When we are young, the world is a safe place. It can be as small as the span of our pillow lit up by moonlight or as vast as the big black space beyond the blue of our sky. I think back to that time and remember it as a gift, my ability – it was magic. With age comes clarity. And clarity brought a new gift -fear. Now, it is but a curse. And all because I was there.
What a difference circumstance makes. A day soaked in sunshine can chase the darkest of plagues away. Rain can make you want to dance and sway. Perhaps perception has a say in dictating the ways of emotions as well.
I have never known.
What do I know?
I fold my legs into myself, curling one under the other, and the bars overhead create a mottled pattern of light doing battle with the ink-spill darkness. A rapid skittering noise interrupts the chattering silence, the one that makes your ears ring with the sound of its voice. I have learned to pay no mind to the rats. They share this place with us.
The only difference between their conditions of living and ours is the freedom they have to go where they please, to eat what they please, to bathe their fur in my water bowl and take to the pipes to freshen themselves in the light and bask in the drying heat of the sun. It has come to the point where I feel I must envy them or lose all semblance of humanity. It is the humanity in me, after all, that reasons with insanity.
The fans switch on somewhere overhead. It reminds me of the sweat trickling and gathering into salted rivers down the square of my back. It must be mid August by now.
In the wrought iron cage next to me, he squirms a little in his sleep, whispering the name of a woman he has never met before. Maybe once or twice, in dreams and in memory, but who doesn't long after their mother? Even if I cannot remember her, I still imagine her face, shape it together in the empty places in my head. I try to place the timber of her voice, if it as sweet as the scent of jasmine that sometimes wafts through the pipes and merges with the stench of stagnant water.
Sometimes, I try to think of what her skin must have smelled like, felt like (if it was soft or callused from long years of struggling against jagged hardship), but mostly it is just when I am asleep that she tucks me in and kisses me gently on the forehead, clearing the stray hairs from my brow. And when I awake, it is my own fingertips brushing the strands away, and I'm just as alone as I was when I drifted under.
I watch him, the boy next to me, and he cries out with his bony little legs shifting wildly underneath him. Then the footsteps start to make the ground rumble. It is when I start to count in my head. I close my eyes and burn the numbers into the black canvas eyelids. One…two…three.
The boy whimpers, louder this time. The bramble-tipped lash drags against the blood-streaked concrete.
Four…five…six.
"Quiet in there," comes the dangerous rasp. "I'll rip your back to shreds, boy."
The whip scathes the concrete, leaving white surface scars in its wake.
Seven…eight…nine.
He finally calls her name.
"Mommy!"
And the whip comes down.
And now he really has something to scream about.
Ten.
First, the light.
Second, the warmth.
Third, the light.
It flourishes slowly. My perception has been rendered lethargic and groping by the blows and it feels like the very threads of my skull aches from it. All in all, routine. The flat of my palm cradles the epicenter of the pain, pinpointing its origin. A cautious hiss escapes my lungs as I sit up and for a moment I consider what good it would do to bend over and put my head between my knees, but I forget – is that not to tame a dizzy head?
The ground feels strange. Yes, not at all like it did when I last felt it. My free hand goes to tap everything around me as I attempt to unglue my lids from the other, testing every texture and its corresponding weight. When I fell, I remember the bed of ferns and thorny underbrush breaking my descent and sticking through the holes in my clothes and probing the bare skin. Sticky blood had been made black and patches of moonlight spilled over on the plant life of the forest. Everything had felt ethereal, but not comfortingly so.
My eyes peel open and where am I? This is hardly the forest. This is not even outside. Have…have I been sold? Would I not have been warned? No. It is but a silly dreamer's notion. None of us are forewarned of what fate may lie in wait for us beyond our rust-eaten cages. From the look of this place, it does not seem as if they know of the conditions that I had been raised into. Perhaps it will be better here.
Then again, the odds are always very often considered. When a life is reduced to that of sleep and waiting and intervals of food and water, there is too much dangerous time in between left blank.
By necessity of living, a restless mind strives to fill it, and it turns over and over on its deliberations, sifting through possibility and past, tomorrow and what is left of them, if everything is going to be all right will be enough anymore. Will it ever be enough. Was it ever enough. I hardly know. And that is an answer I find myself happening upon too often.
Soft, supple places in my brain left unmolded and untouched by the philosophy of others. I had been taught to speak by a well-learned master and, if I was a good girl I would have been educated in reading, but never had I been a good girl. Always a naughty girl. Always I had strived to reach that much envied name of good, though I did not know its meaning, the gravity of it.
