My dear one.

This, you see, is Hell. And I hope you will forgive me for bringing you into it. You see it is only that I love you. I am too selfish to give you up. To have mercy. I am a coward. I do not want to face Hell alone. You are my one cherished light in a very dark place. But I have one mercy – that I pray you will be free. That you will be gone from this place. And you will find Earth – where it is green and warm and not so cruel as this place. There is still pain on earth, but it is a necessary evil, one that is balanced with good. If I pray hard enough, it will be so. It will, I promise you.

And I pray, and these are the only gifts I may give you – I pray you will find your Heaven. Your paradise and your painless place. There, numbness will take pain from you.

I will watch over you when I go. For I will be going away. I do not know when.

Please, find for me your Heaven. For me.

For me, my darling.

I had dozed in nameless places. Where there is no ground. No sky. No water. Only blank faces with no features and underbrush darkness and cold chains. Voices of different colors. Of black and silver and the pure clarity of white. My mother. She had been amongst the black voice of the milk-eyed man and the silver deceiver. The voice of the master. There is no face for me to put upon her yielding whispering voice that cut gently through.

Days must have passed. I was in her company. I sat with her and talked with her and pleaded with her to stay. She crossed her legs and kneaded her hands in her lap. The kneading fit the grain of her talking cadence. She had spoken but said nothing. It was only mindlessly manufactured sound, her speeches, her monologues. I think on them and find nothing. And my pleas drown now. They wash up on sand-less shores. No water to push them and pull their carcass out to sea. Falling down tunnels of empty ears. She is gone but I had seen her. She had spoken but I could not hear her.

I am sorry, mother.

I am sorry I have forgotten you.

I do not remember waking. Only that consciousness returned. He is there. He is waiting for me. A patient observer. My hand swathed in the flesh folds of his. I try to call out to him. Rock, come to me so I may fall on you. The storm has gone. But I am too weak to make it back to the calm.

Nothing comes out. Gurgling maybe. A hurling thing of strung up half noises. Throat dry. It is always dry. It is a wonder I survive with a desert thriving inside me. My ears ring. Head pounds. Pain and cold and uncertain still of my rock, my protector, my puppeteer. He looks down on me. His brow knits and crinkles in between his eyes. The blue of them hurts. I can feel the rawness brush up against me. Come to me so I may fall on you.

Are you sure he is on your side? That his ruse will not fall?

Be wary.

Do not waver.

Must be strong.

I withdraw my hand, turn away. I am ashamed. Yes, that is what holds together the bricks in the walls. Sticky gray shame. Slithering guilt. Hissing conscience ghosting through veins. All of you shut up. How can I think with the clamor in here? Lead me to my haven. Let me be silence. Let me gather all my limbs into myself and let darkness in. Sweet soft darkness.

I am still so tired.

He tells me that he knows everything.

Deepening the stabbing shame to the hilt.

I want to bleed

Tears well up

Now I do not want him to know but it is too late. His mouth wilts. The blue draws back. I do not want it. His pity. Take it back.

Sleep now, he whispers. Sleep and be at peace. I will be here.

Please do not be here. Go from me.

I do not want you to see my shame.

Those who can produce children are kept well. They are queens amongst the rest of us. The boys are kept in cages too small for their legs to stretch out. We roam within our cells like animals. Reduced to beasts. Lash marks stain our backs. Hunger carves a wilderness into our bright and bulging eyes. We are not collector's items. We are refuse. The leftover ones. This is a garbage heap. And the Reaper may do what he wishes with us.

The Reaper. One who is feared. The deliverer unto death. His eyes are white as fresh milk. The only mutant among the rest of the tormentors. Mostly he only oversees. But when troubles stirs up in the ranks of our cells he is called. Punishment is doled out by the undertakers.

I want out. I need out. I can stand this place no longer. My stomach rolls sickeningly with the thought of sleeping another night in here. Hell. This is Hell. My brain is melting. The sweat of my insides leaks from my pores. I am slowly coming apart. Take me out. Let me out! Please, I cannot stay here.

My legs do involuntary things. My arms follow. I am half wild with madness. It is not so strange. Not here. Madness is second only to death in frequent visitation. They are different colors you see. Death is black. A shadow. A slinking slimy thing. He sticks to the walls. Madness is red. We cannot ignore his presence. Scarlet demon. Exorcist of sanity. Please. I cannot – no more – please! Have mercy! Mercy!

I have him

Inside of me

Now.

"Shut up!" The whites of the eyes. They bark at me. Dogs. Filth. Rodents in the gloom. "The Reaper's gonna come for you. Shut your mouth. He'll put a hurt on us all if you don't stop!"

I have never heard such piercing shrieks in my life. The banshee's roar. She howls deep within. I kick the bars of my cell. My arms twinge. I cannot stop them. They lash out at everything. My legs. Oh god, my legs. If I do not stop they will be broken.

