The bed was too cramped, the fabric itchy, the uneven quilt trapping pockets of hot air that nearly baked the person under it.
I threw off the covers, stumbling out to collapse in the chair next to the open windows. It was too hot. Sweltering. The heavy air pressing down, sweat appearing even when the temperature wasn't higher than 30 degrees.
I had known that this island was close to Australia, to the equator, had anticipated the fact that the climate would replicate the tropical rainforest.
I grinned, sliding open the windows, letting the cool wind swirl around me, drying the sweat.
I had never been to Australia. Tropical climates are technically a foreign idea.
But someone inside screamed that this was their childhood. She knew how to deal with this sweat, this heat, this humidity.
Calmly, I strode out of the room given to me (my name engraved on the door with Victor's nails) and walked throughout the multiple hallways to come upon Nick fanning himself in the wide lounge room.
It wasn't quite the lounge room that Amy was used to. Instead of wide chairs with fluffy cushions, all facing a certain point, this room was taken up by a huge, circular wooden table, with sturdy wooden chairs surrounding the table.
There were stacks of paper at nearly every chair, with one chunky, heavy typewriter at Nick's hands.
He slammed the paper to the side and began to angrily type, smashing down the delicate keys, the hammers hitting the paper with a loud thud.
I lean over, eyes easily finding the words, even in the darkness of sunrise. It's so hot, he types, I want to go back to Europe or Asia or America. After this, I want to go back to Canada. Maybe I can convince mum to take me to her old mansion.
"Not on your life, Nick," I remark, wincing when his skull smacks into my chin, pain pulsing once before it is healed.
"Fucking hell mum," he grumbles, rubbing the top of his head. "That hurt. When did you come out?"
"Just now. I don't want to return to that place and I have no intention of telling you the address. If it wasn't for Stark, the place should've already been razed to the ground or at least sold." I pat the top of Nick's head and rest my hands on the typewriter.
I had asked if you wanted to follow me. I told you Australia is hot. You could've gone off with Victor, or by yourself, you're over sixty now.
Nick smacked my hands away, sliding the paper to the left.
I can't go out by myself; everyone thinks I'm my physical age! Besides, I do like it here, but it's so hot!
"Come with me," I say, gently sliding my arm around his shoulders when he stands up.
I lead him out of the house, a building created to be the centre of the new mutant town, great big windows letting in the sun and the wind, gorgeous carvings on nearly every surface, a bygone of the Victorian age, courtesy of Gerrant.
There were a few mutants littering the direction I took Nick, up because of insomnia or because of their mutation. We passed an old owl squatting on a fence, big eyes following our path.
Just beyond the last rows of buildings was the forest, completely unlike the usual forests of Europe and Britain. Nick scowled, taking in the sparse trees and the low shrubbery.
It was easy to spot the difference between Australian coastal forests and European.
European's forests were dense with trees, trunks thicker than Victor, and great big roots tearing up the earth. Australian native trees were mostly the size of my thigh and barely had any good climbing notches; the roots were centred around the base of the trunk and disappeared barely twenty centimetres from the tree. In between trees were little bushes of shrubs and weeds, leaves barely gracing the inner branches. Sometimes, orange termite mounds rose from the ground, great big things that scored height bigger than mine. The trees were a light brown colour, their leaves a bright, dry green, mostly brown. The bushes didn't even bother to colour their leaves; the colour wasn't as rich as the leaves, more a yellow than a brown. All in all, Australia's native plants together gave off the feeling of dry.
But there was also something else.
"Listen, Nick," I whisper, squatting to sit on a rock. "The breathy wind rustles the leaves just barely, creating a crescendo before you know it. The leaves a little instruments and the breeze is the musician, and the outback is the native orchestra. Sometimes you can tell it's just wind in between the leaves, and sometimes all that comes to mind is rain. It's beautiful. It's Australia."
Nick gingerly sits down, trying to fan himself. He stills as a great gush of wind flies through the trees, the rich sound of rustling leaves filling his mind.
"It's better," he agrees quietly.
"See, this is why Australia is my favourite place in the world."
"Yes," is all Nick says, and he doesn't say another word until the sun rises.
The owl from earlier joins us, spooky eyes trained on us. He leaves when the first rays of the sun touch the topmost branches, disappearing back to the town.