Rapidly my mind sorts through these many recollections. But already, in the back, where there is room for more, I have begun to make preparations for an escape. Never before have I been so very close to liberation. There can be no mistake, no error in the schematics of my plot. It must be precise to the core.
Blindly, I take the feathery blanket off of me, lingering for but a moment to simply take note to remember. I had been comfortable, warm, and there had been light. Real light. I shall not so easily forget a morning such as this.
Inside my head, recollection grows quiet and the buzz of present activity takes its place. My bare feet plod against the wood floor. Burnished wood! How exquisite. Is that how he would have said it? I try out the word silently on my tongue, tasting it, asserting the correctness on a sentence, as he once told me to. Yes, it feels right. But its importance is little to me. I must escape. I must.
I feel every window, every crevice in them. All locked tight. How does a lock work again? Oh, bother that, I will simply break it. I look around the room for an object heavy enough to inflict maximum damage. All the while, my thoughts scream at me, loud and painful as the crashing of a thunderstorm against metal shafts. Escape, escape! You must not fail! You must escape.
Yes, I know I must. And it is with such gripping conviction that I seize a gilded thing, curling my hands around the feel of it, and position myself before a glass framed window. I take a deep breath. Yes, that's it. There now. You're almost free. Can you smell it? Can you smell the air outside through the cracks of that window? You're almost there.
My insides turn. Every particle of my body surfaces to my skin as if for air, as if it struggles to breathe for the first time, and the awareness of being alive floods through me, sinks into my veins as an anchor slices into the bottom of a restless sea. Concentrate. Remember who you are, what you are capable of. You have survived much. Don't let this new Hell cage you.
As hard as I can, I throw the heavy treasure in my hands. The crash is deafening, a rattling of glass and a tinkling of falling splinters. I cover my ears, head pounding, wounds gaping and raw to the newfound wind. The smell of a white world whispering through a blanket of snow, hoping someone will find it beneath. My fingers itch with the desire to unearth it. And I can, I realize.
Once I am outside, bare to the frozen air, the glisten of snow and ice, I can do what I wish. And all I want is to feel dirt. Perhaps I cannot feel the grass, but the dirt – it's still there. It sleeps.
I hardly care how long I will fall. The snow will bear the weight of my collision with hard solid ground. I take a few steps backward, gauging the distance between my body and the coming fall, and I prepare my feet. It will hurt. Skin is not made for sharp things. But pain is temporary, it will last only as long as it can against the body's defenses (I remember this from a lesson, one of so few).
Yes, freedom is longer.
It lasts.
I can bear pain for such a prospect.
I let out a cry. Like sounding war. Facing all demons and pushing through their capes of shadow and disgrace. I do not need them anymore to differentiate between dreams and waking. There is no need for Hell. I will have the whiteness to guide me. I'm free. I'm free.
I'm –
"No!" Someone calls out behind me, footsteps making the floors creak and shudder. "Wait! Please, you will hurt yourself!"
No, no!
No you cannot have me!
Not when I'm so close.
Arms wrap around me. A warm and calming scent clouds my head. It stays me, roots me to this elegant prison. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I had been so close. I am still so close.
Can I not fight against these flesh-bone bonds? Yes.
I thrash, one of my arms coming free, and I reach out to the wide open window. My entire body writhes with struggle. Someone is screaming. It makes the walls shiver. And underneath such a sound the earth quakes and my ears are pierced with it. I realize it's my own voice. But it only dawns on me when I feel my throat split and my tongue grow dry.
A voice softly penetrates the chaos of my insides. "Hush," he scolds me, pinning me tighter against him.
I cannot no I cannot go through this again and I will not and I refuse to let him win. I will not survive another master. I will not survive another night of imprisonment. Tears draw themselves out of me. My brain on fire with desperation. Please god no. Please. Please.
"I will not hurt you. Calm your mind! It is screaming…I can feel it!"
Screaming. Yes, so much of it, blinding white spots appearing before my eyes. Thrashing. Freedom so close. I can taste it. Feel it. It fingers my nerves with ice. Please let me go. Please.
The thing touches me. I recoil. Everything in me shrinks back from the touch, even my skin, as far as it can go. I am a rubber band of blood and breath. Blood and pain and pus and black and blue and everything hurts and I belong to you and there is no me only you and I am yours.
And then, nothing. Numb. Chaos broken. Shattered. Like the glass in front of me. It winks ice back into my eyes. I stare. Who told me it was rude to stare? But does it apply to nature? Does it apply when you cannot move your own limbs?
