Realistic or Modern A WORLD ON FIRE, pt. 1 | heartstringss & starboob.

[heartstringss]

𝐴 𝑊𝑂𝑅𝐿𝐷 𝑂𝑁 𝐹𝐼𝑅𝐸
(part 1 of 2: the break-out)


an original story
by
heartstringss & starboob

 

[heartstringss]

𝑇𝐻𝐼𝑆 𝐼𝑆 𝐴 𝑊𝐼𝐿𝐷 𝐺𝐴𝑀𝐸 𝑂𝐹 𝑆𝑈𝑅𝑉𝐼𝑉𝐴𝐿​

game of survival . ruelle

.

PLOT SUMMARY

the government has been kidnapping mutants off the streets for research purposes for years: conducting experiments, studying them, even sometimes cutting them open and picking them apart if that's what the case requires. it’s awful, terrible work, but all this research serves a purpose. the hard truth of the matter is, the world is on the brink of war and america needs an edge if they hope to come out the other side on top. that edge, they’ve decided, is genetic engineering.

in this society, it's undeniable people despise mutants; of course, if not only because their government has convinced them that they must. there are separate police forces to deal with them, and if they are known and documented in society, separate housing for them to live in, separate schools for their children, and, in some places, even whole separate communities. they live in fear for their lives, fear for their children’s lives, fear for their futures, their freedom… the ones born into families without any previous genetic anomalies are often the ones the most at risk, but even those born into established mutant families and colonies still have to keep their abilities a secret or risk exposure and face persecution.

five years ago is when the experiments first started. the mutants they’ve captured, they treat like lab rats, but instead go around calling 'government research subjects', with obviously lighter connotations.

our story begins in the U.S. state of nevada, where one such facility exists.

one day, a freak storm rolls in from out of nowhere and knocks the power out at one of the research facilities, both the regular generator and the backup generator go down, and while the military is scrambling to get the system back up, the power dynamic shifts and an escape happens. it starts small and then turns into something huge—a revolt becomes total anarchy which becomes absolute mayhem. chaos erupts throughout the facility, all while it rages on outside, too.

for the mutants who’ve managed to break free of their restraints and figured out how to escape their rooms—some more heavily guarded or reinforced than others, depending on the strength of each mutant’s abilities—it's a race against the clock to get out of the building on time, preferably alive. even once they’re outside, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily safe. first, they must get off the facility grounds before they’re managed to be captured a second time, and then as far away from the government’s reach as they possibly can. will life ever be the same again? no, probably not, but at least now they've got a chance.

x x x

Rated M for Mature Content

TRIGGER & CONTENT WARNINGS

THIS STORY WILL INCLUDE:
(a lot of) graphic descriptive violence, foul language, substance use & abuse, implications of death & murder, implied sexual assault & torture, some suggestive sexual content.

Readers must please keep in mind that there will be a lot of triggering content.
Please continue at your own discretion. ​

​

 

[heartstringss]

tw/cw: substance abuse, transphobia, body dysmorphia, self-injurious behaviors​

SEAN NEILSEN

A SNAPSHOT OF THE LIFE BEFORE
​

TWO YEARS AGO

LOCATION: SEATTLE, WA.
AGE: NINETEEN​

It’s 8 o’clock on a Saturday night, and where’s Sean? Why, he's the same place he always is, of course! At a club downtown, pressed in close amongst so many other hot, sweaty bodies he can barely tell where he ends and the crowd begins. He’s exactly how he likes to be — high as shit off some pill he scored from a stranger whose face he can no longer remember, now wonderfully tripping balls and... maybe even a little tipsy on top of that? Honestly, he's not too sure himself. Whatever he was, he certainly wasn’t sober, but of course, that's no surprise — he hasn’t been sober in years.

"You should slow down," his friend Catie says beside him. She touches his shoulder when she speaks to make sure that she has his attention, then continues, "I'm gonna go outside for some fresh air and a smoke. You coming with?"

Sean turns in the direction of the hand on his shoulder, his eyes wide and vacant when they look to Catie. He hears her words, but judging by the blankness of his stare and the long delay of his reaction, one can assume they likely don't process right away. The words bang around his noggin a few times leaving dents everywhere they hit, and when they finally stick to something solid — certainly not the pale grey mush that is that sad, sorry excuse for a brain inside his head — he breaks into a smile. His reaction speeds up then, the smile turned a million-watts as a joyous laugh barks out of him. It was natural, effortless... Nothing at all like the scared little boy he'd felt himself to be this morning.

"Don't tell me to slow down," Sean says, rolling his eyes with the words, though there's no malice behind his actions. "I'll slow down when I'm dead, and not a moment sooner."

He reaches up to rake a bony hand through the shaggy mop of dark brown curls that sit atop his head. After hours of dancing, his hair is drenched in sweat and when he pulls his hand away, his fingers are coated. He grimaces in disgust as he flicks his fingers off to the side, then looking back to Catie, says, "You know what? Yeah, I'll go with you. T-B-H, I'm kinda dying for a cigarette anyway."

Catie laughs at his words. Having observed how sweaty his hair was already, she keeps her distance so as not to get any on her when he goes to flick his wrist, flinging droplets through the air. She shakes her head amusedly as she echoes his earlier comment, "Not a moment sooner, huh?"

Sean tilts his head to the side at her words, no longer recognizing his own joke. So he asks, "What?" hoping she'll clarify — but she doesn't. She's already turned around and starting to walk away.

"Nevermind. Forget it..."

He already has.

​

As soon as they're outside, Sean peels off his t-shirt and slings it across his shoulders, revealing a chest bare as a newborn and much more skin-and-bones than it is muscle. Though it's unimpressive, it's a chest he's proud of, that much is clear — and of course, why shouldn't he be? After all, hasn't he kept it hidden long enough? He's waited years to be able to take his shirt off in public and not have to feel embarrassed when he does. Hell, he's waited years just to feel comfortable in his own skin. But as he's scratching an itch just above his right hip, a shock of worry occurs to him out of nowhere. Lost in thought, he frowns with the realization:

— Is it his own skin?

He's reminded multiple times every day that it's not, so the reminder again now is painful, even if it remains only internal rather than physical (as it usually is). In a way, it is still his. After all, it's not like he's taking someone else's skin — he's just rearranging his own, masculinizing his features, changing his body around to better suit his own self-image.

Needless to say, things can get a little confusing with the ability to shapeshift. Being able to re-arrange your entire face within minutes — yeah, certainly not the worst of powers, especially for someone who's already felt to be born in the wrong body their entire life beforehand. He still doesn't really understand it, how it works, what all he can do with it, what all he can't. (But perhaps if he spent a little more time sober every now and then... Yeah, no, fuck that.)

When he takes off his shirt, someone standing nearby lets out a low wolf-whistle. The sound whips through the clear night air and stings his ears. Sean freezes, looks over, and finds the person easily by the fact they're staring right at him. A second later, the voice hollers out, "Jeez, boy, you try'na blind us all?"

There was no hostility in the male's voice. As soon as Sean realizes that, he grins wide and his goofy side takes precedence. He reaches up to his nipples, tweaks them between his fingertips, and does a funny little jig. It gets the whole bar porch cracking up laughing, and just the same as always, Sean takes on the role of 'class clown' happily. He dips his torso into a low dramatic bow, scrawny arms extended wide on either sides of his body. Just when he seems about to give a monologue, Catie grabs him by the elbow and tugs him off the porch. He stumbles away laughing, not at all the slightest bit mad.

​

Down the alleyway, Catie pulls a pack of cigarettes from her purse and pinches out two sticks, one for herself and one for Sean. She offers the second one to Sean, but rather than take it, he turns it down with a wave of his hand. "I'll just steal a puff of yours," he says, to which she rolls her eyes but slips the second cigarette back into the pack without complaint. She sticks the first one between her lips and lights the end, takes a long drag, the cherry burning bright red as she does. She holds the smoke in her lungs long enough it starts to sting, and when she finally releases, she does so in a huge puff of smoke that tapers off into a tiny burst of smoke rings. When she's finished showing off, she passes the cigarette off to Sean.

He pinches the cigarette between his fingers like a joint, nodding appreciatively to his friend's display as he takes his first puff. It's clear he doesn't smoke cigarettes nearly as often as he does marijuana, but he still does it with practiced ease — he can hold the smoke just as long, if not longer by the fact he can extend his lung capacity anytime he wants. Catie's glaring at him when he takes such a long drag off the cigarette he burns it down a good few centimeters. Just one puff, he'd said.

"Dude, you've got no self-control," Catie says, reaching out to snatch the cigarette from his lips. He grins wide as he releases tendrils of smoke from his nostrils and either sides of his mouth, looking more a dragon than a boy, especially by the bright red of his eyes, the slowly-changing irises as he shifts to match that image in his exterior.

"You shouldn't do that shit out here," she says warningly, glancing around to make sure they're alone. It's a cool trick, but she worries far too much about getting caught.

"People don't pay attention nearly as much as you think they do," Sean shrugs, letting his eyes return to their regular blue — well, not his regular blue, but it's what he's wearing today, at least. "Trust me, people'll pretend we don't exist in seconds if we make ourselves invisible enough."

"Yeah, well, you're far from invisible, showing off like that all the time. You're going to get caught." She takes on a lecturing tone, which Sean tunes out just as easily as he always did his own mother.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," he says, far too casual on the subject. Maybe she's right, maybe he is being a bit too risky — but to be honest, he doesn't care. It's hard to care when you've lived in a heightened state of fear almost your entire goddamn life, then finally find something that makes you happy and all you want to do is live.

Maybe it wasn't the best parallel to draw. Sean's life begs the question: if you're funneling drugs and alcohol into your body 24/7, eating a diet of nothing more than Taco Bell, take-out Chinese, and stale cereal day in and day out, and sleeping on whatever random couch you can find at the end of each night — are you really living, or are you just surviving day-to-day?

Sean hasn't known any other type of life for... a couple of years now. He hasn't had a family to fall back on for support even longer; all he's got is himself and his friends. And the friends he does have barely seem to tolerate him — oh yes, he can tell. (Or maybe it's suspicion fueled by his own self-doubt? Either way, he feels a nuisance and that, too, makes his life feel pretty lonely.)

He's drawn out of his thoughts by Catie's hand landing on his arm. She trails a finger up his bicep; the touch is hypnotizing, but it's hard not to flinch away from the contact. Hard not to feel alien inside his own skin, even altered to better suit his self-image. He thinks she's hitting on him and wants to stop her, when suddenly she speaks up and he realizes that she's not. "Why are you wearing a scar?"

He looks down to the arm in question, taking in the deep red gash carved into his skin. It looks real, as they always do; fully healed and faded with age, even though just this morning it wasn't there. He shrugs a little at the question. "Why not?" And yet, he fades the scar away without hesitation, thinking — it is a bit unnecessary, isn't it? Only when he does, something in his image falters. His features slip a second and his eyes shock brown. The dark freckles clustered around his face begin to fade away, become a little softer. It's not intentional.

He squeezes his eyes tight with the sensation of water pooling over him. Air gasps out of his lungs, panic swelling in his chest. He focuses hard — hard enough that bright red spots of color burst onto his cheeks — and after an incredibly long, tense moment where it seems the veil might slip entirely, the freckles begin to darken. He opens up his eyes and they're back to blue, though his gaze has now become quite a bit more frenzied. He sobers up fast when his powers falter like that. His confidence dissolves and his posture sinks.

"Uh--" Catie starts, but he cuts her off with a sharp wave of his hand. He's heard the lecture a million times. He doesn't want to hear it again.

She gives it anyway. "Jesus Christ, you need to slow the fuck down, Sean. You're burning the wick at both ends. You need to let your body rest."

Yes, he really does.

But he's stubborn as a bull. He really, really doesn't want to.

THE CAPTURE

A BEGINNING TO THE END

​

It's that exact stubbornness that gets him caught, just as Catie warned it would.

Fast-forward six months, it should come as no surprise that he's only gotten worse. He's not paying attention to anyone around him when he wanders into the bar one night looking half a boy and half a girl. He doesn't notice the crowd's reaction; he doesn't realize that he's gone too far. He's completely unaware that his power's reserves have reached their limits, that all at once he's slipping — so fast, so hard that he's not even receiving any warning signs in the process. Of course, he vaguely notices when his perspective shifts, when all of a sudden he's shrunk six inches and now finds himself looking up rather than down at Catie. Only her expression of alarm makes him question the circumstances of that perspective change.

He lifts his arms and finds the tattoos are gone. Looks at his hands and finds they're smaller, more delicate than they'd been when he first left the house. The freckles faded back to a gentle dusting. His eyes, one brown and one blue. Most of his face remains masculine, but his body is entirely back to feminine. He can feel weight hanging off his chest, and it makes his breath stutter in his lungs. He can feel pressure collect atop his shoulders, the weight of what feels like an entire room's gaze turning on him at once. The music doesn't stop. Everyone's not really looking at him, but it sure feels like they are.

Catie grabs him by the arm and drags him out of the bar. She's not being discreet, not quite being careful enough — people notice as they go, and when they do, the reaction is... disgust. The bartenders stare. The bouncers stop them in their tracks. The music shuts off. A voice rings out. A fight starts.

It's quickly ranks among one of the worst days of his life.

​

He thought it couldn't get any worse, but it does.

A few weeks later, he's holed up in the house. He hasn't left for days, hasn't eaten hardly a single thing all morning or most of the days beforehand. He can feel his body begin to weigh him down, his muscles growing weaker as his stomach grows even emptier.

Catie tears into the room in a fury, creating a whirlwind of motion as she rips the blanket off the couch, exposing his entire body. He shrinks under the weight of her gaze. He wants to disappear.

"You need to get up. You need to eat, you need to shower. You fucking reek."

She's right, he does. His hair is starting to mat, his skin becoming greasy with a mix of his own sweat and grime. The bags underneath his eyes are so dark they look like bruises. His hair falls in front of his face, so much longer than he likes, and he's a bag of bones. Wrapped inside an ill-fitting sweatsuit, cloaked in skin that's his, but not his own. It's not even a shifted body, but it feels like one, this one so much more alien than the last.

He's tried to use his power, but it hasn't been working right. It's been glitchy, almost entirely shut off since the last incident at the bar. He can't get it to work. What if it never works again?

"Don't wanna," he mumbles, flinching at the sound of his own voice. There's distinct femininity in its tone. He curls tighter into his ball, digs his hands into his stomach. It aches with hunger, but even more than that it aches with pain. He's experiencing cramps. He hasn't experienced cramps in... god, it's been months.

"I don't give a shit what you want. You're getting up—" she grabs his wrist, starts to pull him off the couch. He stumbles, his feet becoming tangled, his legs weak from disuse. He falls to the floor but Catie catches him before he goes down entirely. She slips an arm around his waist and drags him to the bathroom. Shoves him into the bathtub. Turns the water on while he's still fully clothed.

He screams in anger with the sudden spray of cold and thrashes out of the tub, accidentally whacks her in the face on the way out. Both teenagers grind to a halt — he's hit her once or twice before, but it's been years since the last. They've always had an unspoken agreement it would never happen again. Accident or no accident, he just broke that unspoken agreement.