Let me out

Please

I will never

I swear

I will not resent death when he comes

The Punishers are restless. Their whips slide over wet ground. Grease of humanity trickling from our bare cages. Pouring sweat. Screaming out. I hate all of you. If I could reach. Oh, if only I could take your bodies for my own. I would tear them out. So the insides would be out and on the floor. Stench of blood. I hate you all. I wish you all dead! Do you hear me? Dead. Burned. Stuck like pigs. You are all pigs! All of you!

"This one's gone nuts."

"A good beating will fucking shut her up."

"Hey! You in there!" Rattling the cage. The animal in me. Her claws against my inside flesh. Pain. Too much of it. Tearing apart. "Shut the fuck up!"

"That's it. Take her out."

It takes five of them to drag me out of the prison. They drop me as I thrash. The leader. He twists my hair into the knots of his fingers. He drags me by it. Thrashing stops. But I am still screaming. No nails. I am clawing uselessly at his cruel grip.

They take turns. Laughter. Ice mirth. Cold as the bars of our cages and the frozen water in our bowls in the winter. Red pours out of me. Their boots dig into my stomach my back my legs my arms. But they do not aim for the head. I wish they would. Please, aim for the head. Let me out of here.

Sometimes we go too crazy to remember hope. And hope is too frail. It breaks. We break.

As they shoved me back in I am not yet crusting over. The blood is still thick and flowing fast and the salt of it makes me sick. The ache of bruising. The sting of split open flesh. My eyes are black and purple and I can barely see out of them.

Breathing. At first I think it is my own but it is not. I am barely sucking in air enough for myself. My lungs are starving for it. But the ribs are broken. Fluid sacs of breathing sticking out in all directions.

"We always win, mutant pig," it says. I try to blink through the swollen flesh. "Don't forget."

They all laugh.

Let me die.

I have never tasted revenge. But the phantom taste taunted me in waking.

It is bitter.

For in dreams

It stirs

The first taste is sweet. The stale whispers curl. Flames. My hands are the fire. Destroyers. Choking and I revel in the hateful sound of their being and their aliveness and the vigor of their souls. Can you not die? Must you try so hard to live? You are mine.

The ground is hard beneath my knees. Glass. A broken picture frame. The blood is stark blinding red. And I realize it is because my vision is scarlet. I am possessed by madness once again. And he is sweetly drawing reason out of me through my ears. Telling me to wring the life out of the punisher beneath me. Straddling him I squeeze harder. And harder. And harder. Until the voice. It is not a stale whisper. A tart unholy smell of breath. I cannot smell the dungeon the cage and the fear.

Only the sting of sweet cologne.

And I open my eyes and I feel my hands against the throbbing pulse life and the blue of his eyes are squeezed and wide and failing in their light.

Luciana please let go! Please! You are hurting me!

I let go.

He tries to breathe.

Help him

Please help him

I cry out. Someone help! Rasping voice. God please. Let me speak. I need to help him! You do not understand how could you ever understand you have never been here to save anything from damnation at all!

Watering eyes. Face red and bulging and purple. My hands are torn away from him. I cannot touch him. He gasps and coughs and chokes for air. I am sorry. Please forgive me! I was not myself please!

He sputters. Bright flaming shadows of my hands on his neck. I had made those. I look at my palms – colored with exertion. I fall back. I am a monster. My nails are talons. My skin is scales. I am the bringer of fear and the keeper of sin. God I am so sorry. How will you ever forgive me? It would take a miracle.

Raven is here. He is still on the floor. Charles? Oh god! Talk to me Charles! Speak to me! She calls for the butler.

Head turning. Blonde hair tumbling down thin angled back. Her gaze on me. I expect hatred. Coldness. Revulsion.

But it is much worse what I find

Fear

She is afraid.

Of me.

All my life I have wished for the gentle touch. Of love. Of kindness. Of anything human at all. I have never felt it before. I do not know what sensations it may render if it should graze my tired scar puckered skin. The closest I have come to redemption is through him – the man who has taken me in. I have ruined all hopes of mine. Dashed and broken. Pieces of an inward looking mirror.

On my side, looking out at the melting snow, thoughts racing toward clarity in my head. All of them know. They knock on reason as if it is an unyielding door. You are a monster. I close my eyes. Tears come. All I do is cry. But it is only human to cry when you feel pain. And pain is something I am used to feeling. I have grown soft.

My hand is wet with running salt. It feels as if there is an ocean inside of me. Bloated with a sea of sorrow. I am truly sorry for what I have done to him. To the nameless man with the halo of blue. I remember the first time I saw him and believed that angels lived in this world. Now I am certain they do. And he is one. But what am I? A demon?

The floor is burnished wood again. Swept and clean and no trace of my lapse in sanity to be found. The blood from my hands all washed away. The glass picked clean from the ruts in the floorboards. But I can still hear him screaming in my head. I press my hands to my ears. Scream over them. I try but I cannot. They are louder than any sound I could ever make – in my head or with my mouth.

That is it. I cannot take this anymore.