"I am here to help you," it says, and somewhere, inside of me where he has not touched, I can feel the sweat and the screams and the pleas begin to twist together in a knowing sick knot. "I know it will be hard for you to learn trust, but I am aware of the patience it will require. You have been hurt. You have seen much. But you will suffer them no longer. I will keep you safe. I need only for you to offer me a chance to do what I can to help you."
He pulls me into his arms and I retreat inward, safety, rock harbor standing straight and tall and true against the encroaching black squall.
I try to remember her voice. My mother's voice. He is not here. I am not here.
I am in her arms. Whoever, wherever, whenever she may be.
I can hear them whispering in the kitchen.
Charles, who is she?
I hardly know.
You don't know?
She will not tell me.
Did you think to ask?
I do not wish to frighten her with questions. We will learn soon enough.
Oh, well that's comforting.
Raven, please.
Don't, Charles. I know you. You have a bad habit of taking in 'pets'.
I do not believe this is the time to discuss such things.
Oh, right, I forgot. You have a new favorite.
Stop it.
No, you put her back where you found her. We don't know what she's capable of. I'm not leaving you here for eight hours out of a day with a strange girl who likes to break windows wandering free about the house.
I believe she may be one of us.
But where did she come from?
As I have said, I do not know. I found her in the forest – bruised, bloody, scarred. I do not know who or what has done such things to her, but I know she has suffered much.
What do you plan on doing with her?
Through the crack in the door, the door he had meant to shut behind him, our eyes meet. His are blue. A warm blue and they are soft and wide and inviting.
It is but an instant.
I must help her.
I am not allowed to look my master in the eye.
She needs time.
I pride myself upon knowing how to manage time. Especially when it drags ever onward slowly and when little occurs in between its passing. He has not spoken. I must not speak unless I am asked to. Even then, I do not think I will be able to form words. My throat is cracked and dry. Where has my tongue gone? Where I cannot. I wish I could follow it. Recede into unknown. Would it be dark there? Would it know concrete differences between night and day?
I stare down at my fingers, willing them silently to awake, but in their core they are apathetic to sensation. Outside, the shell trembles, tingles. It has been a very long time since I was so terrified.
His patience, I think, is what terrifies me. He is willing to simply sit there, a cup of tea in front of him, not moving, not looking, hardly breathing I think and blinking very rarely in between the thinly spread out seconds.
Two sugar cubes, one teaspoon of milk, stirring with a thoughtful air about him. I remember because he'd stared down into the rim of the cup, as if the coiling liquid inside held great importance, perhaps a reflection of something he has long since forgotten.
As fearful as I am of this new captor, he is a strange creature. He is quiet. Introspective. His eyes betray the inherent coldness of their color. Warmth surrounds his person. I am afraid of his guise. When will the ruse fall?
I can take beatings.
I can suffer harsh words.
But this…
This is new torture.
I am not prepared for its effects.
He notices my shivering. He has only just sat down, after all. I have been here quite a time, my muscles tight from little movement and too much lethal fear in them. Adrenaline rushes toward nothing.
"Are you cold?"
Count. Count to ten. It will be over soon.
One…two…three.
Yes, here it comes. He is getting up. His footsteps are a countdown. If I count with them, it will pass quicker. It will hurt less if the concentration goes elsewhere. Yes, just count. Numbers are a comfort. The mind is a haven.
Four…five…six.
He reaches for something behind me.
Outside of my mind, the world may fall out from underneath my feet.
Seven…eight…nine.
And I will not feel it.
I am safe in my head.
Ten.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
His hands and a heavy cloth close over my shoulders. He swathes it around me.
I am not prepared for such a soft, yielding feeling and I shrink away, my entire body retreating into itself, into the firm husk of bone.
"There, now," he says. He releases me and some of me emerges from its cave and into the warm kitchen light.
And I wonder.
If there are such things as angels.
Or if they are merely dreams.
Dreams woven out of desperate sorrow.
"I will not hurt you," he repeats, over and over, - is it merely insecure mantra?
Yes, they must be dreams.
In my peripheral vision, his hands crumple into a poised fold, and I feel him looking at me. Disappear. Let me disappear. Let me be invisible to all eyes but that of God.
"When you are ready, I will listen. I wish to know where it is that you came from. But only if and when you are ready. I can wait as long as you require me to do so. Whenever you wish, I will be there to listen, and you needn't ask permission to speak."
His hands fold before him. Patient. Waiting.
But at the very least they are beautiful lies.
Disclaimer - I don't own Charles Xavier. He belongs to Marvel. I am basing his character off the portrayal seen in X-Men: First Class.