INTERLUDE: AWAKENING
The dreams were there again,and in those dreams, she saw two men die by her hands. And then she saw herself die. She felt an incredible pain inside her and knew that she wasn't finished dying yet.
There was a pinpoint of light. She willed herself to turn towards it. And then she ran, ran for her life, ran, knowing that she was dying and she didn't want to die...
The light engulfed her. And then everything went away and she thought: I died anyway.
The woman opened her eyes, blinking when the lights hit her. It took a while for her to get her bearings but, when she looked around, she knew she was in a hospital or maybe a laboratory. She was lying in a bed of some kind, in a fairly spacious room with a high ceiling. Lights and other strange looking machines were mounted on the ceiling.
She tried to get up but couldn't; that was when she saw the restraints holding her down. Why was she in restraints?
Maybe, her mind told her, it was because of the two people she'd killed. She was in prison, not a hospital...
No, I'm not a killer! she said to herself. I won't be held in prison!
"Ah, you're awake." She looked to her left. There was a man standing there, dressed in a white coat. He looked like a doctor so she must be in a hospital, not a prison.
The man took something from a table beside him. He approached her, talking to her in soothing tones, and she was starting to feel relaxed when she got a much closer look at what he had in his hand.
It was a gun and he was loading it with something that her mind told her looked very much like a bullet.
"No! Stay away from me!" the woman cried out. "You're not going to kill me!" Fear and fury collided inside her and she found herself pulling against her restraints. The man continued to approach her, still trying to get her to calm down, to relax, telling her that he wasn't going to hurt her.
She didn't believe him. "STAY AWAY FROM ME!"
The restraints gave way and she found herself able to get off the bed. She ran for the door but it was locked—one of those touch-pad locks with a numerical combination as backup. She turned, facing the man, her back to the door.
'I'm warning you," she told him, "don't come any closer." Maybe if they thought she was a killer, she could frighten this man by behaving like one.
The man came closer.
'I don't want to kill you but I will if I have to," she said to him, wondering how exactly she was going to make that threat a reality.
The man was almost within arm's length of her.
"I SAID I'D KILL YOU AND I WILL!" All of a sudden, a coldness came over the woman, as if she'd been plunged into dark water. Her rage blinded her to everything except the man coming towards her with a gun. She focused her rage right at him, getting ready to attack the man like a wild animal who'd been cornered and forced to fight for its life.
That was when the man suddenly floated into the air before her. She watched as he was suspended as if on wires in front of her. And then she realized that she was doing it to him; her rage had given her some kind of power that she didn't realize she had.
The two men in her dreams, both of them had been suspended in mid-air like this one, suspended by her rage, and with her rage, she tore them apart.
Those two men must also have been trying to hurt her, she realized. Well, she wouldn't let this one hurt her.
Her rage arrowed towards the man in floating in front of her. He reacted as if she had thrown something tangible at him. He let out a cry of pain, a cry that stretched out in agony as she saw him being ripped apart, being disintegrated...
She stood there and watched in horror as her rage reduced the man into something like ashes, small pieces that were once a human being that scattered around the room and fluttered down to the floor.
The woman dropped to her knees, unwilling to believe what had just happened.
She was a killer. She had killed those two other men—it was no dream. And she'd killed this man too. Tears began to run down her face as she came to grips with that truth.
She was a killer. And now she had to get out of this place, wherever she was, before others came for her. She got up and went to the door. She tried to get the lock to open, tried punching in the combination on the keypad, tried putting her hand on the touch pad. Nothing worked; the lock remained secure.
"Impressive..."
Another voice—softer but more menacing. There was another person in the room with her. The doctor she'd killed hadn't been alone.
"You're as powerful as I thought you'd be," the voice said to her. "With power like that, you needn't be afraid of anything, least of all me."
Against her better judgment, the woman turned. When she saw who it was that was speaking to her, she screamed.
It was the doctor. He was alive and his body was whole—except that he was changing. His form was becoming something still human in shape—but his skin was turning a deathly pale, almost white. There was a red diamond on his forehead, underneath a head of jet-black hair. His eyes were dark red and his teeth were the fangs of a vampire. His white coat and slacks were replaced by dark blue armor of some kind. He had what might have been a cape on his back the same color as his armor shot with a deep crimson.
"Come now, my child, don't be afraid," the thing that had once been the doctor said to her. "I'm not going to hurt you." He held out his hand to her.
"Who are you?" the woman asked.
"Don't you remember who I am?" the thing asked.
"No..."
"Not even your name?"
The woman tried to recall her name but failed.
"You are Madelyne Pryor," the thing told her. "You were in an accident and I brought you here to my private hospital." The thing changed back into the form of the doctor that she thought she'd killed. "I am Dr. Robert Windsor. Please, allow me to help you."
"How did you do that?" the woman called Madelyne Pryor asked. "How did you…change your shape...?"
"I'll explain it to you in time, Madelyne," Dr. Windsor said. "For now you must rest. You were badly injured in that accident you suffered—you were almost dead, in fact."
'I killed you," Madelyne Pryor said.
"No, you didn't," Dr. Windsor assured her. "Please, Madelyne—if you don't rest, your injuries won't heal."
Madelyne Pryor felt a burning pain coming from her stomach. She reached under her hospital gown and felt scars there.
"You got those scars from your accident," Dr. Windsor told her. "You also had internal injuries. I hope you understand that you need to rest right now so that you can continue healing." His voice was soothing, it was almost hypnotic. Madelyne Pryor soon found that she was unable to resist. She tottered and fell—but the doctor caught her. He carried her to her bed and lay her down.
"The restraints," she whispered as she began slipping into unconsciousness, "please...don't put them back on..."
"I won't. Rest now." He brushed her hair back from her brow and smiled at her reassuringly. She finally gave in and shut her eyes.
Dr. Robert Windsor left the room after making sure that his patient was comfortable. He was met outside by a strikingly beautiful woman with blond hair. Her clothes were all uniformly white, like a nurse or an assistant at the hospital.
"She's asleep now," Dr. Windsor told the woman in the hallway.
'She retained her powers?" the woman asked.
"Yes," Dr. Windsor replied.
"What about Summers?"
"As soon as his vital signs are at one hundred percent, Ms. Frost," Dr. Windsor told her, "you can have him for a while…at least until I need him again."
"What do you need him and Grey for anyway?" the woman known as Emma Frost asked.
"That, Ms. Frost," Dr. Windsor replied, "is for me to know. Come—let's go see how your new plaything is doing, shall we?"