Emma knocked on the door again. It was late, just before lights out. She would have come sooner, but she'd had a staff meeting and she hadn't wanted to cut this one short so she could go to that one.
No one answered once more. She probed the room, but wasn't surprised to feel nothing. She knocked again, for one last time.
"What!" she finally heard shouted. It sounded a bit hoarse. The door jerked open and revealed a tired looking Alex, her eyes glowing red. A glance into the room revealed that she had been at her desk.
"Studying?" Emma questioned. Alex glared at her.
"No, I was copying my notes from English into one of the spiral notebooks that I found. It's time consuming." Alex was tense.
"Alex, I want to talk." Emma sighed.
"What if I say I don't want to talk?" She snapped. She glared at the telepath. "I am not in the mood to be yelled at, I have a pounding headache and I had a sucky meeting with Mr. McCoy. So if you'll excuse me, I'd rather be left alone." She began to close the door.
"Alex, tell me what's wrong." Emma held the door open. Alex whipped her head at Emma.
"I don't want to talk about it." Alex lowered her head slightly, making the points of her horns much more prominent. "I don't have to talk to you, Ms Frost. Give up." Her eyes were misting now.
"Well then, I want to talk to you about something." Emma returned.
"If it's about the display in class, you don't need to worry about it. I won't be there tomorrow." Alex answered the question before Emma even had the chance to ask it.
"Alex, why don't you want to talk to me?" Emma continued a bit more softly.
Alex hesitated for a moment and something flitted across her eyes. But then she hardened again and glared at her. "Because you didn't understand." It was said softly, so softly that it was a total contrast that to the expression on her face. "You're a telepath, you understand that the mental and physical planes are different. You've been inside my head, you've seen everything there. You've… you've experienced a lot of pain… pain I understand. I thought… you'd understand… but… you don't even try." Alex gently, but firmly closed the door, leaving Emma to stare at the door.
"So you're back." The voice had changed a little bit, become more feminine. I sighed, knowing what it meant. My suspicions were confirmed when the demon stepped out of the shadows, now a demoness.
"I don't know why I come back." I whispered. I sat on the edge of the plateau, swinging my legs childishly. The demoness knelt behind me. She wasn't an identical copy of me, but if my horns grew to be a few inches longer, we would be. The only real difference was the length of her horns.
"I do. You want to know what I am, why I even exist when you tried several times to banish me. I tell you once again, I am you. I am you. You might not want to listen, but I am you." Her arms rested on my shoulders. "Alex, they will never understand your powers, because you are alone." The demon seemed to hesitate before sighing. "I may be a demon, but I am not evil. You may be alone in your powers, but you don't have to be alone in life." She rested her head on my shoulder. "People are reaching out to you, but you are pushing them away. They don't want to hurt you. One I can even see loving you. But you have to let them in. Don't hide your demon Alex. They need you to save them." I heard screams from those below. But when everyone was trying to find the source, I heard it again and realised that it was a real scream. I turned to my demon half.
"I don't want to kill anyone!"
"You have a choice Alex. You get to choose when the times come." She smiled as I wiped the dream clean and forced myself to wake up.
I bolted upright and shot out of bed. I could hear the screams near me and swung open the door, turning my head left and right before charging down the hall to my right.
The house was dark, darker than I thought it could get. I didn't like it at all. It seemed too much like a trap. Somewhere in the depths of my mind I wavered for a moment, sure this was just a dream or a test, but the scream that was just ahead of me was much too real to be fake.
I pushed through the doorway and saw a guy in black pinning a girl on the bed. She was struggling as hard as she could, screaming as loud as she could. Her room was a double dorm, but either her roommate wasn't here, or she was alone in it.
I didn't really recognise her. The moment I paused to remember fled before I could try. The man outweighed her and clearly was overpowering her. I took the last few steps.
"Get off her!" I roared, grabbing the back of his shirt and flinging him across the room. He slammed into the wall and a picture fell from its place. "You don't have the right!" he tried to run past me to the door, but I swung my head to catch his arm on my horns. It sent him off balance and careening into another wall. His shirt was torn and I could smell the tangy sweet scent of blood.
I charged at him, shouldering him into the wall yet again. It rammed the air out of his lungs and he fell, clutching his chest. I looked over at the girl. She was shaking and crying, tears slipping from her eyes.
"Are you alright?" I asked her, just loud enough for her to hear.
"N-n-no-o." She couldn't seem to find her voice properly. "Th-hat's m-my ex-bo-oyfriend who d-didn't like that I was-s a mu-utant." I didn't know what to do then. Part of me wanted to forget this guy and go to help her, but the rest of me wanted to kick the tar out of him.
I was stepping over his arms to go help her when his arms snaked up to trip me and I landed heavily on one shoulder. I was about to get up when I found myself pinned like he was.