Though she understands his frustration, Catie doesn't hesitate. She slaps him clean across the face, leaving a bright red handprint on his cheek. Her eyes burn like embers, her muscles swell with depth. She's puffing up. She grows a few inches. She snarls out like an animal.

"I told you, you need to slow down, and what do you do? Nooo, you speed up instead, and now look where you are!"

"It's not my fucking fault!" His voice rips out of him at a volume so high it cracks the mirror over the sink. It's an instability of his power, his vocal cords stinging with the incorrect use.

Catie's left staring at the cracked mirror in shock, as Sean breaks into a run. He darts out of the bathroom, turns a corner down the hall, and tears out of the house within seconds. Though he's never felt more vulnerable, more seen in his entire life, he doesn't want to be around Catie anymore. His hair drips wet onto his shoulders, water droplets raining all around his face. His teeth grind and his body screams with the exertion. He's running on bare feet down a road littered with trash. Shards of broken glass and jagged pebbles dig into his skin, cutting away at the soles of his feet. He leaves bloody prints everywhere he steps. He's crying and he doesn't even realize it.

He wanders into a McDonald's a few days later, so hungry he's start to become delirious.

The employees call the cops on him as soon as he enters the building — he doesn't even blame them because of course he knows what he looks like. He feels like literal human waste, his body a piece of trash he only wishes he could throw away.

He hasn't talked to Catie in a week. He hasn't been back to the house, hasn't been back to the club. He quit his day-job, but that's not as huge a deal considering he only worked it to fund his drug habit. Since the drugs aren't working right now, he figures he doesn't need them anymore. Of course, that doesn't necessarily stop his body from still wanting them anyway.

He works his way out of one city and into another. He gets lost, attracts too much attention to himself while trying to get found again. He's not at all invisible.

He's asleep when it happens. Curled up in an alleyway amongst a pile of blankets and old discarded clothing that reeks just as much as he does, he's exhausted but snaps awake just as soon as the flashlight beams into his eyes. Like a deer in headlights, he panics. He wants to run away, but finds his body unable to move, completely frozen in place. There's voices yelling, feet clamoring heavy steps over the pavement. The officers are too close to his face, their feet too close for comfort. He flinches with every movement, afraid of being kicked.

There are more officers on the scene than seems necessary for a simple situation dealing with a homeless person sleeping someplace that they shouldn't. If they had asked him to leave, he would have done so willingly and without a single complaint. He would have just gathered up his stuff and walked away — there's no need for all this violence, all this hostility. No need for the gun pointed in his face, the tazer shoved into his ribcage.

He hits the ground like a ton of bricks, knocked unconscious within seconds. The officers haul him up by the collar of his shirt, not even wanting to touch his skin. Their faces pinch in disgust as they look him over. They're built like tanks, larger than a regular officer of the law. The badges pinned to their chests mark them as special police, the ones trained to deal with cases such as his — the ones trained to handle mutants.

Even with the electric shock having knocked him out, the officers don't take any risks. They jab a needle into the side of his neck, pump his veins full of horse tranquilizer, and haul him off down the alley to an armored vehicle parked alongside the road in front of it. He's tossed into a cage clearly built for humans rather than animals, the door locked behind him. The tailgate slams shut a second later, casting him into total darkness.

​

When he wakes up, he's unsurprisingly covered in bruises. His whole body aches, but he can't move a single inch. He's laid out on an examination table, strapped down at both his ankles and his wrists. A belt stretches across his forehead, so all he can see is the ceiling and what little bit of motion flickers in and out of his peripherals. Bright white light glares overhead, blinding him to his surroundings. He closes his eyes, tries to perceive the room with his ears instead. The entire space is full of sounds of shuffling feet and bleeping computer monitors. There's an IV attached to his arm on both sides of his body, one dripping saline and the other something he doesn't recognize the name of.

When he opens his eyes and lifts his head just enough to be able to look down at himself, he sees he's been stripped of his t-shirt and now lies in some sort of hospital gown, but it's not a hospital that he's in. There's militarized police, and the doctors-- the doctors look more like scientists. He thrashes against his bindings, but it doesn't make much difference — he's too weak to put up a fight. He falls back against the table within seconds, his vision blurred with stars.

"She's awake," A voice says. She. They're talking about him.

One of the scientists shuffles close. They grab his face, peel back one of his eyelids, and shine a flashlight pen into his pupil. He grumbles weakly with the strain. They're checking his vitals. Next, gloved fingers peel back the top of his gown, press the cold metal drum of a stethoscope to his bare chest.

"Identify yourself, mutant," one of the militarized police officers says on the other side of him. Sean swings his head around as best as he can, only bares his teeth in response. He's not usually this hostile, but adrenaline is pumping through his veins. His heart rate climbs into the triple digits, reflected on the monitor hooked to the wall above his bed. His pupils widen so much you can barely see the brown edges of his irises through the black.

He doesn't get a chance to identify himself. He's tranq'd again before he can even open up his mouth to speak. A voice echoes through the haze of drugs.

"Stronger than I thought she'd be. She doesn't seem to have much control, does she?"

"No. Her power is severely underdeveloped. We'll try again later, let's just run some labs for now. Someone pass me her chart."

​

When they finally learn his name, it's not because he gave it to them, and it's certainly not the one he wishes that they had.

Actually, he doesn't want them to have either one, but in the end, the one they do find out is the worst possible one because it's also the one that tells his story. It's the one that points back to his family, to his childhood, to the life he's left behind. How they got it, he has absolutely no idea. All he knows is that one day they were calling him by a string of numbers (because he's refusing to speak and they can't get a single word out of him) and the next day they're calling him... that.

He'd been resistant to their treatments up till then, but as soon as they start calling him his birth name, he stops acting out. He deflates like a balloon drained of all its air. He dies a little inside.

He hasn't heard that name in years. Everyone who knows it has stopped using it when he asks. Somehow, he doesn't think these scientists will comply as easily.

"That's a good girl," one of the guards leers at him from a few feet away. It's a male, one he's recognized hanging around the room a lot the past several days. He has a smile and glare so wicked it makes Sean's skin feel like it's crawling with bugs. He hates him and he doesn't even know his name.

"Officer Dumont," one of the scientists whips around. She points a finger at the officer and then swings it over to the door, ordering him outside. "Do not tease the subjects. These are still people; please remember to be respectful." It's one of the few times someone has stood up for him. Sean's alarmed, but far too bitter to feel grateful. If only she hadn't called him a 'subject' in the same breath that she'd called him human.

When the officer leaves the room, the scientist nearest his bed steps closer. She looms over him, an elderly woman with frail skin, dark spots of age scattered all across her face. She's not smiling. "You're going to be starting training tomorrow," she says. Gazing over his chart, she barely looks him in the eye. "Your abilities are weakened by your recklessness. You've sobered up enough by now; you will begin testing soon. Get some rest."

It's not a suggestion — the option is not presented to him as a choice because he has no choice. The woman scientist presses a button on a controller attached to wires hooked around the metal frame of his bed. The IV drip slides opens and chemicals pump into his veins. He loses consciousness within seconds.

​

Sean isn't sure what he should've expected of the facility he's been brought into, finally being released from the bed he'd been strapped down to most of that entire first week. He's received liquid meals every day to sustain his body, but they haven't gone so far as to let him stand up and walk around. Therefore, he has no strength. His legs are weak, mere pencils beneath the flap of his gown. As soon as he's up, they lead him into a separate room with a showerhead and a drain carved into the floor.

They strip him naked, shove him under the sprayer head, and begin to hose him down. He shivers, not from the temperature of the water but from the fear that fills him immediately. Mostly fear of exposure, as he crosses one arm over the midsection of his body and the other over his chest. He doesn't even care about the lack of respect for boundaries, or the fact he's being treated more an animal than he is a human being; it's the eyes trained upon his body that make him sick to his stomach. The feel of his own skin. The shape of his chest, no longer flat but rather... he can't even conjure up the words to describe his own body.

Once they've cleaned him up, they toss a change of underwear and a pair of coveralls at him and tell him to get dressed. On the back of the outfit, it reads: "MUTANT", and on the front, sewn into the right breast-pocket, the same string of numbers they were calling him that entire first few days before they learned his "real" name.

"SUBJECT NO. 0051222", it reads, and in smaller letters just below that, "NEILSEN, O."

He's wary to put on the outfit — the bra and panties especially — but with the cold nipping at his skin and the officers peeking glances out of the corners of their eyes, he finally decides it's better to walk around with this sort of identification forced upon him than it is to stand around naked. So he scrambles to get dressed, does up the buttons of the shirt all the way to his chin, leaving not a single inch of skin exposed save for his hands and feet and everything above the neck. If he had his way, he wouldn't even leave that.

Whatever drug they're pumping him full of, it's woken him up inside. His emotions are duller, but his perception of the world around him has become a million times sharper. He feels he could shift easily if he tried, but he doesn't want to share that part of himself with these scientists just yet. He knows they're going to force it out of him soon enough, but as long as he can, he intends to keep it hidden.

Until he realizes what the old woman scientist meant by saying he would 'begin training soon', that is. As soon as they take him into the room of mirrors and tell him to shift, he's more than eager to experiment with his power, because they don't hold him back like he thought they would. They aren't there to tell him what to do, they're there to witness what he can.

He hadn't had a chance to think about it much before, when the scientist had mentioned training and testing. Now, he wonders: Training for what? What kind of testing?

He finds out soon enough, but compared to what the other mutants in the facility might've been going through — it's remarkably less severe at first, because he has so much catching up to do.

When he starts shifting into a boy, he does it slowly, gradually at first. He doesn't use the same appearance he liked to keep beforehand. He keeps it simple, only masculinizing his features enough to pass without going so far as to spring up the curls or darken his freckles. He doesn't add any tattoos. He doesn't make himself any taller. He looks like a fucking child, but at least he's him.

"Why did you choose a male form?" the old lady scientist asks him. He can tell she's not asking out of any sort of genuine curiosity by the fact she's still holding the clipboard in her hands, pen poised over the paper ready to write down whatever he has to say.

"Because I wanted to." He answers simply, providing no other explanation.

The scientist purses her lips, taps the pen against the clipboard. She shakes her head, connecting the dots within seconds and... to his surprise, seeming to understand just fine. "A damn shame," she says, no longer sympathetic. "Such a waste of potential."

It doesn't make any sense to him. He still doesn't know what they intend on doing with him here, or how much worse it's going to get. He doesn't understand the point of all the tests, the trainings they've enrolled him in for the next couple weeks. He doesn't understand... What potential?

TEMPLATE © BOKEH​

 

[starboob]

MARS BATISTA

She's many places,
but she's homeward bound

18 FEBRUARY, 4 YEARS AGO | LOCATION: BANGKOK, THAILAND

“What?” She sounded incredulous.

“I’m only saying, Starboy, I think you should be careful. I don’t think things are changing the way you think they are,” she warned, arms casually stretching up and over her head with a wide yawn as she slipped out from under the protection of duvet covers. What a sweet sight for such an sour topic. Mars frowned.

“What makes you so sure?” She asked, propping herself up onto an elbow as she admired her friend, and occasional lover’s backside. Why did they have to be talking about this on such a perfectly good morning? They could have been entertaining each other! They could have been feeding each other chilled, vodka soaked watermelon while drinking champagne for breakfast, but of course Mercy wanted to talk about her visions—none of which had ever made any sense to Mars. But, apparently, when one was as connected to the Earth as Mercy... sometimes Ms. Mother Nature whispered and revealed her secrets to her chosen. Rarely had Mercy ever been wrong, too, so Mars knew that perhaps she should have at least considered the warning. Outwardly, though, she shook her head, “If you’re always right—why not live, then, more fully for as long as we may be given? Why take this freedom for granted knowing it will expire? Such a waste to worry over things we can’t change––pah!" she waved her hand at the thought of wasting, withering away to mere worries. "Why do you even bother concerning me with these things?”

Mercy smiled and an airy laugh escaped her as she half turned to look back at the other. “This is why you’re my favorite, Marzipan; you never let anything get in your way.” She walked towards Mars, towards the bed and sat at the edge nearest to the other. Her fingers tangled into Mars' winter dark curls, pushing back her bangs, pushing her onto her back. She leaned down to kiss the wild woman, briefly; her free hand settled on her exposed ribs as she pulled away and took her lip from Mars’ teeth.

As she looked down at her friend, Mercy was sad; she was worried. There were too many timelines where she saw Mars in trouble––often due to her own recklessness; but there was no point in trying to contain a free spirit. In all her years of knowing the nomad, she had learned that Mars was the wind they created. She was someone who was felt fiercely, and briefly. (Like a shark, she seemed to have to always be on the move / chasing excitement and its twin, danger; there were a litany of metaphors to describe Marz.) "I tell you these things so you at least have a chance to be careful––you could thank me." It was all Mercy could do––give warnings; at the end of the day, she was only a vessel for messages. To some degree, Mars was right––why occupy her thoughts over things that were likely already set in motion? That was the fickle thing about the future and clairvoyant gifts––it was ever changing and more of an equation of probability and statistics than anything else; there was still a chance something else would happen; another outcome; another possibility; another chance. She owed Mars that much hopefulness––after all, the woman had enough for the rest of the world. Someone should have some for her.

Meanwhile, where Mercy wrestled with her ghosts, Mars was on a completely different planet (her own). She was admiring the way Mercy's brow furrowed together when she was thinking; how her tongue stuck out when she was thinking of silly things; how philosophical thoughts prompted her to bring her fist up to her chin; whereas serious thoughts caused her to chew at the corner of her lip. This was a serious thought and Mars wouldn't let her spoil the morning by picking at the rotten fruit in her head!

Her grin lazily drooped across her features, as if it might slip right off her face, and her eyes spoke mischief when they narrowed. She sprung up (Mercy squealed––and not in that high-pitched-fake-annoying way––in genuine surprise) and, in an instant, she had her long arms snaked around the woman's slender figure; she twisted, turned and soon had Mercy pinned beneath her. "I would love to thank you..." She whispered, parting her thighs with one leg (and then the other, settling between them). "How may I be of service, Mercy?" Her tongue grazed the shell of Mercy's ear, then moved lower, and she nibbled on her earlobe (her legs wrapped around her)––they dragged under her jaw, grazed down her neck, found her pulse point... her fingers slid... Lower, lower, lower...

▸▸
16 OCTOBER, 3 YEARS AGO | LOCATION: MADRID, SPAIN

"Are you staying safe?"

"You know me," she returned, not saying the truth outright because she knew the truth had too much power once it was spoken. She did not need her mother worrying about her wellbeing. Mars was no more reckless than she had been a few months ago and no more in trouble than she had been last week; she was alive, breathing, and taking care. There was little more one could ask of her––especially a loved one (loving Mars meant loving worry). She refused to compromise that wild woman of her heart. "I was thinking of coming back soon, maybe for your birthday?"

"Are you changing the subject?" She could hear her mother's bemusement, exhaustion, the way she arched a single knowing eyebrow all through the phone. It all made Mars smiled. (She missed home.) Her mother continued, her smile showing through her words, "You should come home... Camila is having a baby––it would mean the world to her if you could stay for the birth... It's supposed to be a few weeks after my birthday, even. Do you think you could make that work?"

