DISCLAIMER: I do not own anyone except for Tori. I do not own the places either. I just own Tori.
The man led her through a complex path in the surrounding woods; Tori knew that she would never have been able to maneuver through the woods like this without his help. After what seemed like one of the longest hikes Tori had ever been on the man finally spoke.
"There it is." He smiled as he looked at a mountain.
"How do we get in?" Tori asked.
"Watch." the man said.
The man jogged ahead and put a hand on the mountain. He felt around for a moment until he finally found a spot that was made of plastic. Tori approached with caution. When she reached him she stopped and looked around as if she were afraid something was going to come after her.
"Don't worry." The man said. "Nothing's going to hurt you out here."
"I'm not too sure of that." Tori answered.
The man turned his head away so that Tori couldn't see the small smirk that had formed on his face.
"Would you like to do the honor?" The man asked.
"Honor of what?" Tori asked.
"Opening the door. This panel slides up if you push on it. Underneath is a keypad. The code should be 77000." The man said.
"What if the water damaged the system?" Tori asked skeptically.
"It shouldn't have. Each system should be separated in case of an emergency like that." The man said.
"How do you know all this?" Tori asked.
"I stumbled upon it by mistake. See, I was hiking once and a bear was chasing me. It cornered me here and I somehow hit this panel and exposed the keypad. The code was a bit tricky, but thanks to TV I tried out one of those cheesy tricks and got the code. After I scared off the bear of course." He explained.
"Uh-huh." Tori said.
She didn't know if she trusted him just yet, but she did as he had said. Sure enough the panel slid up when she pushed on it and a keypad did pop out; she entered the code the man had told her. A sound of pops, clicking, and grinding gears filled the air. The side opened a small bit, just big enough for a thin person to squeeze through sideways.
"I guess the water had damaged it a little. It should have opened more than that. Ah well, we can fit if we squeeze. Come on follow me." The man disappeared into the mountain.
That wasn't the only thing that disappeared, however, if Tori had been observant and looked around before following the man into the mountain she would have noticed something pretty bizarre; in the snow there were now only one set of footprints instead of two.
She walked into the mountain and found herself in a room lit by very few dim lights. The room was mostly in shadow except for the few spots directly under the light. About a foot of water covered the floor and was rushing to get out of the gap in the wall. The water was freezing and Tori began to shiver.
"Hello?" She called. "J-Jason?"
No one answered.
"Jason! This isn't funny! Where are you, you asshole?" She yelled into the air.
"I'm over here!" Answered his voice. "I slipped! I can't get up."
She couldn't see him so she followed the sound of his voice. She called him again and when he answered it sounded like he was calling from another room.
'How the fuck did he end up out of the room?' she wondered.
She walked out of the room and followed the sound of his voice. She started looking in all the rooms she passed on her way down the hall. The water level out in the hallway was higher than the water level in the room she had started in. The water seemed colder as well.
"Hello? Jason?" She called, but received no answer.
She poked her head into another dimly lit room and saw hoards of surgical equipment spread out on a table. The déjà vu feeling came flooding back and it scared her.
"What the hell is going on dammit?" she said.
She walked out of the room and to the end of the hallway. She was faced with a fork and the decision to either go left or right. The feeling of déjà vu told her that she should go left. She walked into the next hallway and called for Jason again; she received no answer.
Halfway through this hallway she heard a sound. It was a strange kind of cracking and popping sound. Without warning the floor below her feet gave out. She fell through the floor and the water poured down with her. She screamed until she landed in a huge pool of water. She started swimming toward the surface as fast as she could. Once her head broke the water she inhaled deeply. She looked around and saw a platform just like the one the girl had been standing on. On the end facing her there was a large concrete block where part of the ceiling had caved in.
She swam to the side of it and pulled herself out of the water and onto the platform. When she got up and sat against the rock and closed her eyes causing herself to be completely oblivious to the man in the wheelchair three feet in front of her.
"Now we're both stuck." It was the little girl's voice again.
Tori opened her eyes and saw the little girl standing a few feet in front of her near another giant piece of ceiling.
"Okay, what the fuck is going on?" Tori yelled.