I kick my legs over the edge of the bed. They drop to the floor. A smack of feet against it. I feel myself walking with purpose but I do not know where I am going. I do not feel the need to relieve myself. Nor the stabbing hunger (I had not eaten I had been too full with shame). Sleep cannot find me swathed in self-loathing. What is it then? Where am I going? Where are my feet taking me?

They will not tell me. Secretive toes. Covert wrinkled flesh. I am to only follow. That is their wish of me. I have no choice. A daze covers me. Like mist. Or snow. It does not melt with the creeping spring in the corners of the world. I see but all seems dark in league with sameness. I hear, but it is drowned out by the slapping of my feet against the ground. Where am I going? I am told not to ask such questions.

My hand reaches out. Feels something cold but I do not know what it is. I cannot see it. Familiar murk. Bleary-eyed black. I seem to sit down on something supple and squashed.

And when I look up it is him.

The blue.

The angel.

And the black and blue mark of my hands is on his neck.

Dawn peels away the night. Birds begin to sing outside the frosted window. Chirping. Stirring of wings beating the air. The scratch of tree limbs swaying underneath their weight. I listen to the sound of nature stretching out from underneath the curtained night.

No exhaustion weakens me. I sit as still and erect as stone in my seat beside him. Raven will come to me I know. She will chase me out with her unspoken fear. She will need no words to cast me out. Merely a look and I will wish to disappear.

I only hope he will wake soon. So that I may assure myself of his aliveness. His victory over death.

Sunlight drips into the room. Like gold spilling nectar, warm and honeyed and bright. The warmth touches me and I shudder. Shrink away from it. I do not deserve it. I have turned on the only person that has ever shown me kindness. I am but a wraith of a human being. A black and shriveled shard of soul. I do not deserve to breathe in the sweet free air and feel the graze of sun and look upon the first flowers of spring that unearth themselves from the frozen underbelly of the earth. I belong in a cage. In cold and inky darkness. That is where I belong. Not here beside him. To beg his forgiveness. To ask him to avenge my cruelty.

Such lingering hours. Such wasteful minutes. Still he does not stir. Eyes still. Mouth unmoving. The angel sleeps. A demon sits at his side and wrings her black clawed hands.

Please wake

Please master please

Wake

I need to speak to you

I need to ask of you

Forgiveness

Please.

An idea strikes me nearly dumb. I do not think on it. Action draws out my hand. And I touch his. It is warm and I can feel the current of his veins rushing blood through his body underneath. The contact pulls a breath from the depths of him. From here it feels desperate. As if it were his last. I look down. My heart throbs painfully. I cannot retract inside. I must be here. I must hear him speak.

And then, it comes.

My name.

I do not deserve a name.

I want to give it back.

"Luciana."

It is as if a floodgate has been broken somewhere in my head, in my heart, in the fathoms of my belly. I fall to my knees at his bedside. I sob into his sheets. I am sorry. Please forgive me. I never meant to hurt you. I had been dreaming. I was not myself. I beg of you to forgive me.

Please

Master please.

I feel something touch my cheek. I jerk away from it. The touch. It is so soft I nearly do not feel it. But I do. My nerves go taut. My skin bunches up in anticipation. My entire body tightens waiting and it knows what is to come. I shut my eyes. I bite my lip until it bleeds.

"You poor creature," he whispers. "What you must have suffered."

His fingers trace the length of my gaunt cheek. Softly. Lingering on each angle and caressing each nerve. Every lonely place in me burns with the ache to melt into it. To embrace the touch of kindness. But my mind knows better. There is no kindness. Only malice. Only cruelty. There is no such thing as angels.

I shudder beneath his hands. Violent tremblings. I am afraid. I know I have done a bad thing and I am afraid. This is a ruse. I know what is to come.

"There is nothing to forgive," he says. "I know your mind. I feel it now. You are afraid that I will hurt you for what you have done. Do not be afraid. Hush, I will not hurt you."

Be calm. Don't be afraid. It's all right. Shh, dear Luciana. All is well.

Something shoots throughout my system. Something calming and bringing serenity in its wake.

My cheek falls into his palm.

And my heart

It warms

And his caresses are softer than I could ever imagine them to be.

For a long time, I kneel there at his bedside, wetting his hands with my tears.

Until I fall back into my own head

And I dream

I silently dream.

His name is Charles.

His name. It belongs to him. It hides in the creases of his suits. Lights up the laughter in his eyes. It is the lines that curl around his mouth. And he wears his name.

I think on my name and wonder how I will be able to wear it. So long it has been. Since I was born without a name but instead a number. I have been trying to slip into the frame of a number and felt hollow and alone in a crowd of sameness. Now I must find for myself a way to carry Luciana and I like the way it sings on the tip of your tongue and rolls around and plays in the taste buds of it. Luciana. I wonder if, with such a name, I could be like him.

Are we born to fit a name

or do we grow into it,

make it our own,

and fashion a world that it must make itself fit into?

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.