"Oh... Well, you know me," she returned, sheepishly. Mars had never been one to plan out her future in advance and resisted making any form of longterm plans. Even the short-term plans that she held were subject to change if something more interesting came her way. Her mom knew this of her child; still, she never wanted Mars to feel excluded from the life she had left behind––maybe because she was hopeful her little bird would return to the nest. "I hadn't planned that far ahead."

"Okay, okay," her mother sighed, disappointed and Marz felt the guilt even with the thousands of miles of distance between their two hearts. (At this point in Mars' life, she knew that living “authentically” meant inviting disappointment. She couldn't cater her life to everyone else's desires––she would not be happy if she did that. Where she tried to be thoughtful, where she avoided causing any undo pain, she knew it was impossible to never hurt another person. If it could be avoided, she did her best to never do so on purpose.) "Just be careful. Your father has heard some disturbing rumors about our-kind being disappeared."

▸▸31 DECEMBER, 3 YEARS AGO | LOCATION: TORONTO, CANADA

There were few things more oppressive than being forced to choose a brand for the same exact product––it was a tyrannical burden to place on a customer. Why could people just not agree on one brand and sell that? How were there so many different brands for noodles? And now she couldn't even remember the type that Kafele had asked for––rice or glass? How thick should they be? How flat? She scratched the top of her head, as if that could help her finger through the files of miscellaneous memories she had, searching for the one that contained the reel of tape from the morning when he had asked her to pick-up g̶̭̻̈͠l̴̠̭͗̚å̶̧͓s̶̢̻͊s̸̗͘ noodles for tonight's dinner. Ultimately, she did not have the time to spend on figuring out which noodles were supposed to go with the dish––something she hadn't heard of and thus could not place an image to––and swept a few different varieties into her cart. 'That should cover all of the bases.'

Next, she grabbed a bottle of wine, a red she had fond memories of and hoped it would act like a magic potion; creating more fond memories if she drank it again with a dear one. The thought, however, was interrupted as a man pushed past her in the aisle and said, “Get out of the way, freak.” (Except that he didn't say freak and he didn't just push past her; Mars remembered all of this later when she caught up to him in the parking lot––she was civil enough to not start something in the grocery store with so many families that could potentially see.)

.............​

"Okay, yes, maybe I have a temper––but to be fair, you also would have used the asphalt as a face-grater if you had heard what he said," she said, pouting on the couch with her long legs crossed over one another as she iced her bruised hand. The incident in the parking lot may have been hours behind her, but for Kafele it was still new information and he was concerned. Everyone was always concerned. Mars, a master of her mind, would never understand that. "Like, geeze..." She muttered, leaning back in her chair so that she could see Kafele in the kitchen, cooking whatever it was that he was cooking. "Sorry about the noodles, by the way. I couldn't remember which kind you wanted and then, well, a lot of them got crushed when..." When she tossed the grocery bag onto the ground and then slammed the fellow grocery store patron into the discarded groceries. The wine bottle miraculously survived. ''God is good,' as grandma would have said.'

He sighed. "Well, I mean, it's fine. But for someone as cool and unbothered as you, I'm just surprised it only takes a slight to get you riled up." His voice was rich and deep. Actually, everything about him seemed rich and deep––from his voice to this appearance to the words he said (sometimes––sometimes Mars felt he was just saying pretty nonsense like most philosophers). He reached for the pepper, chiles, basil. "I do get it. Sure, I've wanted to punch people who harass me––but I never act on it." Not now anyway––his scrappiness had left him long ago while Mars' seemed to only ripen (or rotten, depending on whether or not one is an optimist or pessimist).

"Actions speak louder than words. If you want someone to listen, you don't use words." If the pen was actually sharper than the sword, then why didn't colonization happen through soliloquies, poems, and love letters? It was historically more violent than that––Mars assumed everyone knew this fact by now. The pen, as she understood it, had only ever been used to spin powerful lies to inform subordinates how they should and ought to act when the sword strikes. She honestly didn't think violence should have had as poor a reputation as it did; she thought it was propaganda to pacify people. If people knew they could resort to violence, that it was within their power to use it? That wouldn't end well for all the monarchs. "You never finished your story about Luca."

"Oh, yeah," He smiled, beaming at her in such a boyish way that she was smiling too (he really did light up the room––and that wasn't even a pun about his literal control over light; he truly just was a brilliant person). He collected the rest of the ingredients and brought them out into the dining room where she had been sitting. He pushed a cutting board loaded with vegetables over to Mars. "You can help me with these, yeah?" She nodded, placed the bag of ice aside, and took the chore from his plate. Despite the smile he wore just moments earlier, his tone darkened and seemed to dim the lights with it (the definition of mood lightning). "Thanks, anyway––yeah, she came over the other night, super shaken up and I asked what was wrong––I thought something had happened with mom again––but, apparently, she almost got arrested for taking care of her greenhouse! As if that is such a damn crime. Who cares? It's not like she was doing anything nefarious. I mean sure, the city council thinks its a nuisance because it provides free food for the homeless––but it's not illegal! (And it shouldn't be...)" He could go on about this for hours (and he often did), because once Kafele was started on a subject, especially one that involved the law, you were in it for the long haul. (He wanted to become a lawyer, but law schools weren't ready for mutants and Kafele, like Mars, did not live in secret.) Mars was thankful for the wine.

"Luca's completely harmless..." She muttered while he continued on and on––now tying it all back to some podcast he had been listening to (boring). Mars wasn't listening, though (and not just because it was boring). She was thinking about what he initially said––about his sister almost getting arrested. The news shocked her, even if she didn't want it to; she couldn't stop thinking about it and it stuck to her, making a warm bed for itself in her brain.

'Hmm...'

▸▸22 SEPTEMBER, 2 YEARS AGO | LOCATION: JOSHUA TREE, U.S.A.

In the desert, the heat had its own smell. It was more than just a feeling. When the oppressive heat of the sun soaked into the sand of the Earth it created a dry, dusty smell––made sweet only with the sweat of one's upper lip. It was a smell that left an impression in the nose and stuck, easily, to slicked, sweaty skin. The desert had a feeling beyond just hot. The sun did not just shine down on the sands, she beat down on the Earth as if the desert had personally offended her. And for EquiFest, all the symptoms of the desert were exacerbated with the added bodies crowding around the various stages. If Mars was not Mars, they may have been sardined with the other fans in the audience but they had the special privilege of knowing and being personally intimate with the singer who was headlining the little mutant music festival.

They snuck through the backstage (though they could have easily been let in; their name was on the guest list, but where was the fun in that?) and searched for their friend. When they found her, sitting in front of a vanity in the green room, they covered her eyes with one large hand and kissed her cheek, "Guess who!"

Immediately, Mercy's lips erupted into a brilliant smile and she turned around, embracing them in a fierce hug. It had been a while since they had last been in the same room together. A couple of years, if she was not mistaken (she wasn't). "Marz! You came!" She was shocked, and pleasantly surprised by their appearance. While she had asked them to come a few months back, she had not know whether or not the wild woman would actually show-up. Not that she doubted Mars' support or loyalty––it was just that Mars did not a make a habit of keeping dates and they were quite transparent about that. Even when she had asked initially, they had plainly told her they wouldn't make a promise but they would make an attempt.

"Of course! MercixMercy is my favorite band and I have heard the singer is a total babe! A complete dreamboat, even! The hex girl who has this heart," they said as they crossed a finger over their chest, punctuating the flirty action with a wink. They squeezed her a little tighter and kissed the top of her head; she buried her face into the crook of their neck and took the moment to wrap herself in their sweet cinnamon fragrance.

"Oh, puh-lease... I am really glad you came." She pulled back to look up at them and she had that concerned look in her eye that seemed to be a signature part of her uniform. Mars supposed if they had the ability to see possible futures that maybe they would worry more too. But since that was hardly their concern, given that there abilities kept them in the present, they did not spend much time on the thought or imagining that kind of life. "I keep hearing about you in the news," she continued, her tone was just shy of outright scolding them––clearly upset with them; they only offered a sheepish grin in response. "I told you to be careful." They really didn't like how she put so much stress on careful––they were plenty careful! (When it suited them––which averaged around 13 percent of the time.)

The taller of the two sighed and nodded; it was better to go along with whatever Mercy wanted when she was anxious; at least to pay some lip service to her to bundle of nerves. It wasn't lying in their eyes––it would have been much worse if they actually spun a half-hearted promise to her. Nodding along was completely different––if you did the mental gymnastics to figure it out as Mars had. BUT, if she were so worried about them, they would try to keep a low profile. (Though if someone bet them that they couldn't outrun a speeding bullet, when they very well could (not), well they might not have much a choice but to RISE to the occasion. They would have to keep that thought to themselves, though. For Mercy's sake––it was being a good friend.)

There was a knock on the makeshift door and Mercy's manager called out through it, "Five minutes!" The multi-talented woman sighed and then turned so that she could step onto the chair that she had previously been sitting on; this added enough inches to her height that she could look at Mars without straining her neck (if they stuck around she would request a neck massage to put those lengthy fingers to use). She kissed their cheek and then on their forehead. "If you're planning on staying after the show... there's going to be a party at The Gatsby." Immediately after saying that, though, she turned to head onstage. It was, admittedly, abrupt but she didn't want to wait to hear their answer; she didn't want to be disappointed if the woman said she were going to leave. One could never be too sure how long Mars would stick around. It could be hours, days, or a month and there was no way of knowing until they were gone––sometimes without a goodbye. They forced you to enjoy each moment with them, in that way.

As they stood alone in the green room (which was not green, it was red), they leaned back against the vanity where Mercy had previously been. They could hear the audience screaming for her. It filled the room and a little smile danced across their lips; they popped up from the vanity and walked out to the backstage area. At the side of the stage, they peaked at the performance and were fully mesmerized by her natural dominance over the stage and crowd.

"Alright, freakies––are you all ready to get WEIRD tonight?!"

Okay, maybe they would stick around, at least for one night.

.............​

A few hours, dozens of drinks later, the pair were lazily cozied in booth at the back of a desert dive bar––full of other mutants from the festival and hipster locals. "I keep saying it, I know, but I've never heard a more compelling cover of Nothing Compares 2 U––I really, really think I am going to think about it for the rest of my life," Mars said, breaking a long and comfortable lull in their conversation. They had an arm around the smaller woman and she was curled into their side, tracing circles on their chest while they stroked her short, bleach blonde waves.

She grinned back and leaned up, pressing her hand firmly against their chest for support, partly, because she was coming down from being drunk, "Let's go back to my place—I can give you a private show; I’ve been practicing my Whitney." (Houston, of course)

"Okay," they whispered, sliding out of the booth and offering a hand to help the other woman out, which she gladly took. As they made for the exit, waving goodbye to the friends they'd made over the course of the evening, someone from outside burst through the entrance—Mars was naturally put at alert, ready for whatever was about to happen and Mercy, just as naturally, grabbed their arm and pulled them back—but before the person could even shout their warning, a swarm of militarized forces poured into the bar.

There was no warning. No call to get on the ground. No announcement of arrest or what was happening. There were only tranquilizer darts flying into the air and people screaming, making for blocked exits––the armored rats didn't seem to care to distinguish between who was human and who was mutant. The fallen, sedated bodies, were all gathered, retrained, and dragged outside just the same. Through the window, Mars saw three transport vehicles and two tanks––all with the emblem for the specialized domestic unit dedicated to dealing with problematic mutants (Mars was familiar with them, but had never technically been in such close quarters with them).

The patrons, of course, fought back as best they could. Mercy, a renowned pacifist, even lifted a wall of Earth and used it to push back against the aggressors; Mars, meanwhile, sped through the room and plucked as many darts from the air as they could and stuck them into the necks of their assailants.

When they move, when they accelerate, it was the world around them that slowed down––warping their own perception of space and time. In their fastest moments they actually felt slowed down. Now was no different; in this slowed pace they were able to observe and assess. They could see others were also fighting back and taking out the soldiers where they could, but the ratio of special forces to patrons was grossly disproportionate; coupled with the fact that most were so intoxicated that even if they had stood chance sober, their form was too sloppy to be of any use. Mars had done this calculation in a minute; the odds were stacked. Easily, they could have left––they probably could have carried Mercy out too––and they considered that for only a minute. But Mars wouldn't and didn't turn their back on people.

They grabbed Mercy and pulled her behind the bar. Her expression screamed terror. They tried to calm her by cupping her face in their hands and forcing her attention on them. "Hey, hey, look at me," they said, hooking their eyes into her own so that she could not look away from them. "You need to get out of here. You need to take as many people as you can and get out of here." She had made the connection even before Mars had spoke and she looked at them in complete disbelief––almost offended (no, she was offended). "We don't have time to get into it––look, more people get out if you take them; I'll be fine."

That was a blatant lie. Premonition or not, Mars was predictable to a fault. She clung to them, her hands balled into tight fists around their shirt. She knew what would happen if she let go. "Don't. You don't have to be a hero," she muttered, tears started to stream down her face—soon like a rushing river; like she was going to make an ocean of the desert.

They closed their eyes, jaw clenched tight as they pulled and pried her off of their clothes. Their hands wrapped firmly around her wrists; as much as she tried to struggle, break free, and hold them (hold them back), Mars pushed her away and held her at arms length instead. The wild woman took one last look at their friend and, for her benefit, offered a lopsided grin with their head tilted to the side, "Why are you so surprised that I am, Ms. Know-It-All?"

Before she could laugh, cry, or protest any further, before she could blink or even breathe, they were gone and she was alone behind the bar. Mars had made up their mind already; now she had to make up hers––and hers was set on making sure Mars had a chance.

.............​

Mars was not a one-man army––even if they pretended to be. While their speed gave them an extraordinary advantage in being able to take out multiple opponents at once, in a seeming single sweep, they were still outnumbered (it didn't even seem to matter how many soldiers they knocked out). They were still incredibly human, with a limited fuel tank and they were quickly losing momentum (there was only so much time they could spend at the upper-end of their speed limit). Yet they could not bring themselves to leave while they still enough in them to keep going. It was not their intention to save anything for the journey home.

They were able to draw a majority of the forces outside of the bar––which easy enough after they created a sonic boom with the force of their sprinter's start launch; it was even easier to bring more out once they had sent a Mars-made tornado to knock over the tanks and two of the vans. (They hoped that was enough to distract the soldiers; they hoped that gave Mercy time to get out with the remaining patrons.) With most of the forces drawn outside, Mars was able to pick off a handful more, but running in circles to create that tornado had taken up most of their remaining energy.

It was getting easier to take aim as their body slowed down.

A dart landed in the back of their neck, another stuck into their chest, and a third hit their arm. The effects of the drug made short work of the runner and soon they had tripped, crashed, and tumbled into the sand. Most of their body was slipping away from them or maybe it was their conscious; they tried to get up, but a club struck their back between their shoulder blades and kept them down.

"I hear these monsters can take quite the beating."

There was another strike against their back.

elsewhere

vibing

70s glam rock vibes

mercy & kafele

coded by natasha.

 

[starboob]

tw: death, substance use​

REGGIE NORTH

MY HEART AND SOUL WERE NEVER MINE TO OWN

20 MAY, 4 YEARS AGO | LOCATION: DUBLIN, IRELAND

The streets never felt the same in different cities, with different bodies and souls. It wasn't that Regina expected each city, each place they visited to feel the same but they were used to a certain kind of stasis that made new environments, new places more jarring. But, maybe, it was their own fault for drinking to the point of disorientation. The kind where the streets never made any sense and it was difficult to even remember the city that they were in––tour life on its own would have made that difficult, and they certainly were not making this any easier on themselves.

