I opened my eyes to the ceiling I had come to know in the past week or so. Due to my injuries and age, the Professor had decided to make an exception and give me a single dorm. It was small, but at the same time it was larger than I was used to. It had a single bed, a dresser, a desk and a bookcase. In front of the desk was a computer chair. On one wall was a fair sized closet. It was all pretty empty, except the plain clothes that Henry had gotten me.
My torso was hurting like a bitch, but at least it was healing fairly quickly. Henry told me that in another two weeks, my ribs would be strong enough to not need the brace.
Today was the day I was to start going back to class. I had a pretty full day and I had an appointment with Henry to go over what he could tell was my mutations, aside from the glowing and the spikes and the horns. I sighed as I looked out the window to watch the other students. Some were kind of obvious, like the one girl with violently pink hair and a pink skin, but others looked like the kids I had grown up with, just everyday people with gifts.
I shoved some paper and some pens into a bag. The office supplies had already been in my room when I got here. I shrugged the bag over my shoulder and took a deep breath in. Bracing myself to facing the people, I left my room and headed for my first class.
It was with someone named Jean Summers. I overheard that she was married to Scott Summers, the shop teacher. She taught English and some other minor courses. I was in her English class.
I found her room just as the second bell rang and I slipped into the room, sitting at the very back. I caught a few curious looks shot my way, but I ignored them, just trying to shrink into my seat.
However, Jean paused at the end of roll call and her eyes searched the room. They rested on me. She smiled and I could almost see her about to introduce me. "Everyone, I would like you to meet Alex SaDiablo. She arrived a few days ago. Please help to make this feel like home." I saw her lose her intense gaze and she had the same look Emma did when she had been trying to read me. She lost it quickly and smiled. "You know how hard it was to leave your families, so try to help her adjust to our way of doing things." She took out a book and so did everyone else. I looked awkwardly around and when I didn't see any obvious spare books, I raised my hand.
"Mrs Summers…" I began and she waved her hand. A book levitated near her hand and shot out to me. "Thank you." It was the new collection of modern poetry by some guy I'd never heard of. I flipped to the page they were working on and took down notes on what everyone spoke about.
I noticed over the course of the class people shot me looks and I wanted to cry. I didn't, but they were the same looks I had first gotten from my last school and they ended up hating me without knowing I was a mutant.
I was surprised when Mrs Summers herself dismissed us, rather than a bell like all the other schools seemed to do. Most of the people shot out the door immediately and a few stayed to ask questions. I remained seated so I could finish the line of thought I had.
A shadow appeared over my paper and I looked up into Mrs Summers friendly eyes. She smiled and waited until the class emptied before she spoke.
"How you holding up?" She asked. I stared her straight in the eyes and opened my mouth to reply what I always said.
"Good." It was a blatant lie, but I had lots of practice with it. No one but a telepath could tell it was a lie and apparently being what they called a dreamwalker had forced me to create rather unique shielding, so the telepaths weren't able to find my mind.
"Any problems?" she asked. She reminded me of Mom when we had just moved to Canada.
"No, no problems." Yet. It was just a matter of time before it would start. I hadn't let on to Mom that they had picked on me, I wasn't about to start now. Not that they were yet, but it would come. It always did.
She frowned and looked me over, examining my face for any trace of a lie. Finally she sighed and a small smile lit up her face. It was rather pretty. "You'd better get to your next class, you don't want to be late to Emma's class." I shrugged. I doubted it would be too bad. There wasn't anything they could take from me and I didn't mind extra work.
Emma's room wasn't far from Jean's room. I slipped in quietly and took a seat near the window. There was a set of quintuplets, all blonde haired girls, a lanky guy who leaned back in his seat, a short guy with glasses reading a book, and a girl with brown hair idly tapping on the desk. There looked like one, maybe two other students would join us, if the gaps in the seating said anything.
"Here I am! No need to be bored people! Here I am to entertain you!" I swore softly under my breath. A class clown and he proved it by juggling three fruit the other students tossed him. Suddenly everyone straightened and the clown sat down, tucking the fruit into his bag. Everything was quiet when Emma strode through the door. She gave a firm look to the room.
"I recall telling the class that there was to be no more juggling before I arrive." She stated. The clown blushed.
"Sorry Ms. Frost, it won't happen again." He mumbled. She stared at him and nodded. She didn't bother with roll call. The class was silent and so was she, but there was an air to the room that made it seem like a conversation or a lesson was going on. When I couldn't hear anything after another few minutes, I raised my hand. It drew Emma's gaze to me.
It looked like she had said something but I still couldn't pick it up.
