn mechanic that garage ever had, Dad, and you were the worst!"
His father's eyes widened, but Jack went on.
"And I'm still convinced you were part of that mob! You had to be! It gets out that he's a mutant a week after he fires you and two days later an army of ignorant bastards leaves him swinging from a tree? And you claim you weren't involved? You're a damned liar!'
Jack's father stared at Jack for a long time, O'Reilly still blathering on on the TV.
"And you're a mutie-lovin', bleedin'-heart sack of shit!"
He smashed his bottle on the arm of the couch and swung with all his might. Jack tried to duck, but his father was to fast for him. The glass broke on impact, and Jack fell to the ground, bleeding from five different cuts on his face.
"You ain't gonna talk to me that way, boy!"
Jack kept cowering on the ground, bleeding from four different cuts on his face.
"From now on you're gonna respect me like you damn well should!"
Jack looked up at his father, then shielded his face, the three cuts pourin blood onto the couch. His father raised his arm again.
"I'm gonna—what the hell?"
Jack's two cuts continued to bleed, until there was only one. His father stared on in horror as the last cut disappeared. Jack felt the tears coming once more. He tried to plead with his father, but the words wouldn't come.
"Dad, please, I—I couldn't—I didn't want—Please—"
"Get outta my house, freak!"
The bottle came crashing down again as the sobbing Jack desperately made a run for the door. His father gave chase, screaming about the things he was going to do. Jack got to the door long before the fat man, who was out of breath. He put his hand on the knob—
No. He wouldn't let this bigot win.
His father had regained his wind and was running full speed at the boy, who had stopped in front of the door and turned to face him. The fat man screamed about mutie scum and lyin' boy and get outta this house. He caught up to Jack and lifted the bottle, then felt a sharp stabbing pain in his stomach. He dropped the bottle.
"What…what the—hurk!"
The pain stabbed further into him, up through his gut and into his chest. He felt a painful sensation in his heart.
"Goodbye, dad," said the teenage mutant, his face full of tears.
By the time James Knox was found on the floor of his Maplewood, New Jersey home with his stomach impaled and his heart ripped out, his son, Jack Knox, was nowhere to be found.