Their feet shuffled and they stumbled through the entrance of the hotel lobby––finally having located the right one after bumbling through several wrong ones. They only had a few hours before they were supposed to be ready for an interview and, of course, disastrous as ever, they were still covered in last night's sweat, vomit, sex, etc. Whatever they had done to their body the night before is hidden from their mind's eye, but it was begging to escape. It pounded against their skull and banged against their eyes. 'Christ.' The lights in the lobby were too bright and the colors were just a little too much. At some point they ended up losing their feet and ran––or rather, crashed into a bell boy and pushed over his cart. They didn't even stop to apologize or help clean up the mess. 'Fuck, fuck, shit...'

When they finally made it up to their room, it took multiple attempts before they managed to get the keycard into the slot. 'Yikes, Reg.' For a minute, or maybe fifteen, they forgot about their agenda for the day and instead preoccupied themselves with finding a cure for the increasing, imminent hangover from Hell. (This “cure” was also known as raiding the hotel mini-fridge––which was empty. Already. They groaned.)

They stood, frustrated, and when they turned around to find that their tour manager had sent a breakfast cart up to their room, it set something off within them––probably, because it felt like an insult to their ability to be a regular human (it was beyond them to assume that Soren cared). Naturally, they took their irritation out on the cart and shoved it into the corner of the bed––it bumped and shook in a predictable way; a couple of utensils fell to the floor. That wasn't enough. They pushed it again, this time into the open space of the room where it turned over and spread what would have been their breakfast across the hotel floor. 'Heh.'

Their diet was a mixture of pure liquid, powder, and direct drips of pure bliss into their veins and they didn't need anyone to tell them how they should or should not take care of their body! They sure as hell didn't need a fucking virgin telling them what to do. It was that exact sort of defiant, non sequitur logic that inspired them to––

“––ahh, hey!”

Before they could even grab hold of the television and rip it off the wall, they were yanked by the collar and dragged backwards into the bathroom. Reggie had nearly lost their balance with Soren's ambush, but when she more or less flung them with ease towards the tub they fell over completely and crashed against it, crumpled on their side.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, you little punk? Do you think you’re in Mötley fucking Crüe?? Are you stupid?" The alleged virgin scolded them, then smacked the backside of their head with her ringed fingers ("Ow!"). "Clean yourself up, little bitch." (She actually was a pleasant person to be around––a real peach––but she was also a serious tour manager and gave her clients exactly the kind of treatment they not only deserved, but often needed.) Reggie glared as she left them alone in the bathroom, gathering themselves from the floor and already thinking of ways to get even.

.............​

"So tell us, Reggie, what was the inspiration for SYRIN's debut album 'High Mom' following the success of your EP, 'Young God'?"

"Sure, sure... I'll tell you about that..." They looked away from the interviewer and made direct eye contact with Soren, a coy smirk threatening to tug at their lips. She seemed to know exactly what Reggie was thinking and mouthed the word 'No!' but they'd already made up their mind. Their gaze shifted back to the interviewer and they continued, "But, first, I think we should ALL have a drink." (Soren just about lost her temper––steam practically flared out from her nostrils and ears and she almost destroyed Reggie on the spot.)

"Oh?" The interviewer blinked; there was some shuffling amongst the crew––confused looks between them all before they ultimately shrugged and agreed. "Okay, sure..." And soon enough there were drinks in hand and Reggie decided, then, that they were ready to continue with the interview––which was fairly standard and something unremarkable. What Reggie was unaware of, however, was that while the interview aired on live radio, 10 percent of listeners went to join them for a drink as well.

▸▸14 JUNE, 3 YEARS AGO | LOCATION: TORONTO, CANADA.

The club was the same as any other in essence––expensive booze, dizzying lights, music that could break bones if it were any louder (all of it remixes of songs that didn't need to be made into dance/club remixes––honestly, it was offensive what they did to the Lorde). In some ways, the club was a second home to the rockstar who spent more time out than in; who hated to be alone; who preferred facile relationships to ones that could be felt with depth. Here, there, anywhere people danced carelessly, pumped with loveless potions, was their oasis. It took them away from the onerous burden of being alone lonely.

(Sex, money, drugs hugged them all just the same. Sure, the warmth that each provided was temporary but it was better than staring in the mirror.)

With whatever their heart was pumping, it was no surprise that their humming body didn't register that the girl they had come with had been replaced with a new body, a new face (a prettier face). They didn't notice that she felt different, but they noticed her hands on their hips, the tips of her fingers dancing up their shirt and dragging down their abdomen, clawing at their hips. Whoever the woman was, she had them too hooked to care about the forgotten girl.

When she noticed that she had their attention, she shot them a grin and looped her arms around their neck. She slowed their rhythm despite the fast song. Stepping up to her tiptoes, she shouted (but even then they could barely hear her), "Hey, singer––cool trick you did out there.” The way she said it and the knowing eye that followed all said, 'I know what you are.' "I was at your show tonight––you are the lead singer of SYRIN, right? I'm not mistaking you for a different blondie?"

They only shrugged in response. It was indifferent enough; it was aloof enough, but honestly they just couldn't hear her. Besides, they were more than happy to ignore whatever conversation that she was trying to have with them so long as she wanted to hold them.

"You're kinda quiet."

.............​

Eventually, Reggie had invited the woman to join them for a few bumps in the bathroom; that of course led to their bodies pressed together in the cramped stall; which of course had the bouncer crashing the party after several agitated and piss-full dancers had heard the careless passion. The night, however, had been young and both Reggie and the woman (who had at some point introduced herself, but they would never be able to recall it) had made a silent agreement to continue. Somehow, they ended up across the city on the rooftop of some warehouse full of starving artists. Apparently, she was living there or knew someone there? They hadn't paid much attention when she spoke––they mostly just undressed her with their gaze and nodded along when it seemed appropriate.

A fine line disappeared beneath their nose and when their head came up and tilted back, their eyes opened to sight of stars (all twenty that they could see under the harsh city lights). Even if a bit lackluster, the view made them feel small and insignificant so they turned around and leaned against the barrier, propping their elbows on the ledge to hold them up as they slouched. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Had fun?” She teased.

“Fuck you—no, looked at the fuckin’ stars. They’re so... fuckin' boring...”

For some reason that made the woman frown. How could you go so long without noticing what was right above? And how could you not appreciate the beauty? Sure, Toronto was not the best place in the world to be stargazing, but it still could inspire wonder (she thought so, at least). She searched for something else to say, a new topic to keep them both entertained, because clearly this one was not interested in the stars. And soon, she remembered, finally, after spending hours distracted by Reggie’s mouth, the entire reason she had approached the singer in the first place. It came to her out of the blue too. “Oh, hey––I've been meaning to tell you: please spare yourself and don't hurt or upset my friend okay? It's really not worth it."

"What?" They asked, confused as they searched their pockets for their Lucky Strikes. "Who are you talking about?" They stuck a cigarette between their lips and flicked their thumb against the lighter several times, but it only created sparks. Thankfully, the woman came in for the save and touched the end of the stick with a fiery index.

"Oh––wait, my bad!" She laughed, flicking her wrist to put out the flame. Then she slapped her knee, continuing to laugh at a joke they apparently were not privy to. "You don't know them yet. But I am 70 percent shur that you will. The outcome is highly likely."

She kept her smile. Reggie stayed quiet. ‘She’s fuckin’ weird.’

▸▸17 JUNE, 3 YEARS AGO | LOCATION: PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.

"Yeah, whatever," they mumbled, bringing a scoop of powder to their nose and taking a deep inhale. "I just don't fuckin' believe that––" they paused, sniffled again and rubbed the side of their nose, making sure to get every dose properly integrated into their system. The drip in the back of their throat was bitter, worse than a bitter melon, pomelo, or grapefruit all combined. It nearly made them gag and cough, but they suffered through the discomfort because the high was always worth it. "––that it really counts as third fuckin' base if it was over the fuckin' underwear," they teased as they tossed the bag over to the anonymous brunette. She was sitting on the bed with her legs crossed; they were on the floor, stretched out on their side, looking up her fishnet stockings and paying careful attention whenever she shifted. It really was quite the view. ('––Who could've known it'd be this good?'' played softly in the background.) They smiled and watched as she took another bump. How many was that, now? Reggie had lost count a while ago, but they also had a higher tolerance and a faster metabolism. The singer couldn't speak for the brunette, however (though she seemed to be keeping up).

"So what are you saying about earlier?" She asked, setting the bag down on the nightstand. She fell backwards onto the bed.

Reggie took this as their chance to make a move. Slowly, they leaned up from their position on the floor and crawled over to her dangling legs. When they touched her ankle and smoothed their hand up her calf, she uncrossed her legs. (The textured groove of the fishnets felt even more electrifying when paired with a blossoming high.) Carefully, they placed their hands on her knees and pushed her legs apart; their pierced lips pressed against her the inner part of her knee and their tongue flitted out, dragging a couple inches up. "Well, shit... I just think we could make up for getting fuckin' interrupted..."

Wordlessly, she smoothed her fingers over their buzzed-soft blonde locks and pulled them forward. She lifted her head just a bit to look down at the singer, as a smile smoothed over her lips.

.............​

They fell backwards onto the bed, with a lit cigarette between their lips and the dime bag fisted in their hand, resting on the stomach. Next to them, the brunette reached for their hand and evidently she wasn't reaching to hold it; she wanted the only other thing Reggie had to give and they obliged. Through their peripheries, they watched as she took yet another bump. After a long drag––that they blew it her face––they said, "Shit, are you good?"

The woman raised her hand and made a weak attempt to wave the smoke out of her way. When she looked at them, her eyes were half-lidded, but she offered a (pale) smile and a nod. Her hand was on their arm. (Why did her hand feel so cold?) She leaned over and kissed their cheek, then stole the next drag of their cigarette just as they were bringing it to their lips. Maybe it was inexperience, but she coughed on the smoke and took that as a chance to excuse herself to the bathroom.

A couple of minutes passed without note and when the sound of a dull thud broke through the soft background music, they called out to her, “Yo, you good?” After a few minutes and no response, they got up (though it took them an added five minutes to pull themselves away from their Instagram feed before they actually headed to the bathroom). When they pushed the door open, they found the brunette collapsed on the floor––she must have hit her head on her way down because blood was spilling out of her and spreading across the linoleum. Her body was slack. Drool hung out the corner of her colorless lips and immediately Reggie rushed over to her. "Shit, shit––" a hurricane of curses flew out of the mouth as they grabbed hold of her shoulders and began to shake her. "Dude, wake up!" They tried and called out to her (and at some point realize they don't even know her name). "Fuck!" Carelessly, they let go of the brunette’s limp figure and tear back into the bedroom.

In haste, they swept through the room and grabbed their belongings––pulled their clothes on without making sure they were forwards or right-side out, too rushed and too focused on clearing out before... before they could be sure of what was happening. They flew down the stairs of the apartment and, just their luck, caught the roommate on the way out; he said something, they couldn't be sure, about their show last night and that he was a big fan or something. All Reggie could think was, 'Fuck.' Their eyes reached into the fan, their stare fierce as they grabbed his shirt and told him, "You didn't see me. No one else was with her," before they shoved him backwards and bolted out of the studio, hood pulled over their face.

'Shit. Shit! Fuckfuckfuck––'

▸▸18 SEPTEMBER, 2 YEARS AGO | LOCATION: SAN FRANCISCO, U.S.A.

Their fingers hit the piano and for a minute it sounded as if they were going to cover Tiny Dancer; the crowd started to cheer. But the rockstar stopped, suddenly, and their hands fell into their lap. It was a moment of pensive thought as they chewed on the corner of their lip and one hand dragged through their boyish blonde locks, sweeping it from their face. They reached for the mic and pressed their thin, pierced lips a little too close, "Fuck it––you know what, San Francisco, since you all have been so fuckin' good to us, maybe I'll treat you to a new fuckin' song," The crowd's enthusiasm was clear and Reggie beamed at the audience (there was something almost shy about it), as they found their new start.

It was a soft song––

In the summer sheets, the only place she still exists,
There are dreams and reimagined memories
In all sacrilege, we exist, we still exist (delightful memory)
Side by side, elbow to elbow, this moment is a dream
And in this quiet I tell her that I'm afraid

Only in the memory of these dreams does the ghost
Ever whisper. And I repeat the words that only
I could have conjured to absolve my hellish soul
When fear breaks into the seams of my bones
I tell myself, as she told me that night,
"It's gonna be okay, darling"

There's a soul out there praying just for me.
She told me I was gonna be alright.

▸▸19 SEPTEMBER, 2 YEARS AGO | LOCATION: LOS ANGELES, U.S.A.

"Reg, are you okay?"

The rockstar was bent over with one hand grasping the brick wall, and the other clutching their stomach. They were staring at the last meal they had eaten and their noise wrinkled from the smell. Wiping their mouth with the back of their hand, they placed the cigarette back between their lips; their hand waved away at the concern as they straightened up and propped themselves against the wall, mumbling a response, "I'm fuckin' f––ine." Though nothing about their gait, posturing, general make-up indicated that they were, in fact, fine. Whatever was coursing through their veins was raging against their bones and rejecting its host––begging to get out. It felt like there was a tight rubber band around their head and heart (in a way, it was kind of pleasant). "Wh-where the fuck are my fuckin' keys?" Again, the words are mumbled and they leave their lips in a shakey rhythm, while their hands pat down their pockets.

"Dude, is that a good idea? You're fucking drunk, dude?"

"Is that a good idea? You're fucking drunk," they repeated back, with all the petulance of a child as they glared at their bandmate. "Don't fuckin' worry 'bout me, 'kay?" their voice latched into his mind and relieved him of his (rightful) concern. For a moment his face went black, but then he put his hands up in surrender, backed away and mumbled something about coming to get him if the singer needed anything. (They didn't plan on taking him up on that offer.)

Once they located their keys, they made for their car. They only tripped over themselves a few times before they ran directly into their vehicle, barely bracing the impact with their hands. "Fuckin' miscalculated that..." It took them a second to gather themselves before they jerked the car door open (accidentally) and slid into the driver's seat. On some level, they knew this was a terrible idea, but they had been behind the wheel under worse conditions and survived. (They flirted with everything, why not Death?)

The engine started and they put their hands on the wheel. 'Ten and two.' It took a second for their vision to focus, and once it did they felt coherent enough to operate the vehicle. Though that steady feeling did not last long once the car was set into motion. It took more effort than they had to concentrate on the road in front of them; yet they figure that since their place was only a 20 minute drive away, it would be alright.

Though, they didn't notice how fast they were going; they were having trouble distinguishing street lights, signs, and sped through several stops. The lanes blurred together along with the other cars on the road. The distractions were overwhelming and soon their mind wandered, without any thought of the road in front of them. The only thing that called them back to reality was the sound of a car honking, desperately, as their awareness (too slowly) snapped back to attention. ‘Fuck––!’

The cars crumpled on impact.