"No one replaces me! No one! And damn well not a fucking mutant!" the guy screamed, his fist smashing into my face. I felt my blood trickle down my face. "She's MINE, only mine and I'm not willing to share!" he split my lip and broke my nose. "Go back to where you came from, Mutie!" I snapped.
"I will and I'll see you there." I murmured. It caught him off guard and I slammed his chin backwards, slamming his head back so much he was lifted to a standing position. I stood up as well, grabbing his throat by one hand and lifting him. My spikes unsheathed and I held one of the points to his throat. I smiled at his terrified expression.
"Hell is not a pretty place, it's not all about tormenting you with your sins, it's about survival of the fittest. Your soul would be torn apart within moments. It will be with you as you sink into oblivion, that moment of ultimate pain." His eyes widened in fear and he struggled more clawing at my arm. "This is my home. No one interferes with my home without consequences!"
Light filtered in from the hallway. There were a bunch of shapes, many of them just standing there, but some slipped into the room. I took my gaze off him for a second and saw that Logan, Scott, Jean, and a white haired weather witch were coming in. the two women went to the girl and the men came towards me.
"Put him down." Scott commanded.
"No." I replied, shaking the man in my grasp a few times.
"Put him down now!" Scott raised his voice.
"Help me! She said she was going to kill me and send me to hell! Said I was gonna have my soul destroyed!" he struggled even more. "Get the demon to let me go!"
"Kid, just put him down, we'll deal with him." Logan stepped forward. I glared at him.
"You'll just put this scumbag into the hands of the police and within a week, he'll be walking the streets again! No." I began to squeeze harder and he started to sputter in my grasp.
"Let him go demon!" the white haired weather witch spat. I threw him at her, enraged beyond my control.
"Fine!" I turned to storm out of the room to find the door blocked by milling students.
I heard some whispers, some commenting on my eyes, some commenting on my horns, but most were commenting on the streaks of red through my skin. I realised only then that I had gone to bed in a sports bra and underwear. But I didn't really care, I was too angry, especially when I heard the word demon said several times.
"Get the hell out of my way!" I snapped. They froze where they stood and I growled at them. I swung one spike at them, and from its end, an arc of red energy sped towards them. It separated them forcibly, not hurting them, but moving them apart enough that I could get by.
I stormed down the path I had created and headed back to my room. I was halfway up the stairs when I heard someone following me. I was turning when I was forcibly turned with one hand. Scott's red glasses were glaring at me.
"You arrogant child. You can't do those kinds of things here! You listen to me and follow my orders when I issue them!" he snapped, gripping my arm in a bruising grip.
"For one thing, Cyclops, I am not an X-man. Yes, I know what an X-man is. And would you rather I let him get to the point of raping her, at which point you would have arrived? Would you? Would you honestly like to put that girl into a pain she will remember for all her life and haunt every night of her sleep in her dreams, where that guy's face would contort into something she fears more? Would you like that?" he didn't reply. "Let go of me." I said it softly, but he didn't obey. "I said, let go of me."
"You need to see the Professor. You're not stable." He began to pull me back towards the scene.
"Let go of me, you stupid fucktard! When I don't do something you want, I'm unstable? Try fucking pissed! And when I try to go calm down, you come up here and tell me I have to obey you?" I grabbed his hand and gripped it, squeezing on it. From the expression on his face, it hurt. I heard something crunch in his hands. "I could have sworn that people new to their powers were cautiously approached, not verbally attacked! If you ever touch me again, it won't be you're hand that will be crushed, it will be your head!"
"Alex." I hadn't realised she was near. I swore and let go of Scott's hand to flee. "Alex, stop." I automatically stopped. "Relax, no one is about to hurt-" Emma continued, but Scott interrupted her.
"Gods, what is wrong with you? Every time someone tries to touch you, you attack them! You wonder why I think you're unstable? It's because you act like a wild animal when someone touches you!"
"Scott, you idiot!" I heard Emma say before the world erupted in flames.
"Wild animal? Is that what I am? Because I hate it when I flinch when a male touches me? Yes, I freak out when males touch me. Males! As in the Y chromosome. I know what its bloody like to feel that pain." I felt a touch on my shoulder and whirled, jerking away from it. It was only Emma, but I had no where to run. "I don't judge you for being one, I just avoid touching you. I can't…" I grabbed my head as the flames slammed back into me. Emma came calmly towards me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. I couldn't help but shake at the wanted, but denied contact. I dragged my gaze up to Scott's and I realised I had fallen down.
"You cannot understand what it's like, to have someone else's nightmares haunt you. Dreams they aren't even aware they are having. You have a hard time grasping the pain telepaths in the real world suffer as they hear what people think of them, every moment of everyday, and you never can, cause you haven't felt it." I turned my head into Emma's shoulder and hid my face from them. "You can't understand, because you can't feel it." I closed my eyes and fled from the world.