"I can't hear any of you." I muttered. The girls in the class giggled and one of the guys tried his best not to snort, but didn't quite succeed. I lowered my hand and crossed my arms defensively.
Emma let her eyes roam the room until everyone was silent again. When she spoke, she spoke aloud.
"This class is for telepathy, all kinds of telepathy. Any disregard for other students' shortcomings will not be tolerated." Emma turned her eyes to me. "Your kind of telepathy isn't that common. I apologize for forgetting its limitations."
One of the quints raised her hand and glanced at me. "What is her power?" Emma shot me an inquiring look and I shrugged. I didn't care if they knew.
"She is something called a dreamwalker. It's a very rare form of telepathy. Has anyone heard of it before?" the guy with the glasses raised his hand.
"It's when the person can invite people into their dreams." He said.
"No, it isn't. Usually the dreamwalker can't get the person's permission to do anything, so it's more like just dragging them in. Not only can they bring other people into their dreams, they can slip into others dreams. They can control any dream, regardless if it's their own or not. They can even control daydreams." Emma corrected.
"Why can't she hear us?" the clown said. I sighed. I really wish I knew their names.
"Because of the nature of her ability, she developed a unique shielding which blocks out any form of telepathic communication. Developing this shield was because if she had accidentally brushed against another's dream, she would immediately have been drawn into it. To counteract that problem, dreamwalkers all develop this shielding, although to date, there have only been three recorded dreamwalkers." Emma explained.
"That's not why." I muttered under my breath. I got several surprised and horrified looks from the rest of the class from openly contradicting Emma.
"No?" Emma said. She leaned back onto the edge of her desk and gave me a look I didn't recognise. "Explain it."
"When you're in a dream and you know it, if you have enough control, you can change it. But when you don't, it's like you're in a whole different world. Everyone has their own world, personal to them. Some create a world in which the bad guys always lose, some create worlds in which people admire them and want to be them. Some of the more outcast people dream of being loved totally, without reservation, without the person leaving them in the end." I glared at the room. "Everyone has their world. Most don't know about it. I've never met anyone who has. When your subconscious mind forces you to process stress or problems, it is usually in some form, in that world."
"Get to the point, Horns." This quint looked like she was nastier then the rest. Emma gave her a look and from the look of it, was scolding her telepathically.
"A dreamwalker doesn't have a normal world. They manipulate their dreams into what they want. We barely have a subconscious. The barrier is there so we remain sane and so the people around us aren't forced to dream what we dream. We are hidden, so your minds don't reach out to ours. You might not think that's a big deal, but in your dreams, not all you see is what you want to see, so you reach out for help. When we slip into a dream, we fall into something like sleep. If my shields weren't there, I could be walking down a street and suddenly black out. My body would be left to the mercies of whoever is around while I try to withdraw from the dreamer's grasp. Or worse, I could be drawn from dreamer to dreamer, unable to return because when I manage to get away from one dreamer, another dreamer grabs me. I would be in a coma permanently, unable to die, yet unable to live. I would rather not hear you if it meant that I kept my sanity and my life."
"That's rather complex." Emma stated. I glared at her. I figured she would at least understand. She was supposed to be able to understand.
"You tell that to an eight year old as she convulses from the pain of her mother's dream, unable to leave because her mother needs her so much, unable to understand why her dreams were so tortured. You tell that to an eight year old whose mother was taken by the god damned government for testing. Tell the eight year old that her world is rather complex, that her split reality is rather complex. Tell that child that its just rather complex when she finds herself unable to wake from her mother's dreams, dreams her mother never knew she had, but she experienced every single moment and remember with shocking clarity. Tell that to an eight year old who wakes up with black eyes and cuts all over her body. Tell me when you do, I honestly think they would understand that their world is rather complex." I shouted. I shoved my chair back and grabbed my bag, shoving the paper back in. I headed for the door and the lanky guy blocked me.
"Hold up a sec. You can't just storm out of here after that little rampage." He grabbed my arm to prevent me from leaving.
"Don't fucking touch me!" I snarled at him. Everything went red and it seemed like the world was on fire. "Just leave me alone!" I broke his grip on my arm and pushed the door open.
"Alex, wait!" Emma commanded me. I looked over my shoulder and for a brief second, I smiled.
"You were different. You were supposed to understand. But you didn't even try. I shouldn't have come here, it's exactly the same." I fled down the hall and out into the sunshine. I didn't want to admit it, but I could feel my eyes brimming. I ran as far as I could, into the less tamed area of the school. Only when I smacked into a tree that stood alone did I stop.