.............​

When they came to, or started to come to, they only felt like a pair of eyes. Reggie couldn't feel their body, only the incoherent thoughts that swam through their head. Were they dead? Were they an angel? The lights around them seemed too bright to be natural, and their vision was still too hazed to make much sense of their stark setting. ‘Huh—‘ Slowly, a dull ache started to hug them though they weren't sure from what or why. The confusion, grogginess, drugs all left a heavy fog around their brain that only seemed to register the faint echoing two men talking, filling the inordinate ether.

"Well, look at that. This might be easier than we thought."

"Yeah... What time is it?"

"6:09 AM."

They heard shuffling around the ether. "Make sure the nurse records the time of death as 6:09 AM, then. We still have some work to do to spin this story. Do you have her family's contact... Hey, hand me that. I think she's starting to wake up." There was a small prick of pain in their arm; it was a familiar kind of kiss though this one was not pumping ice; it seemed to be something heavier. Their conscious, which had only barely been keeping them present in the hospital room, rapidly began to fade away. There was no energy in their body to fight the sedative or cling to this world.

Their body sunk deeper into the hospital bed.
Their awareness slipped back into the abyss.

somewhere

???

skater/grunge

randos, soren, ??? (mercy lol)

coded by natasha.

 

[heartstringss]

OLIVIA WRAY

A SNAPSHOT OF THE LIFE BEFORE




WINTER OF ‘07, TWELVE YEARS AGO.

LOCATION: RURAL KENTUCKY
AGE: SEVENTEEN​

”They can’t touch you till you’re 18,” Bryson says; not that Wray’s even really listening in the first place. She zones out staring off across the playground, settled on top of a picnic table with her elbows on her knees, her chin resting in the palms of her hands. She hears the conversation like a sound traveling underwater; it resonates but doesn’t really leave that much of an impression.

“Are you sure? How do you know?” Denny asks from the other side of her.

“How do you think I know? ...Lived experiences, man. Doesn’t mean they won’t still try to make your life as miserable as possible though. As soon as you can, you gotta disappear — just get out and get gone, you know? Don’t ever fuckin’ look back.”

“How are we supposed to do that? I ain’t got no fuckin’ money for a road trip, Bry. Fuck.”

“Don’t worry so much, man. I know a guy; I’ll hook you up.”

“... You always know a guy. But hey — thanks, man. I really owe you one.”

There’s silence for a beat when the two boys trail off in conversation; meanwhile, Bryson lights another cigarette. He passes it off to Denny, who takes a few puffs and then passes it off to Wray. She’s not paying much attention, so doesn’t notice Denny's hand a few inches away from her until the smoke wafting in her face begins to make her eyes sting with tears, though she ignores them. When one of the boys reaches out to wave a hand in front of her face, she doesn't startle, simply blinks and looks over with narrowed eyes full of annoyance. Bryson laughs, but Denny seems genuinely concerned when he asks, “You good, Wray?”

Wray gives a half-shrug as she takes the cigarette and puts it in-between her lips. She takes a few long drags, draining the tobacco nearly all the way down to the filter. When she goes to release the smoke, she can already feel her nerves begin to unwind, her muscles relaxing as the tension slowly drifts away. Laying back, she crosses her arms behind her head and closes her eyes. She focuses on the sounds of the world coming to life all around her, the feel of her blood pumping away inside her veins. She lets the world consume her. The shadows creep ever closer as day turns into night.

The boys’ earlier words drift back to her in slow motion, more like an echo than a memory. When she finally decides to throw in her own two cents, the conversation is no longer relevant, but her words hit home just the same.

“I want to disappear.”

FALL OF ‘08, ELEVEN YEARS AGO.

LOCATION: RURAL KENTUCKY
AGE: EIGHTEEN IN TWO WEEKS​

It’s not exactly difficult for a kid with no bank account, no family, no friends, and no future to disappear without a trace. If you know all the right steps to take, some might even say it’s as easy as planning a vacation.

According to Bryson's friend 'Gigs' (which is apparently short for 'Gigabyte' and, Wray thinks, is surely not his real name), Wray was the perfect candidate — then again, according to Gigs, Wray was pretty much the perfect... well, everything. It was undeniable that he had a sweet spot for the blonde. Anyone could see it, and though Wray knew that should’ve creeped her out a little more, (what with her still being 17 and him probably nearing 24), she figured it worked in her favor here. For instance, he was willing to loan her 3 grand for the low, low price of just one roll in the hay, if she was interested. (And yeah, she definitely should’ve been disgusted, but at least he wasn't bad looking... for a guy. He was sweet, even, though maybe a little socially inept... but he could help her disappear. With circumstances being what they were, she felt she simply couldn’t afford to be picky, you know?)

“If you don’t want them to find you, you can’t take anything stupid with you. No pictures, no memorabilia, no fuckin’ boyfriends, you got it?” They’d finished up just a few minutes earlier, and already Wray found herself desperately wishing for a shower. She could smell his B.O. clinging to her skin, the scent of Axe Body Spray barely masking the fact he likely hadn’t showered this morning before getting up and going about his day. In the aftermath of the act, she honestly did regret it... but it was too late to take it back now. Not like it was her first time using her body as leverage to get what she wanted (needed), anyway.

“I’m gonna make you a list of the kind of stuff you should take with you. I’ll get you some new ID, get you a passport so you can travel, but you gotta be careful, you hear?" Like he genuinely cared what happened to her. Okay, yeah, right. "Anyway, I should be able to get your name and face all scrubbed away today — medical, BMV, government records; whatever I can find. Even if they still remember you here,” he points to his temple as he talks, indicating his brain, “They won’t have any record of you here,” he gestured vaguely to the computer across the room, “'cause I’m gonna wipe your slate all clean, fake a death certificate, and have you ‘cremated.’ Even if they suspect it’s all BS, as I'm sure they will, they won’t have any way to get you back. It’ll be like you never existed in the first place.”

She doesn’t really understand how it works, but he says that’s fine because she doesn’t necessarily have to understand. She just has to make sure she doesn’t screw up any of his hard work. (And never existing in the first place? God, doesn't that sound wonderful.)

While Wray works on getting dressed, Gigs simply grabs a pair of basketball shorts off the floor and slips into them, leaving the rest of his torso bare. He doesn’t say much else as he expertly picks his way through the mess of his bedroom floor, working over to the computer set-up on the wall opposite from the bed. When he sits down at the desk and plugs in (not with any wires or hard drives, but rather literally, with his brain, his entire consciousness swept away in an instant), Wray shivers, watching the computer’s reflection change as his eyes turn glassy and blank as the monitor. His mouth hangs slightly agape as he works his way into the computer’s mainframe and begins to surf the web. The screen reflects codes of data in a string of bright green numbers, which then also reflect across his eyes. No longer is he in the same room as her; he is actually in the Internet now.

SPRING OF ‘11, EIGHT YEARS AGO.

LOCATION: SAN FRANCISCO, CA.
AGE: TWENTY​

When Gigs told her that she should take the opportunity to travel as much as she can while she can, Wray decided she was going to take his advice... and certainly didn't take it lightly. As soon as he finished compiling all of her data and wiping it clean from any and all records connected to the Internet (even those on secure systems, he said), she cut out of her group home and began working up a travel plan. There were three other teens in her home about to age out of the system with her; though she didn't know any of the others beyond a first-name basis at the time, she was sure they must've all seen the news. They had likely all heard Bryson's warning that they needed to 'get gone' as soon as possible too, and undoubtedly all shared the same dream. Whether they found themselves on the road or became somebody new somewhere along the way, the goal for most mutants — especially mutants with shitty childhoods, as there sure were a lot of those — was just to start over.

For a bunch of teenagers (and maybe especially mutant teenagers) growing up in rural-ass Kentucky, it was easy enough to mistake California as a land of possibility. Hollywood alone gave off the perfect first impression: come here and you can follow out every single one of your dreams; here, you can truly make something of yourself. 'Live larger than life!', they say. It was supposed to be a fresh start, and they all intended on chasing it.

Except, when they hop off the train, breathless and whole bodies sore, Wray notices nearly right away she seems the only one who doesn't care about chasing fame, or money, or any sort of recognition — she just wants to disappear, blend in, start over... and the fact that she could do that fairly easily on a train, hopping railroads like some kind of bandit from the wild, wild west? Hell, why wouldn't she have taken the opportunity when it presented itself? It was perfect!

The only problem: life in California — and especially life in San Francisco, where most of the trio settles first — is expensive as fuck.

When she starts running low on cash (which really doesn't even take that long), she begins looking into her options for work and ultimately decides her best option would be to throw a little caution to the wind and start to worm her way back out into society. It's not something she wanted to have to do anytime soon, but it's necessary. She can't just not work — she needs food, she needs money, she needs someplace to live, and she does not, under any circumstances, plan on going back to the streets.

Over the course of the next three years that she's in California, she sustains herself mostly off of odd jobs. Dog-walking, house-sitting, babysitting (she regrets that last one immediately); she takes pretty much anything that lets her work without having to provide too much of a personal profile, leaving too much of a footprint, or risk totally give up her anonymity.

But she doesn't want to disappear and only be trying to survive while she's doing it. That's the biggest problem... She needs hobbies, too, or she'll go insane.

A couple of years after she first moves to California, Wray realizes she's lucky to be generic enough in her appearance that she can blend in fairly easily if she just covers up her heterochromia. Walking around the city with blonde hair, blue eyes, tan skin, she looks just the same as almost any other bombshell beach babe in California, really... except for the fact she's not just like everybody else. Shadow clings to her every footstep; entire rooms grow just a touch darker at her entrance. She brings an energy with her everywhere she goes, one that does the exact opposite of lighting up a room with her smile, and it makes people... afraid, because they don't understand.

But it's easy enough for most to simply ignore her presence if she keeps quiet and doesn't make a scene, and that's exactly how she goes about keeping her anonymity and the peace. That is, until she decides to move onto the Internet to explore developing more of her personal interests.

When she first picks up a guitar and starts filming videos and soundbites of her own singing, it blows up on the Internet a lot more than she'd ever expected, but it's probably one of the best decisions she thinks she's ever made because, in the end, it makes her feel so, so alive. Maybe a little recognition isn't so bad after all...? And so she delves a bit further.

When she starts getting into Instagram, it doesn't take long before someone reaches out and presents her with the option of becoming a social media influencer, and though she's reasonably wary at first, she inevitably agrees (because why not? Hey, easy money!). It presents a lot of its own unique adventure, but quite a few unique obstacles as well — and it certainly doesn't hurt her income, of course.

By this point, her face is splattered all over the internet and keeps popping up everywhere she turns; her visage clear on display for anyone to see. People start recognizing her on the streets, they begin connecting her Instagram back to her music. It means her anonymity is squashed, but being that it's the Internet, well... she can still be whoever she wants; it's just that she's no longer a nobody. (Honestly, she'd rather be a nobody.)

Before it can get totally out of hand, she reaches out to Gigs and asks him to make sure her IP address is scrambled on everything she posts so that no one can link her online content back to her real-life location or identity. He freaks out on her, asking why her face is all over the Internet, how she could be stupid enough to use any part of her real name in her online identity. She shuts the connection with him off right then and there, the moment he calls her stupid, but fortunately, he still does what she asks. (Otherwise, he runs the risk of her "inevitable downfall," as he calls it, leading back to him, and obviously he can't have that.)

She gains quite a bit of online fame taking on this new persona of 'wray.of.sunshine', and it's not terrible, of course, it's just a little... dull. Too many people trying to force friendships on her, too many people wanting to get inside her pants. She ignores most of her followers, barely replies to any of her messages — doesn't even read most of them, actually.

Once she's achieved enough financial stability from that odd little adventure, she packs up her entire life, leaves California, and moves to Alaska instead. (It's the second-best decision she's ever made in her life; much more beneficial for her health, as the cold and dark help her stay in touch with her powers and the quiet, serene solitude helps her stay in touch with her sanity. Outside of the city, she no longer has to keep her abilities hidden. It's dark enough up north she can be herself without any need to worry, and for that fact, she can't help feeling grateful... and spiteful of the normalcy she'd lost somewhere along the way.)

From there, life begins to calm down and she finally settles into a rhythm. It's even peaceful... for a while.

FALL OF ‘15, FOUR YEARS AGO.

LOCATION: ANCHORAGE, ALASKA
AGE: TWENTY-FIVE​

Every year on her mother's birthday, Wray has a tradition that she keeps.

Driving to the store, she buys herself a single chocolate cupcake, a small box of birthday candles, a pack of American Spirits, and a bottle or two of cheap whiskey.

She tears into the cigarettes as soon as she gets out of the store, but leaves all the rest in the grocery bag until she gets home. Once she is home, she heads straight out to her balcony with the bag and dumps the entire contents out onto the patio table. Shoving a single candle into the cupcake, she lights a match and touches it to the wick, then sits down to smoke a cigarette and watch it burn.

While the candle works its way through its wick, Wray simply stares, hardly moving a single inch. She lets it burn until the candle has become nothing more than a mere stub of wax buried deep within the cupcake's top; until the confection is so heavily covered in wax it's not only no longer edible, but also hardly even recognizable as food anymore. Once the flame has snuffed itself out, she snatches up the cupcake, crumbles it up in the palm of her hand, and tosses it straight into the trash.

She says the same words in parting, year after year:

"Hope you got your wish, momma."

And then?

Well... And then she starts drinking.

​

When she stumbles out of the cab, it's late at night, damn near early morning, and there's a girl hanging off her arm, but Wray is pretty sure she never actually got her name. She doesn't get another chance to ask though, because almost as soon as they’d gotten into the car, the redhead passed out and hasn't woken up since. Slipping further down her seat until she's all but sprawled across Wray's lap, she nuzzles her face into her shoulder, humming sleepy thoughts against her skin. The more the blonde keeps trying to inch away, the closer she works her way right back.

Even though she had been perfectly fine having her personal space invaded just 15 minutes ago when this girl had been all over her with her hands and mouth in places she could only dream of being touched now, she feels a bit more uncomfortable with... this. This intimacy is of a different breed, now — something more akin to light-hearted affection than it was raw passion, she thinks — and it feels like she’s suffocating with its effects. Her skin tingles with nerves at the softness of sensation, far from soothing for someone who needs personal space more than simply craves it. A deep sense of panic swells inside her chest; she wants to claw out of her own skin.

She could have dumped the girl out onto the sidewalk and continued home on her own, but the thought to do so honestly never even crossed her mind. Eventually giving in to her fate, Wray sighs as she turns her head to direct her stare out the window of the cab. Brooding over the loss of what should have been a fun night, she trails multicolored eyes down to take in the other's frame and can’t help but think the woman’s beauty has only increased tenfold now that she’s quiet. Too bad she's asleep, or else Wray probably would've just kissed her right then and there.

Even though it's a bit of an inconvenience, she still takes the girl home with her anyway. When they get to the address of her building, she helps the redhead out of the car, carries her all the way up three flights of stairs to her apartment, and dumps her out onto her sofa. She's tempted to take her to the bedroom and tuck her into bed with her instead, but considering how clingy she's become... yeah, better not.

Just when she's decided she's about to turn away to go take a shower before going to bed, the female finally, finally wakes up. She grabs Wray's hand, stopping her in her tracks before she has the chance to leave the room. The blonde tenses her jaw, looking down to the slender fingers looped around her wrist like they're more an invasion of privacy than anything else; the feel of the other girl’s skin is so much warmer than her own, it nearly burns.

