DA Revelations
Episode 20 - Homecoming
Chapter One – Sauvez-Vous
Jessie Crowell's screams had never been so loud and so terrifying; the shriek was so loud that it almost felt as if it could have split Kitty Pryde's ears as she staggered exhausted from her bed and tried to get to Jessie's bedroom. Between the sound of shrieking and the sound of Caleb's howling, Kitty was almost sure at any point her ears may burst.
Kitty's bedroom door hung open and she could see the lights on in the hall were flickering on and off violently making it almost seem as if ghostly shadows were dancing across the walls.
"What the hell is/ goin' on?" she heard a loud grumbling yell, she glanced down the hall to see Logan silhouetted there, his hair in disarray, his bedsheet was wrapped around his waist.
"Jessie is having another nightmare..." Kitty said loudly as she stepped outside of the room, she pulled her robe around her and reached for the door handle.
"Wait!" Logan warned.
Kitty turned and looked at him incredulously, "she's screaming her head off."
Logan rushed over, "don't touch the door..."
"What the-?"
"The whole place is humming with electricity! Touch that doorknob and you'll be electrocuted...get back..."
Kitty stepped away from the door; Logan stepped over, holding his sheet with one hand he kicked the door hard so that it caved in. He rushed in, Kitty followed cautiously; neither was prepared to find what they did.
Jessie Crowell was hovering four feet above her bed, her body rigid, sparks and tendrils of electricity danced from her skin, her eyes were open but the grey blue of her irises had become a bright electric blue.
"Oh...my...god..." Kitty put her hands to her mouth, she stood there staring in horror. "Jessie..."
"This is...insane..." Logan breathed.
"Is she awake?" Kitty asked in a frantic breath.
"I don't think so...Jessie! Snap out of it!" Logan rushed for the little girl, but was instantly thrown back by the charge, he bounced off almost as if there were an invisible forcefield and fell to the floor; he writhed there in agony for moments before the electrical charge left him.
"Logan! Are you okay?" Kitty gasped.
"We can't touch her..." Logan growled, "if we get too close she's gonna kill us..."
"JESSIE!" Kitty cried at her, "you need to wake up NOW!"
The man with yellow eyes was staring at her; his gaze was intense as he stood there looking at her. His complexion was odd; it reminded her of the colour of bad meat at the supermarket...the bacon that was past it's expiration, that almost greenish blue shimmering tint hidden amongst that fleshy red and pink.
Everything about him was off, how his voice sometimes seemed to echo, how the whites of his eyes were a pale yellow colour making the dark blue of his eyes stand out and seem all the more disturbing. He seemed bulky beneath the starched white of his lab coat, and his hair was blacker than night and seemed almost shine blue beneath the harsh white light of the laboratory.
It felt as if she'd seen that room a thousand times; she had every detail of it etched into her memory like a hand sketched intricate landscapes and fantastic horizons with nothing more than a pencil and paper.
Jessie tried to move and couldn't; she was aware of the ache in her shoulders and the pain in her neck an she glanced awkwardly to see her arms were shackled to a wall. She screamed, and cried, the tears she felt drip down her chin and land upon the plain cotton nightgown she wore that was a boyish blue-green.
"Now, now, no use in screaming and sobbing..." he said, his voice, that deep, throaty and somewhat scratchy sound, made her ears hurt and her heart thump relentlessly in her tiny chest.
He had something in his hand; what was that? Another needle? She'd seen so many of them in her time there that she'd lost track of how many. He was drawing something from a tiny bottle; the contents inside were blue, and clearly appeared to be glowing.
He dabbed antiseptic onto her arm, and then held onto her elbow with his horridly cold hand while he drove the needle deep in. The needle was icy, and sharp and hard and when he withdrew it, her veins throbbed and stung.
She yelped out and struggled, "Let me go!"
"Not now. Not yet..." he took a hold of her face and held her still. His fingers were stained with chemicals and always smelled strange to her. She tried to pull her face out of his grasp. "Be good, Jessie, and you'll get out of here, soon enough. Once I'm done with you..." he chuckled.
The chuckle...oh it was so vulgar...it sounded so wrong...a laugh that should have not come from that mouth, that throat. It sounded almost...robotic...evil.
He left her in the room alone, she heard his footsteps down the hall from the lab; that deliberate, slow, heavy clicking of heels of his well-made shoes. She glanced up to examine each arm. Her shackles were slightly loose; perhaps it had been all her struggling that had brought this about. She struggled more, her feet were shackled to a platform she was standing on and she couldn't kick to give herself more momentum. She wriggled as hard as she could, her elbows clattering hard against the metal behind her.
It took her some time, but finally, one arm was free, then the other followed soon, and she gasped at the pain as her arms came down; they felt heavy and almost seemed to tingle like tiny needles jabbing at every vein. She bent over awkwardly to release her feet, it was a catch that was simply a case of twisting and pulling off. She fell to the hard tile floor with a soft thud and gasped at the agony.
Her tiny body ached as she pulled herself up and ran to the door; she pulled the door open carefully and stuck her head out to look around. The hall was silent, one of the lights at the very end of the hall flickered; there were two doors on the other side of the hall that she could see.
She hugged herself to support her aching arms as she tiptoed along the freezing hall in her bare feet. She heard loud footsteps approaching and she panicked; she spun around, the nearest doors were oddly shaped and she put her hand against the button. Sparks shot from her hand and she yelped in fright as the doors immediately opened almost like the double doors to an elevator.
She glanced at her tiny hand in confusion, she'd never seen this happen before and she didn't understand exactly what it might be. But there wasn't time to ponder on it now. Frightened she may be caught she quickly slipped into the room before the doors closed again behind her. She heard the footsteps passing by the door and she hid behind the wall until they were no longer audible.
Jessie glanced around the room in wonderment. The walls, the floors, everything was steel, even the tables and the shelves. And there was something else, too...farther to the back of the room.
Her bare feet stung on the too-cold floor as she padded closer and closer. Her heart almost seemed to stop at what she saw there. Strapped to a platform, not much different from the one she'd been strapped to, was a man.
Completely nude from head to toe with incredibly long brown hair hanging down in front of his face and body, concealing the parts of him that she was sure she was perhaps too young to be seeing.
There was something oddly familiar about him that was hard to pinpoint; she had never clapped eyes upon him before, she was sure of it...and yet...yes...there was something terribly familiar. There were bruises on his tan flesh, and cuts that spoke of many injuries sustained probably trying to fight his way out and away of whoever had done this despicable thing to him. There was an ugly scar on his chest that seemed almost like it should have been significant.
Jessie timidly stepped closer, "Mister...are you okay?" she asked quietly, she was afraid he might be sleeping, afraid she might awaken him, that he might be angry.
He let out a groan, and mumbled something completely incoherent that she was sure it wasn't even the same language she spoke. And he raised his head slightly, his hair parting from his face to reveal only one feature she could make out.
One glowing red eye.
Her blood ran cold, her breath caught in her throat until she thought she might choke.
"Sauvez-vous...sauvez-vous.." he groaned. "S...s...sauvez-vous..." the eye looked at her with such panic, such horror.
It was the only thing of his face she saw before she felt the Doctor's hands hard upon her shoulders and she was caught again...she would never escape now.