It was just the same. The counsellors tried their best to understand me, but they never did, not without knowing what I was. They thought I was schizophrenic, with the talk of different worlds. So I just stopped seeing them. Mom never knew I had been in her dreams too. She had never thought to ask. She tried to fix her mistake, but it was already done.
I still had a scar from one of the dreams. It wasn't where anyone would ever see, it was along my inner thigh, the result of a less than lucky hit from a demon in Mom's head. It had been hard to walk for a month after.
The red was still there, but the world of flames was gone. I wondered what it was before I forced it out of my mind.
I was tired of everything being the same everywhere. So tired of it all. Tired of the pain and the hurt. I didn't want to hurt anymore.
The air seemed to cool around me as I thought of something. To be hurt, you had to be touchable. You had to have friends or try to have friends. You had to want to be with humanity.
"Ice. I don't have to be hurt. I don't have to like anyone. They won't like me, so why try? Alone is better than pain." I whispered to myself. I didn't notice that the tears in my eyes. The mist around me faded as I cried. "I won't be hurt anymore, I won't let them hurt me anymore." I leaned my head against the tree, remembering the first time I'd met Emma in a dream. "I thought you'd understand Emma, I really did. You weren't scared, you didn't even mind. I wish you would… I wish you cared here like you did there." And I let my head fall onto my knees and I cried harder, for the last time.
"Oh, good you're here. Right on time." Henry was standing by the elevator to the basement. He stepped inside and held to door open. He keyed the door to go down. He turned to look at me. "Your DNA is fascinating, simply fascinating! Some of the structural components of your DNA have been altered. Well, all mutants DNA have been altered, but yours make the rest of us seem like… a practice sketch for the masterpiece!" He face was glowing.
"Please, just… tell me what my powers are." I whispered. My head was pounding and I couldn't figure out why.
"Oh right, this way." He led the way through the lab into his office. He gestured from me to take a seat next to him. He opened a file on his computer and opened it. It flicked on to show a model of a strand of DNA. "This is your DNA." A box encircled a chuck of my DNA. "This section is the section that is altered. See here?" he traced one section. "Typically known for causing telepathic mutations." He shifted the view to a different part. "Now this is the area know for pyrokenisis. Or anything to do with flames. Ordinarily, someone with your abilities would have this section here altered." He circled one section. "It is altered, don't get me wrong, but it was only slightly altered, something that is atypical of all of humanity. Just a simple replacement of a few genes." He looked over at me. "That simplifies to there shouldn't a reason why you have any pyro abilities."
"Please, just tell me what I have."
"I will, in a moment." He switched views again. "Now, here is one section that I know has an affect. If you look at it, it's been severely altered. It is what causes you to have horns and spikes. What is abnormal is this section here. Its shows a different protein being used in the creation of your spike and horns than normal. Usually horn mutations are made of the same protein as your finger nails, bones, or in some cases, ivory. Yours are made of a compound I'm not entirely familiar with, but it is akin to some forms of alloys. These are not primary mutations. Quite the opposite, they were triggered by another mutation, one of your primary ones." He switched again. "It was caused by this. This one causes just about every mutation in your body, except the section related to telepathy, which we can assume is your dream walking. This is connected to the spikes, to the horns, to the flames, to several other dozen. Surprisingly enough, your unique shielding is not a conscious or subconscious development. It is one of your abilities. It is connected to your unknown power."
"You're basically telling me that I have two main mutations, one of which is dream walking and that doesn't affect anything, and an unknown one, which is connected to just about everything else." I snapped. He was making my head worse.
"Simplified, yes. There hasn't been a mutation that has been so interconnected like this. Even mutants who develop secondary powers are usually due to extreme heightened emotional, physical or mental anguish. All these show signs of some natural development. I wish I could help you know what it is, but the only thing I can do is tell you what its not. This area," he circled the area that he had said was my primary mutation, "was thought to be unable to mutate. Originally, we thought it connected to the digestion system, but apparently we were wrong."
"You have no idea what my power is?" I asked him. He shook his head.
"I'm sorry. I know it's… hard to not know. All I know is what it's not. It's not telepathy, it's nothing to do with fire, it doesn't even connect to flight. I'm sorry Alex." He rested his hand on my shoulder and I felt unaccountably warm.
"I need to get out of here." I muttered. He withdrew his hand and nodded. I don't know how I knew he nodded, I just did.
"Come on, you could use some dinner." He guided me through the halls to the elevator. When we reached the public floors, he stopped me from leaving. "You know, we're all here for you. If you need to talk, I'm always on call, and I know Emma cares."
I stepped out of the elevator and turned to stare at him. As the doors closed, I responded. "No… she doesn't." the doors sealed and I left, heading to my room.