With moonlight streaming through the skylight, half the girl's face is washed in white. Big doe eyes look up at her through the dark, her expression confused but not necessarily afraid. ”Where am I?” she asks, her voice thick, husky with the remnants of sleep still clinging to her throat.

”My apartment,” Wray answers simply. She reaches down, begins to gently pry the woman’s fingers from her wrist. It doesn't work — instead of letting go, the redhead clings a little tighter. She slides her hand up her wrist and knots their fingers together instead.

For the redhead, it seems the memories are starting to drift back. She pieces the night together slowly. ”We were supposed to have sex,” she says bluntly, to which Wray only smirks in response. She nods, shrugging her shoulders as she clarifies, ”Supposed to. You passed out.”

It wasn't a comment meant to guilt her, and that's obvious enough by Wray's indifference, so it seems the redhead doesn’t even flinch. In a single fluid motion, she tightens her grasp on Wray's hand and gives a sharp tug to her arm. The blonde stumbles forward on long legs ending in boot-clad feet, but before she can fall, she catches herself on the arm of the couch. She's not an easy person to catch off-guard, or so Wray thinks until the girl tugs her wrist a second time and she goes tumbling onto the sofa, falling heavily down on top of her.

She feels heat begin to flood her veins when the redhead’s hands loop around her waist, palms spreading flat across her back as she helps her re-adjust. Her mouth attaches itself to Wray's neck within seconds, and the blonde sighs with the pleasure that races over her skin with the sensation — ah yes, this is much more up her alley. When teeth begin to nip and suckle at her skin, she leans her head back to give the girl a little better access, no longer resistant of her touch.

”You're gorgeous,” the redhead says against her skin, as soon as she pulls away. It’s a compliment she's given Wray what seems like a million times over the course of the past couple hours, and it certainly hasn’t grown old yet. ”How'd I ever get so lucky, hmm?”

Wray rolls her eyes. The feel of the other woman’s breath, warm against her neck, tickles her skin. She'd already given up hope for the night to turn out lucky, and yet...

‘Seems the situation's not so hopeless after all,’ she thinks.

”Luck of the draw, I suppose,” Wray says eventually, letting her full body relax as long legs tangle into a knot around the other woman’s skirt. She props her torso up by planting her elbow near the side of the redhead’s face. When the redhead turns her face to press a kiss to her bicep, Wray feels a catch in her chest, lips turning up into a rare (small) smile. She has to resist the urge to melt just as seriously as she does the urge to freeze, and yet somehow ends up doing both at once.

They’re both cast into moonlight now, one on top of the other. Even without the advantage of being on top, Wray can read the other woman easily through the low lighting, darkness never being an issue for her as she can see clearly regardless. She notices herself being checking out, the other woman's eyes flitting over her face, taking in her features with the light a little brighter than it had been back at the bar. When she startles looking a little closer at her eyes, it's easy enough for Wray to guess why. She's not wearing her contacts. (She doesn't anymore; she stopped almost as soon as she moved to Anchorage.)

Here we go. Wray thinks, sighing. The conversation starts just as predictably as it always does.

”Your eyes—“

People are always surprised. The same thing happens nearly every single time she brings someone home with her, as well as anytime she's out in public. It’s not like she doesn’t understand the shock — one eye dark as night, the other bright as a clear blue sky, it is startling, yes... but after 20-some odd years of explaining time and time again what the condition was, it’s starting to get a little old.

Fortunately, she’s spared the usual gushing by the fact the girl seems to recognize her annoyance, and instead drags her down for another kiss instead of pushing on. When she pulls away for breath, she does so grinning, her gaze already wandering somewhere else as she begins to look a little further around her apartment. Just as quick as before, she gets distracted. "Jesus... Why is your apartment so fucking dark?”

Wray chuckles. Glancing around the room to measure the darkness, she quickly notices that with the lights off and it being nighttime, the shadows of the room have drawn closer with each new passing second. Likely attracted by the heaviness (or lightness — honestly, it barely even matters one way or another anymore) of her mood, she briefly shuts her eyes and wills them away. With heavy curtains drawn over every single window, the only light that remains is what little creeps through the skylight from the moon hanging over her apartment. But the room still teems with shadows more alive than not, even pushed away. The dark blankets across every surface, spills into every nook and cranny like sand filling in the gaps in a bucket of stones. She often forgets that other people can’t see as well as she can in the pitch black of any room. She often forgets how weird it really is.

As charming as the girl's curiosity is, Wray really doesn't feel like explaining her entire life story right now. With the heat of the other girl’s skin pressing firm to places of her body that have been neglected far too long, Wray can barely string together a coherent thought of her own, let alone strangle up the energy to entertain anyone else's.

Just when she seems about ready to spit another one of her random curiosities out into the open, Wray leans forward on her elbows and swoops down to steal the woman’s lips in a kiss so rough it could bruise. ”If you’re going to be awake now,” she says when she pulls back for air a minute or two later, newly breathless and thoroughly invigorated, ”maybe we could continue what we’d started earlier.”

While she speaks the words, Wray comes up on her knees to straddle the other woman's thighs. She drags her up by the collar of her blouse and begins unbuttoning her top, sliding her hands into her shirt to reach around her back and unhook her bra. The bulk of her attention remains on her mouth, teeth nipping at the redhead’s bottom lip with a sharpness that makes her jump and could've easily drawn blood if she weren't being more careful.

When she feels the other's breath tremble past her lips and begin to dance across her own skin, Wray smirks, her pulse already beginning to race. With the redhead’s eyes turned wild and hungry, she's sure she can guess her desires pretty easily, but it goes entirely against her nature to simply guess, so instead of letting up, Wray presses in a little closer. Helping the redhead out of her bra, she tosses the article to the floor and then slips her hands back into her shirt. When she scratches her nails up her back, she's treated to the sweetest reaction in the world: a low moan of breath, a slow arching of the spine, a brief fluttering of long, dark eyelashes. She's putty in her hands within seconds.

"...So. Is that a yes?" Wray asks slowly, wanting to hear her say it. When she receives an eager nod and a few incoherently mumbled words in response, she decides that’s good enough and swoops down to crush their mouths together once again. Deepening the kiss, Wray is already multitasking as she draws her arms out of the redhead's shirt and moves to unbutton her jeans. Without a second’s hesitation, she takes the other woman's hand and slides it down the front of her pants, directing her fingers exactly where she wants them.

When the redhead doesn’t hesitate nearly as much as she thought she would, she feels her heart race faster, her breath hitching in her lungs with every stroke. The darkness creeps ever closer as the night falls away to nothing, and for just as long as that lasts, Wray is able to forget all the other stresses of her life.

THE CAPTURE

A BEGINNING TO THE END





LATE WINTER, THREE-ISH YEARS AGO.

LOCATION: SAN FRANCISCO, CA.
AGE: TWENTY-SIX.​

“It’s good of you to finally come and visit. I was starting to think you might’ve died or something, Wray…”

The blonde in question merely hums in response, hardly even paying attention. She keeps her eyes trained on her phone, unable to look away. Her mouth is drawn into a thin, angry line as she flicks through various different underground news apps all reporting the same exact thing.

Tensions increase as another mutant is reported missing, the third one this week. Local law enforcement refuses to investigate and there is still no response from the governor. What is going on?!​

She’s boiling inside, this entire trip already feeling like a goddamn mistake. She’s not sure why she even agreed to come in the first place; none of these people ever really cared about her, and even when she did live in the area, they hardly talked. (Maybe it was just boredom? Hell, that made the most sense out of any reason. She’d certainly been bored a lot the past few months — barely going out in public, most days not even talking... but then, that was kind of the point of isolation, wasn’t it?)

Here lately, it’s felt a little bit too much like the whole world is constantly closing in on her. Getting up in the morning has become difficult, eating has become difficult, hell, even finding joy in the things that used to make her happy has become difficult. It’s been almost two years since “the downfall of man” began. For a mutant, that’s nothing unusual because life itself has always been different — rather, life itself has always been difficult — but it seems like it’s only getting worse, now. Hostility increased to frequent, near-commonplace threats of violence; there was something in the news every single day about people turning up missing, or dead.

No one that could do something about it was even making an effort to try; there weren’t near enough human-mutant relations representatives to tackle all of the issues. Her own community, often placid and peaceful because they just wanted to live their lives, had now become nearly just as violent and unruly as the humans. They were tired of being stuck inside cages like animals for people to point their fingers at and laugh.

Bucking the system, fighting back — it’s something she herself has even begun to consider. But then she’d for sure end up inside a cage, and that cage might not even be theoretical. It’s not always limited to a loss of freedom, after all; there were also just as many cases where it resulted in a loss of life. Even as tempting as it was (and as cowardly as it felt not to), she held back; she just couldn’t weigh those risks. It could very well end up permanent, after all, and despite everything that might’ve implied otherwise where Wray’s behavior was concerned, she very much did not, in fact, have a death wish.

She thinks she should stop looking at the news, but she can’t seem to tear her eyes away. Only Einar’s voice rising to the level of near-eardrum piercing sharpness pulls her out of her trance.

“...Are you even listening to me, Wray?”

She looks up with wide eyes, honestly surprised he’s even raised his voice at her in the first place. A new kind of rage bubbles in her chest, one that makes her want to reach across the table, grab him by the collar and ask him who he thinks he is. The only reason she doesn’t do it is because they’re at a public restaurant, and even though they’re outside, she still doesn’t feel like dealing with the amount of attention it would garner. Even still, her rage is perfectly palpable as she simply turns her phone off and sets it down. Her fingers steeple on the table in front of her as she looks to Einar and purses her lips, unamused.

“No, I was not,” she speaks honestly, her voice a controlled volume that echoes pure contempt while still barely managing above a whisper. “There’re a little more important things going on in the world these days, Einar.”

She doesn’t bother to apologize because she doesn’t feel guilty in the first place; yet even if she had felt guilty, an apology would have been highly unlikely. “What is it you want from me?”

“I just want a chance to talk…” He seems sheepish, his movements beyond tense and jittery creeping right on into full-on panic. “I just want a chance to explain, a chance to apologize…”

“You can’t explain. Your apology is just words. It means nothing, Einar.”

“You can’t say that, Wray… you don’t know what I’ve been dealing with ever since-- since--”

“You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t say,” Wray cuts in, unironically doing the exact same thing to him that he kept doing to her. Cutting her off, pretending like what he had to say was at least ten times more important than what she had to say. Then again, for her, it was. “You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do. It doesn’t even matter what you’ve been dealing with, Einar. It matters how you act, and how you act is like a piece of shit.”

“Do you really feel like that?”

She really did. “Yes.”

Einar looks down at his lap, his brow pinched tight as he grappled with the weight of her words, the implication that it’s far too late. “I’m sorry if I failed you, Wray.”

It feels like a scream is building in her chest. Her mouth is dry as cotton, her head aching to the point it feels about ready to burst. She reaches for her water glass and takes a sip even though she’s not exactly thirsty — she’s just doing it for something to keep her hands busy before she really does reach across the table and grab Einar by the collar of his shirt and slam his head into something hard.

“You did fail me,” she says evenly, her gaze unflinching as she stares him down, waiting for him to look back up. When he finally does, she holds eye contact like the point she’s trying to make is extremely important and she needs his full, undivided attention so that he completely understands. “You let me down when I told you it was the last chance you were ever going to get. You have to live with that now.” She’s already started getting up from the table before she’s even finished talking, collecting her purse from the ground where it’d been tucked underneath her chair, wrapped around her ankle so that nobody could steal it. She pulls a five-dollar bill from her pocket and slaps it down on the table for the tip, because she knows he probably won’t. “Don’t contact me again. We’re done here.”

She leaves with the last word, a fact she knows he’ll hate but she doesn’t care how he feels anymore. She stopped caring years ago, around the same time he made it obvious that he stopped caring, too. Whatever has changed in recent years to make him care again, she neither knows nor cares for that, either. She’s done letting people tell her what she can and can’t do, done letting people into her life who only want to walk all over her and then leave her hurt and bleeding in the dirt.

The only way she could get Einar to leave her alone is if she agreed to come out and talk to him. Now that that issue’s been dealt with, she decides to head downtown and peruse the shops till nightfall. She has until 6 a.m. before she’s due to return to the airport for her flight back to Anchorage.

​

Walking downtown, it’s all too tempting for Wray to want to go into a bar and get herself a drink to calm her nerves. She can feel her phone buzzing in her pocket, though she refuses to pull it out and look. She knows it has to be either Einar wanting her to come back to the restaurant so that they could talk some more, or the news reporting more strange disappearances. Both make her angry, and neither one is something she particularly wants to think about right now. Since she’s back in San Francisco for the first time in years, she knows a lot must have changed, so she wants to make sure she makes the most of this trip.

Trying to keep her attention focused on the world around her (rather than the one still buzzing in her pocket), she pushes past the worry, grits her teeth around the annoyance surging in her veins, and keeps walking.

Somehow, she ends up at a bar anyway, and just like that, she loses track of time.

There’s an alarm set on her phone for 10 o’clock at night, just in case she needed a reminder to get back to her hotel before it got too late. She’s not thinking about the alarm, though, as she pushes past a string of young women celebrating what looks to be some kind of 21st birthday party; past an entire frat of college-age males chugging beer and throwing darts like they think they’re set to win the lottery; past an older guy who leers at her when she walks past his table with all the subtlety of… well, all the subtlety of a grown-ass man, really.

She’s especially bitter as she chews on that last one. The temptation to turn back and shove her knee into the guy’s crotch overwhelms nearly every single one of her senses, to the point she even has to clench her fists. Her nails dig into her skin as she does, unable to resist the urge to turn her anger into pain every time it’s just a little bit too much. (It’s why she has so many scars on her palms, one might notice if they paid close enough attention. Her nails are weapons just the same as her powers are a weapon, just the same as the butterfly knife tucked into her boot is a weapon.)

Continuing past the male with a glare and a sneer, Wray walks up to the bar ready to order what might be her third drink, except she’s not really keeping track of how many she’s had. She shouldn’t even be drinking in the first place, but the situation with Einar’s got her pissed, and now there’s this guy who she’s pretty sure is following her… How she keeps her head in situations like this has always surprised her. The fact she hasn’t ended up in jail for stabbing someone in the eye already? Honestly, that in itself was probably a miracle (if only she believed miracles existed, that is).

She doesn’t say anything when she gets to the bar, just raises her empty glass as if to incline for another drink. The bartender reaches for the whiskey, without any issue or complaint. She’s been sitting at a back table staring at her phone for the last couple hours, but now slides the device into her pocket and pulls out a chair to sit down at the bar instead. When the bartender slides her glass across the table, she trades her the drink for her card, something she’s perhaps a little too proud of because she figures at least she can recognize her own fucking limits, right?

‘Unlike some people,’ she thinks, staring around the room at all the college kids so drunk off their asses they can hardly stand up straight. While she’s looking around the room, she catches sight of the guy from before staring at her from the other end of the bar, too. He quickly ducks his head when she makes eye contact, apparently brave enough to stalk but not brave enough to talk.