Nick leads me back, mumbling about the paperwork. When we get back, he pauses for a slight moment before tearing off the piece of paper he had just written on hours before and throws it in the bin.
I take a seat at the table, looking over the pages set around the seat I had taken the day before. Multiple people come in and out, taking a moment of my time to talk about trifle things about the town. Word came in around 8 am that a construction accident had happened, but it was all fine by 9 thanks to bystander mutants. Someone mentioned a statue of me and of the mutants who created LYALL, but that was shot down by me and Victor. Gerrant also looked a bit iffy on the subject as well.
Sometime around midday, Nick approached me, dark bags under his eyes from his lack of sleep over the past few days.
"I want to leave," he says.
"Ok. Go on then," I say. "May I ask where?"
"I meant," Nick says, frustration bleeding through his voice. "Leave. On a ship. To South America or something."
"And I meant," I reply dryly, "There is nothing holding you back. How long do you think you'll be gone?"
Nick stops and blinks. He had obviously thought that I was ready to keep him here.
"I - I don't know. A few years? Maybe decades?"
"Ok," I say, leafing through the pages. "To be honest, I thought you would've left us when you turned twenty or thirty. I don't know why you stuck around for so long."
Nick stared. He turned around and left, footsteps heavy and fists clenched.
"Lyall," Gerrant says, lightly dragging out the seat next to me and sitting down, bones hitting the wood with a dull thud. "Nick's leaving for Mexico."
"I know," I say, writing down a few guides and rules for the establishment of a school. "He told me."
Gerrant paused.
"…You're not going after him?"
"He's over sixty years old Gerrant," I raise an eyebrow at him. "I told him that I thought he would've left us when he was an adult."
Gerrant sighed and shook his head.
"Never mind Lyall," he grunts and pats my shoulder. "Just keep on going with the paperwork. What do you think about socialism?"
I pause, turning to look him in the eye socket. Was I missing something? Pausingly, I reply with honesty, trying to think of anything that had flown under my radar.
Sighing, I sign off the last paper, gently putting the pen down on the desk. With a second thought, I pick it up and throw it into the bin across the room, the pen hitting the wall before landing in the bin.
"Come on Victor," I say, storming into his room. "We're leaving. I've done the last of the paperwork." I pick up the bag I had thrown together last night when I had realised that the avalanche of paperwork was coming to a close.
"I've already got a plane ready, we just need to fly."
Victor grins, simply peeling himself off the floor where he had laid before like a cat. He doesn't bother with gathering clothes and taking trinkets with him, although I knew that his favourite coat was stuffed full of various foods.
It was the middle of the night, so once again, nobody but a few night crawlers saw us leave. The owl again swooped by, intelligent eyes following us.
"Pesky bird." Victor grunts. "Can I eat it?"
"No, I'm pretty sure that's a mutant," Victor grumbles, sliding the aeroplane shed door open. We drag out the plane by sheer force, Victor dragging out the flight gear and I running through the pre-flight sequence.
The owl sat on one of the fences, staring as I shrug on the thick flight jacket and clip on the helmet, dragging the goggles down to place them over my eyes. I walk over to lean against the fence, only a metre from where it sat. Strangely, it did not fly away.
"Hey, I don't know if you're a mutant, but please don't tell everyone we've gone yet." A loud bang sounds from the shed, followed by a loud curse from Victor. I wince. "See ya. Maybe I'll see you again."
The plane's existence wasn't known to many; I had it shipped silently over to Australia, all funds coming from the Howlett fortune. That pile of gold had been taken under Stark's name so nobody could claim that the past owner was dead, although the Starks had kept that fortune separate from their own, and had carefully grown the account to scary levels.
Breathing in, and then out, I hitch myself over the top of the plane, settling into the main pilot seat, slightly turned to watch Victor squeeze himself into the backseat. He had turned down my offer to fly, stating my seat was smaller than the one he had chosen.
"You ready to fly?" I ask, practically quoting the words that came out of his mouth.
"I was ready since we landed."
I roll my eyes and start the plane, feeling it lurch forward, rolling down the tarmac. For a split second, I cast a glance towards where the owl was, only to find that the patch was bare.
Shrugging, I focus on righting the plane and starting the post-lift-off sequence.