"Is that any kind of language to use in the presence of a little girl?" The girl remarked.
"I don't give a shit. You're not real. Something's going on. Someone is fucking with my mind. I'm probably not even here right now! I'm probably still in Pennsylvania!" Tori yelled. Enough was enough. She was done fighting.
The girl disappeared and in her place was the little boy.
"I thought you promised not to hurt me. All that yelling hurt my feelings." He said then disappeared.
The hiker who helped her get into the mountain appeared in the boys place.
"You need to help me. I'm stuck, I can't move!" He yelled then he too disappeared.
In his place was the thin man in the hospital gown with the scar on his head.
"I told you you couldn't trust me." He smirked before disappearing.
There was no one in front of her now but a memory of something came flooding back. That last man who just appeared to her she hadn't recognized but now she had. She remembered seeing him in the hall before she found the crying boy. She remembered all of it now.
"WHO ARE YOU?" She yelled as loud as she could. "Jason Stryker? If that's even your real name….Who the fuck are you!"
In front of her now was a man in a wheelchair. He looked exactly like the Jason Stryker she had encountered in the hallway only he was sitting, didn't move, and was hooked up to some strange devices.
The man said nothing; he simply stared at her.
Suddenly his image was replaced by that of the man Jason Stryker who Tori had encountered in the hall.
"That man in the wheelchair is you." Tori stated.
"Yes." He answered. "My name is Jason Stryker. I wasn't lying about that. I also wasn't lying about the fact that I am stuck here. I needed to get you to care enough to come get me so I showed you a little girl but you were stubborn even then. I had to get you in here somehow."
"How am I supposed to help you when I'm not sure what's real?" Tori spat.
"This is real. Well, almost. I'm stuck in a goddamn wheelchair in front of you right now instead of standing here talking to you. That's the only thing I'm making you see differently." He explained.
"Then why don't you knock this shit off and talk to me the way you really are?" Tori said with a little too harsh of an attitude.
"I can't." He said. "I wasn't lying when I said I was brought here to die. I wasn't lying when I said my father did succeed in killing me. I don't count sitting in a vegetative state in a wheelchair, needing the assistance of a machine to breathe, not being able to speak, and not being able to function normally living, Tori Cerra. Do you?" The question was rhetorical.
"What did he do to you?" Tori asked quietly.
"Lobotomy." Jason stated. His face twisted into an ugly sneer. "My father loved me so much."
The sarcasm in that one statement was so great it caused Tori to feel more than a little bad for this man in front of her. However, she was still angry. For some reason, though, she couldn't bring herself to show it anymore. She was tired and just wanted to get the both of them out of there.
"Why?" Tori whispered.
"I killed my mother. Drove her insane. She couldn't remember what reality was anymore. I wouldn't let her. She tried to get the images out herself with a power drill. I didn't care. It was her and my father's fault I'm like this. It's their fault I can't be cured. They sent me away to get help from a man who taught mutants like me. His name's Professor Charles Xavier, most powerful mind on the planet they say, but he was more afraid of me than my parents were. I could mess with even his mind. That scared him. I know it did." Jason smirked. "I tried to be good. I tried to control it. It's hard you know. Having everyone being afraid of me and not trusting me sure didn't help at all though. But you wouldn't know what that's like."
"Not completely. But I do know it is hard to control sometimes." She said.
Jason just stared at her.
"I can project images into people's heads. I can make them see whatever I want them to see. They only resemble memories and thoughts though, almost like photographs, I guess. I can't make them feel or hear things or believe they're doing something like you can." she explained.
Jason smiled. "Finally someone who isn't completely oblivious to how I feel!" His smile faded and he was silent for a moment. A look formed in his mismatched eyes that Tori couldn't exactly put a feeling to. It looked pained and as if he was deeply troubled. It worried her a bit to see this suddenly drastic change in him.
Jason stopped the illusion and now Tori was facing Jason's real form. He looked at her and she smiled, finally happy to know the truth, and know that this wasn't just another illusion that would leave her opening her eyes in a different location every few minutes.
"Thank you for getting out of my head." Tori said.