She scoffs, writing the guy off just as soon as she takes her first drink of the new whiskey and then promptly turns her attention right back to the bartender. Her eyes keep getting drawn here, and it’s no surprise as to why-- the girl is pretty, probably at least a few years younger than herself with short black hair and some of the palest eyes Wray thinks she’s ever seen in her life.

When the bartender looks over her shoulder and catches her staring, Wray smiles to try and prove she’s harmless (well, mostly harmless), then tips her head in appreciation for the drink as she takes back her card and begins to fill out the receipt for the girl’s tip. On the second copy of the receipt, she scrawls her number and a short message onto the back of the paper (“at this hotel the rest of tonight - room 221 if you’re interested”), then slides the two right back across the bartop. The waitress has her back turned to her, but Wray doesn’t plan on waiting around to see her reaction. She downs the rest of her drink and heads out the door, wondering if the girl will call or if she’ll bother to show up at the end of her shift tonight.

She doesn’t get the chance to find out the answer.

​

It’s like they must’ve been tracking her, how fast the black vans show up and a crowd of four officers step out and surround her. She immediately recognizes the badges, the uniforms, the armored vehicles meant to mark them as special police (as if regular police weren’t bad enough already). When they surround her she panics immediately. Some are holding batons, others are holding tasers, but all stand before her with protective plastic-encased guns and rifles clipped to their hips and strapped to their backs. She raises her hands, not to sacrifice, but to pull in the shadows collected down the alley. She immediately begins to form some kind of attack strategy, but no matter how quick she acts (even slightly drunk, she’s got a sharp mind and even sharper sense of coordination), they seem beyond prepared, like they already know exactly what to expect from her, exactly how to take her down.

An unseen officer rises up from around the bonnet of one of the armored vehicles, shoots six tranquilizer darts into her chest and arms, and doesn’t even bother to duck for cover afterward. They’re cocky, over-confident. She doesn’t get a chance to defend herself, doesn’t even get a chance to attack right back. The drugs sink into her system and she quickly crumbles to the ground, paralyzed but not yet unconscious.

“Been looking for you for ages, honey,” comes a voice from right behind her. Wray can’t move her head to track it, but she doesn't have to. A few seconds later, the guy from the bar ambles right into her field of vision, leering just the same as he was earlier. The widening of her pupils is the only reaction that he gets; she can't talk, but just underneath the surface, she echoes out a scream. Anger floods her system. She wants to scream aloud, wants to reach into her boot and draw out her knife, jam it into his throat like she should have done earlier, twist and let his blood spill all over the concrete--

But she can’t.

She can’t move. She can barely even keep her eyes open.

“What’re you waiting for? Get her into the fucking van before somebody sees. Let’s go!”

Two of the officers step forward, one grabbing her underneath her arms, the other behind her knees. They lift her up as easily as if she weighed nothing at all, then carry her to the vehicle parked closest to the curb. The officer with the tranquilizer gun steps around the side to open up the big bay doors carved into the vehicle's tail end. Just as soon as the doors are open, the space inside erupts with pure white light. It blinds her to her surroundings, immediately burns her skin. Even sedated, her face contorts with agony as her mouth rips open and she emits an anguished scream into the cool night air.

"How do you like that?" The man asks, laughing slightly with her reaction. "Guess it works. Good, not a total waste of money, then. We did have it special made for you, after all..."

They toss her into the back of the vehicle before anyone else can intervene.

TEMPLATE © BOKEH​

 

[starboob]

tw: violence​

REGGIE NORTH

MY HEART AND SOUL WERE NEVER MINE TO OWN

“Ah, shit. You better hurry up, I think it’s waking up––Evers will be here any minute.”

“Yeah, yeah––fuck, hang on I just have to…” as more important things come into focus, the voice is lost in a swirl of stimulus.

(The armored bodies scurry out of the room, returning to their position at the entrance of the infirmary wing.)

The first thing that Reggie registers is a white light beaming down at them. It claws deep into their skull and pulls out a headache that forces their eyes shut and their features to screw. Not shortly after, the rest of their body explodes into a garden of pain as they are entirely pulled out from the depths of the ether. They tense against the agony, their breath catching in their throat before they are able to slowly relax and settle into stillness. For a second time, they attempt to identify their surroundings and open their eyes with more caution this time, their head turned away from the light. When their vision comes to focus, it is apparent that they are in a hospital.

This is not their first time waking up in this situation so their concern is relatively low. However, while it is also not their first time waking up bound to a hospital bed, that happens less often. They struggle, jerking their entire body against the bonds, though there is little slack on the restraints and they only rattle the bed. The aching that follows reminds them why they had been still in the first place and they inhale sharply, wishing they could curl onto their side and nurse these pangs on their own.

While the pain recedes, questions start to rattle through their head and they attempt to piece together where they are, what has happened to them, and just how much trouble they are in. But their memory barely goes far back enough to remember that their tour had just ended.

“Ah, I see you are finally about your wits again.” Thankfully, they suppose, they don’t have to wrestle with their imagination for long as a (familiar?) voice interrupts their process. A man appears out of their periphery and they aren’t sure whether he’s just entering the room or if he has been there the whole time. His appearance is unassuming and generic as far as white men go so Reggie can’t say that they have ever seen him before––though the memory of his voice is stored in their head for some reason that they cannot place. Just as they are about to open their mouth to speak, ask questions, he cuts them off.

“That was quite a nasty car accident you had––the doctors said it was actually easier to make a list of substances you weren’t on at the time.” He smiles down at them, his eyes piercing through them as if he knew everything about them––all of their secrets and this sends thunder through their chest. His chuckle is shy of being outright villainous; he places his hands on the rail of the bed and looms over them like Death. “You made my job much easier, so I suppose I have to thank you. It looks like I will be home for my anniversary; my husband will be very happy about that.”

As his dark eyes meet their pale ones, he delivers this next strike, “Your accident was the perfect cover to transfer you to our facilities." Glee and excitement coat his words despite their nauseating flavor. “Now, instead of terrorizing the public and forcing them to adore you, your talents will actually be used to their fullest and most absolute potential––and for a good cause too: for the freedom and expansion of this nation.” This next part is where his disdain really shines through, even if he is still wearing that happy mask. “The best part? No one is going to come for you. No one will ever find you. Your friends, your family all think you’re dead. The American public, or at least angsty teenagers, are mourning your death... Do you understand that, Regina?”

Disbelief settles on their chest like a cartoon anvil coming down from a skyscraper. This blow severs their connection to reality almost immediately. Their brows knit together. Their mouth opens, their lips move, and while they can think all the words they want to say: nothing comes out. The man standing over them snickers, “Don’t bother. You won’t be able to talk unless Drs. Pratchett and Collins permit it; they spent months configuring this device just for you. Consider it a gift.” He reaches towards them and while struggle to move away, to no avail, he presses into something (a collar) secured to their neck. And it isn't just strapped around their neck, small cactus-like needles keep it embedded into their skin; while the device looks functionally like a reflective-yellow collar, unlike aesthetic collars, this one paralyzes their vocal cords whenever they attempt any form of speech or sound––unless the good doctors allowed it.

That smile now seems like an omen and it becomes cruel as he watches them try to say something else. Reggie twists in sudden panic against their bonds, which only irritates their injuries further and not even a groan or a whimper escapes. ‘What the Hell is going on?! What the fuck!'

This is a dream or an alternate reality––it has to be. While all of the pieces are floating around their head, they are too scared to solve this four piece puzzle. Yet it’s hard to ignore their pounding heart or the way sweat beads along their brow or how a cold heat slowly creeps down from the top of their head and nests in their stomach––all things that remind them that this is their stark reality.

"Drs. Pratchett and Collins will be working with you as soon as your injuries are healed enough and your medical detox finishes... I do hope you don’t disappoint as we went through quite a bit of trouble to acquire a mutant of your talents; the last few we’ve had…” He trails off and then decides to pick up on an entirely new thought. “I am told you mutants have quite a rough life––statistically speaking at least one in two will end up on the streets. I understand it's quite a painful existence, but at least you can have peace in helping others now." His features begins to strain as if he has never held such pleasantness for this long in his entire life; he strokes their cheek, pushing a stray strand of hair from their face, and they don't even bother making a pathetic attempt to pull away, but they are imagining all of the places they’d like to tell where he can stick his hand.

As he leaves, he parts with the last they’ll ever hear about the outside world, “Oh, and if it’s any consolation to you… Your estate and assets were all liquidated and the money donated to charities; most towards funding the arts in schools––one is towards the research of a cure for mutations, as you would have wanted.”

………….​

The first few weeks––hell, the first few months for all they know completely blur together. The rest they get is minimal and disturbed; either because they wake up in a pool of their own cold sweat or because the doctor-scientists are checking on their vitals, their blood work, measuring their brain waves, and generally running random labs on their newest subject (their newest toy, it feels like).

For most of it, they are barely allowed to sit up on their own––and for most of it, they don’t care to; though the pain from their bruises and fractures subsides, and eventually they don’t feel as if they are on the brink of death, they are barely nourished enough to put up a decent fight. The frequent interruptions become routine; they no longer expect privacy and frequently catch the guards leering at them, or feel not-so-clever hands swiping at the side of their tits as they are manhandled.

When they are finally able to sleep in their own room, without the constant physical presence of nurses, doctors, and officers they do try to tamper with the collar. They learn, and continue to learn, that while there is nothing to prevent them from trying to pull it off––no shocks at least––it does trigger a signal to the nurses to come in with guards. The sadism is archaic and they’re never able to rip the device off fast enough before they’re beaten down and forced into a straitjacket.

If they could have protested more, they would have. But they have no voice. There is no strength in their body and it feels pretty damn helpless when they’re already dead.

▸▸
Their body is heavy. It sinks like a cannonball on its way down to the bottom of the ocean; at least, that is the impression they leave slumped over in the metal chair. It takes energy that they don't have to keep their head up and eyes open; if it had been up to them––they would have been passed out in their room but part of the cruelty of this facility is never getting a restful night’s sleep (at least that has been their experience). They barely register or recognize themselves in the two-way mirror that separates them from Drs. Pratchett and Collins.

The reflection starts to melt until they blink hard and re-focus. The hollow of their eyes conceals the pale blue that used to liven their sullen features. Their bones have never looked so sharp. It is almost as if a movement too sudden might cause them to collapse in on themselves like the last breath of a dying star.

Mentally, Reggie is barely present in the room––caught somewhere between delirium and defiance. The rise and fall of their shoulders as they breathe keeps them vaguely present, and still reality feels like it only exists just a little to the left of them––just out of their reach though tauntingly close. This is the most weathered that they have ever looked.

"Regina. We don't have all day. If you do not cooperate we will not hesitate to change experiments. There are a plethora of other ways we can make you useful."

The words crackle over the intercom and fly past their ears, dispersing somewhere against the wall behind them. Even with the muzzle around their throat the scientists and officers are too scared to be in the room with Reggie. (From the safety of the room next door anything Reggie said, when it is allowed, has a three second delay that renders their abilities completely null to the onlookers.) If they had realized the fear maybe they could have felt empowered, but their spirit is crushed and it hadn’t even taken that much to turn them into a shell.

Their thumb clips into their index finger, rhythmic and sharp. Their knees bounce.

At some point Reggie had put together what these experiments were really about. Beyond "helping" the American public; beyond discovering the strengths and limitations of their abilities; beyond even becoming an unwilling weapon; they had figured out these "test" commands are being used against real people. Innocent people. (People the government sees as disposable; just as disposable as a mutant). At first, the commands had been simple enough. Stand up. Sit down. There hadn’t been anything to make them think twice.

(At times, the experiments were recorded. At times Reggie was hooked to monitors and machines. Sometimes they were under an MRI. Other times in a recording studio.)

Then the limits of what they can do, how far can they really push another person, is there even such a limit––questions that can be answered, but who’s right is it to discover the answers? There is no argument that Reggie is no saint, and when it came to their powers the abuse of it is obvious in their history. However, the spells these scientists came up with? It sours their stomach and turns everything in their body to poison.

(In the bucket next to you there is a chemical known for burning and melting off human flesh. Grab the bucket. Lift it above your head. Pour it over yourself. Do not scream. Do not make a sound. // How far does this person go; do they have to be told to stop; will they stop on their own; can automatic responses be repressed.)

Is their own survival worth this? Resisting, or rather giving up seems to be the noblest thing they can do––if they even had the luxury of that choice. There is particular torture in being a prisoner to their own body, as if being a captive in the facility is not enough. Ultimately, Reggie has given up on freedom. They aren't even quite sure who they are anymore as if it matters––like that's a question they even have to answer anymore. As far as they are concerned, they are a labrat.

It’s hellish how eternal being at the facility feels.

After many moments of silence, their cold, ice eyes lift to pierce through the two-way mirror like they really know where the scientists are; they raise a single finger up to their reflection. The collar around their throat is already loose and the needles pulled in, allowing them to also say, “Go fuck yourselves.”

"Suit yourself. Let us know when you're ready to cooperate again."

.............​

Their body is dragged like a mere sack of potatoes to another region of the facility. It's a place they send mutants with less useful abilities or for stubborn ones they cannot get to cooperate. This wing, as they have come to understand it, is dedicated to the research of neutralizing mutants. That translates to sanctioned torture. (At least the scientists on the upper levels are not outright sadists. These ones seemed to take active pleasure in the devices that they could come up with.)

As with any medical horror, when they are brought into the new lab, they are strapped by the wrists and ankles to a metal examination table. When they are fastened to it, they are neither standing or flat on their back; they are leaning, at an incline, and facing yet another two-way mirror. Labcoats come in, wearing noise-cancelling headphones, and even then they keep as much distance as they can as they connect Reggie to machines and monitors meant to show their vitals and whatever else these ‘scientists’ are trying to measure.

A device, they aren't sure what it is, but it looks like a satellite dish of sorts is then wheeled into the room and stationed in front of them. The labcoats exit and a few minutes later the device trills to life. When it is fully charged, beams of red neon light shoot into their chest. At first, they don’t feel anything; just a tickle and maybe some anxiety. The device stops humming, the neon beams fizzle out. However, a quiet confused minute later, it immediately becomes clear what this device is supposed to be––or at least what it is supposed to do.

Their entire body seizes as each nerve ignites into flames and blue heat rushes through them; their mouth opens to scream and nothing comes out (nothing ever does); their vocals are still and this keeps all of the stress contained inwards. Their body pulls against their restraints as best they can, but there is no escape or reprieve. Tears drag down their face as their forehead erupts into sweat and they simply endure. Their head slams back against the metal table and their eyes try to focus on the lights above them, their breathing––anything to escape from the burning sensation.

Behind the glass, the scientists take notebookfuls of excitement as the monitors beep wildly, reflecting the elevated blood pressure and increased heart rate of the subject. (Since Reggie is technically a borrowed subject, they are not supposed to do anything permanent––though what counts as permanent damage is debatable.) After several excruciating minutes, when it seems as if the show is over and the effects are wearing off, the scientists debate amongst themselves if they should give another dose; sure, they have confirmed the weapon’s functionality but now they are curious: how much can a single mutant take? And is it true their bodies are more resilient? One labcoat reaches for the dial and cranks the settings before firing the machine again. This causes Reggie’s body to respond by bucking violently against the restraints and table; their blood feels like fire and somehow, despite being soundless, they can feel the vibrations of their empty screams.

A crack begins to split the two-way mirror before it shatters; the lights flicker on and off and then burst as the muzzle around Reggie's neck short circuits. Everything in the lab––the wing––goes quiet. While the sound they make cannot be heard, it is accompanied by powerful, shattering vibrations that can be felt. They demolish the machine––to the ire of the scientists; it is reduced to a smoking, sparking mess, ruined by the end of Reggie's cry.

Meanwhile, the mutant in question almost immediately passes out after their wail has stopped; though they make automatic moans, sputtering and coughing every few minutes. Blood coats their chin now and bright splatters litter the front of their jumpsuit. Their throat is shredded from the unknown strength and overexertion of this new muscle.

………….​

When they wake again they are in the hospital wing and, as per usual, they are restrained. They haven’t been back here since their first days at the facility. Their eyes feel puffy and sting, dry and irritated though they have no memory of crying. Their throat feels raw and each swallow, each breath feels like a cat running her claws down their vocals. (Though they hardly have a memory of why it feels so patchy.) To match, a dull throb beats all over their body and the memory of the torture device surfaces; they close their eyes as a flight of fear washes over them.

Dr. Pratchett enters the room shortly after and his footsteps pull them out of the living memory. Though startled, they’re almost thankful. He stops at the foot of their bed and pulls up their chart on his tablet. "Are you ready to come back and do real work, Regina? Or are you not done with this temper tantrum?”

They don’t need to think about this decision and they mouth, 'Fuck you.'

He rolls his eyes at their pitiful defiance. "Rot down here if that’s what you like then, but I’m sure you’ll come to regret this error and come crawling back to our laboratory soon enough. Sera is not pleased that you destroyed her latest toy so I’m sure she’ll have a field day once you’re recovered enough,” his features are impassive as he speaks. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a new muzzle (they hadn’t even noticed theirs is gone and now they’re angry they hadn’t fired off when they had the chance). He reaches and lifts their head to snap the collar around their neck; it shrinks and the spikes shoot into their skin, the yelp only comes out halfway before they are silenced. “Do try and get over this little rebellion before the holidays. We have a pool going on how long you’ll last; if you come back before Thanksgiving, then I win.”

………….​

It takes 3 months, though Reggie never confirms how long they spent at the opposite end of the facility, but after 3 months they return to Drs. Pratchett and Collins.

▸▸
Thunder sounds like a distant drum in their room. Reggie isn’t sure what time it is or when they ended up back in their bed, but the resonance causes them to stir––this elicits a silent groan because they had just felt a dreamscape taking over and it promised sweet slumber.

They don’t even bother to try to settle in again––the rain is pelting against the wall so hard it almost sounds like rocks; the intermittent thunder cracks are just enough that they can’t relax. Their fingers tap against their ribs and their knees curl into their chest; they shiver under the thin sheet. Most nights are miserable now anyway. This is just another typical Tuesday night.

They stare at the small rectangular window of their cell door; it leads into the hallway and it’s the only thing that pours light into their room at this hour. It flickers and a few seconds later they hear another clap. The storm seems to have an endless amount of rage and they cannot recall the last time they even heard the rain (usually, the facility seemed impenetrable to the outside world). They roll onto their back and then sit up, with their knees pulled into their chest and back against the wall. Sometimes changing positions helps them relax a little more, even if upright.

Another BOOM and this time the facility itself seems to respond in this awkward jerking way––the light from the hallway flickers off and shortly after the green-blue back-up generator lights kick in. It’s uncommon, but the power’s gone out a handful of times before and each time the plain fluorescents are back within the hour. This won’t be any different.

Though as static fills the air (it crackles in their lungs), they tense and the hairs on their arms begin to rise. The green-blue lights shut off and this is followed by a cacophony of thunder that must be from Zeus, because it shakes their cell while leaving them in silent darkness; the facility even loses its general quiet buzz. The strangeness causes their heart to jumpstart in an uncomfortable way and it’s enough to pull them from their pitiful bed to peer out the window.

As soon as they get up to the door and lean against it, it makes a ‘shhhh’ noise, clanks, and the distinct sound of the metallic latch disconnecting from its socket echoes like a hopeful orchestra through the entire cell block (throughout the entire facility). This sound means one thing to them and it usually is equated with dread; now, it feels like an opportunity.

Time seems slower, almost frozen and a chill spills down their spine. They brace against the heavy door, testing the truth behind the noises as they push, and, to their surprise, it budges and slides into the wall, open. ‘No fucking way.’ Now, their heart is racing and it almost feels like it could explode with how overwhelming this revelation is––especially after so long of feeling like a ghost haunting their own body. However, the time for celebration is not just yet.

The sound of boots and officers shouting begins to fill the cell blocks and buries the raging storm. They know something is about to happen, because as more mutants rise out of their cells they can feel the collective surge towards escape. Immediately, as the guards stomp closer, they itch at the collar around their neck, then tug at it until it snaps. It peels away from their skin, leaving a raw outline of the device––but it’s more relief and power than it is pain. They clear their throat and the hum of their vocals sends relief washing over them.

With the bastards now rushing into the block, disarray tears through the jailbreakers as they are immediately shot with stun-shocks and sedatives. Mutants fall as they are struck, but the forced subjects only allow for a few seconds of cowardice before unleashing their bottled fury. Chaos and panic follow suit. While Reggie has no sense of how many officers there are, they are clearly disorganized and unprepared for a black-out or for the untempered rage of their subjugates.

As they peer out of the cell looking for an opening, they spot a girl, maybe sixteen, standing tall as she faces the guards. She puts her hands up, but she is not surrendering––it is the warning before her body turns into flames and her dragon’s breath roast the first wave of pigs. Watching the tyrants agonize trying to escape from their own burning flesh sends a rush of vengeance through Reggie and other former subjects; more begin to remember that their lives have been stolen and there is nothing to lose if they fight.

While the first wave takes the heat, reinforcements come through to replace them and the fugitives who choose to fight do not hold back their ferocity––Reggie being among them. In an instant, they are out of the cell and on top of an officer, smashing their fists into his face until it is beyond the point of recognition. It awakens a sick beast inside of them––one they are not ashamed to share. It’s overwhelming in its suddenness but Reggie does not fight it; they breathe it in and let it pump into their veins. Everything feels alive.

An idea comes to them and they reach for the dead officer’s radio; they know the success of this won’t be much but they also know 10 percent is better than nothing. They clear their throat, smoothing out the rasp caused by ill-use. Their mouth practically waters thinking of all the things they have wanted to force these officers to do––they almost have trouble remembering them at all but with a combination of glee and malice they command, “If you’re a bitchass officer, stop what you’re doing and scoop your fucking eyes out.” That should help everyone, they figure; even nearby some officers around them stop assaulting the captives and Reggie watches as one presses his thumbs into his sockets with a loud shriek as he falls to his knees, confused. There’s an electric thrill in watching him anguish and if they could have had more time to relish in it, they would have––but more are filling the block and they know they need to press on.

As they continue to fend off guards, with the help of others, they are distracted by a shade of black that somehow stands out against the dark. Vantablack vapors are pooling into one of the cells and before that can even register as strange the dark cloud shoots outward. In a blink, the harmless smoke transforms into knives and impales a series of guards, temporarily pinning them up against the opposite wall before their bodies drop to the floor.

(At this moment, the facility starts to buzz again. The lights start flickering on but each time the power seems steady, a minute later the lights shut off again accompanied by a roar of thunder and harder rainfall that breaks through the chaos inside. It’s like there is a fight between the generators and nature.)

Before they can see the emerging mutant that had released the shadow onslaught, a couple of guards tackle Reggie and slam their back into a wall––they can already feel the bruise blooming across their shoulders. The officers pin them by their wrists and one reaches for the sedative. Reggie bucks and jerks against the guards before finally yelling, “Gut each other!” It’s said loud enough that even over all the fighting and screaming, the guards respond and give up on trying to sedate Reggie. They shove the squabbling couple aside and continue forward, diving into open cells for cover as needed.

Just at the end of the block, soldiers begin to form a tight line and seal off the exit. They seem more organized than before––perhaps now actually desperate as they lose more and more of their own. Still, each time one falls, another takes their place and the line pushes the mutants further back into the block.

As Reggie nearly accepts defeat, an arm (a tendril?) of pitch black smoke (?) shoots past them and rips through the line of guards with surprising brutality. Reggie has little doubt that this isn’t something done for their specific benefit or anyone’s really, because the goal of all the captives remains the same: escape. In that, they are united. And that is also to say, they don’t bother to figure out who they owe thanks to. The display is enough to fill the officers with panic and they scatter once more, haphazardly taking down fugitives as they break from their lines.

In all the refreshed disorder, Reggie is able to slip past the fighting and makes with a small group of others out of the block––which seems to have the thickest concentration of mercenaries as far as they can tell. As they make their way past the other blocks, they see that there is no shortage of violence coming from either side––though the cruelty from the officers is different from the rage of the mutants and there is vindication in this distinction. The casualties on both sides are rising and their nose fills with the smell of iron––it’s almost summery in its pleasantness.

When they make it down two levels, a trooper bounds towards them and Reggie is able to beat him with a lucky strike and a knee into his chest; when he is doubled over, in a fluid motion, they reach for his knife and make a clean cut through her jugular. They wish there had been time to draw out the execution, but unfortunately these officers get undeservedly easy deaths. Too caught up in the moment, another officer comes up behind them and strikes their shoulder. When their mouth opens to yelp, instead of coming out as such, it booms across the level and shakes the building (though they are not the only one causing the building to tremble). The guard that had attacked them is doubled over behind them, covering her ears and Reggie wastes little time kicking her face in.

‘What the hell was that?’ There isn’t time for investigation beyond that and as more officers come to rush them, they test the power of their voice once more with a banshee cry. This pushes the gang of guards off their feet and sends them all flying backwards. “Sick.”

Though this ability feels new to them and they have no idea what it can do, they do not shy away from experimenting with different pitches. When they find another cluster to attack, they straighten, brace a hand against their diaphragm and hit the sharpest note that they can manage––this attack, instead of sending a shockwave through the pack, travels as a scythe that slashes through the guards, leaving them with wide gashes wherever the sonic-cut had made contact.

While they continue mowing down guards, Reggie soon learns that, however convenient this new power is, it is destroying their throat the longer and louder they extend the new muscle. Though it’s not like they have much choice––their other ability, they assume, is pretty much useless with the noise clattering and echoing about. (It also doesn’t occur to them to combine their abilities; in all the chaos their brain is working on impulse and fumes.) They can feel their vocals getting weaker with each pitch-attack, but no part of them is going to give up until their body is on the ground. Giving up is not an option (for once).

At some point, while they are flying down stairs, brutalizing officers, and making their way to the first floor of the facility, they end up next to another mutant. It’s not on purpose, but they do find a rhythm with her attacks. (They don’t quite get what she can do, but it’s not hard to gather that she knows how to use it and use it well.) Fighting near her is just perfect happenstance; after all, everyone in neon jumpsuits are headed more or less in the same direction. They don’t really think anything of it and the convenience of her strength alone is enough to stick close––especially as they continue to push their own physical limits and grow more exhausted. Eventually they even start covering and actively watching for the gaps in her vision.

In this way, the two fall into sync. Reggie is able to keep the guards at bay, pushing them back with sonic waves and slashing into them as needed. She manages to send torrents of violence that dare anyone to come close. For the most part, they don’t need to worry about her. Though as the minutes pass without a break in fighting, they notice that whatever darkness shrouds around her is starting to falter; a couple guards they know she would have taken out with ease earlier get a bit too close. They aren’t sure if she notices or not, but since she isn’t picking them off they pivot and suck in a breath. However, at the same time, they realize if they send an attack her way it could damage her and where they don’t really care about what happens to anyone other than themselves, they are not exactly interested in harming someone who is at least a temporary ally. Their brain works fast and they test another application of their sound attacks; their mouth forms a tight ‘O’ and a whistle note whips through the air and strikes one officer square in the face, sending him backwards. The sound is precise enough that they assume she isn’t harmed, but there isn’t much time to check.

Instead, they turn towards the other officer, make an L-shape with their index and thumb to aim, and send a whip through the thin armor covering his neck. Any sense of accomplishment they might have felt is short lived, because when they turn, three more officers are coming towards them. Even if the whistle whips do less damage to themselves than their prior attacks, they have already exhausted their vocals enough that they begin to notice a sliding feeling in the back of their throat. When they make to clear it away with a cough, blood splatters across the back of their hand. “Fuck,” they mumble, wiping the mess across their chest and trying to swallow through the pain that is becoming more difficult to ignore.

The stream of guards seems endless even if they are mere feet away from the exit; all of this feels futile to a certain degree but adrenaline tramples despair and if this is their only shot at seeing daylight again, then they won’t stop fighting––not when they are so damn close. Reggie figures, too, that if they ruin their throat enough it would render them useless for these experiments––so maybe going down with the fight is noble?

In any case, it inspires a second wind of sorts and they position themselves so that they are standing back to back with the other. They motion for her to duck and cover her ears as they take a breath. When they open their mouth, the agonized wail that comes out unleashes a wave forceful enough to fracture the cement columns, shatter the windows, and obliterate the first entrance into the facility.

somewhere, NV

rage

jumpsuit

wray

coded by natasha.

 

[heartstringss]

OLIVIA WRAY

CAPTIVITY

WRAY, O.




LOCATION:
U.S. GOVERNMENT RESEARCH FACILITY
(NEVADA OUTPOST)

SETTING:
MALE GUARD LOCKER ROOM

TIME:
START OF SECOND SHIFT, ~01600 HOUR



​

(A small cluster of guards are getting dressed near a far-back line of lockers. It is clear they are all familiar with each other, likely becoming friends over the course of working together day in and day out. The most fresh-faced of the group is as new as 6 months, whereas the highest-ranked has been there as long as the facility's entire 5-year run. For the group, a conversation starts casually enough with typical pre-shift talk, and then turns hushed as the subject moves to gossip instead.)​

​

▸ Guard A:
"Whoa, hey. Has anyone seen the new one they brought in last night yet?"

▸ Guard B:
"Which new one? I heard they had like 15 intakes last night..."

▸ Guard C:
"Jesus, really? God, these things are like fuckin' cockroaches-- just when you think you've finally got 'em all, it's like a whole new nest crops up outta nowhere."

▸ Guard D:
"Yeah, exactly. Anyway, are you talking about the one they put in the fishbowl?"

▸ Guard B:
"--Huh? What's the fishbowl?"

▸ Guard C:
"Dude, really? The room with all the fuckin' glass and lights, man."

▸ Guard A:
"--Yeah! Yeah, that's the one I'm talking about! The girl."

▸ Guard D:
"Oh, man, I saw her! My brother said he worked part of the group that brought her in... they had to use like half a clip of darts to take that bitch down and she was STILL awake the entire time."

▸ Guard B:
"Jesus."

▸ Guard C:
"That's fucked up. Hey, I heard someone say her eyes don't match-- is that true?"

▸ Guard D:
"Yeah, they're different colors or some shit... But I've seen weirder shit than that. We got a fish-boy down on C-Ward last week. You seen him yet?"

▸ Guard A:
"Fuck, who even cares about goddamn fish-boy. This girl, man. God, the things I'd like to do to that mouth..."

▸ Guard B:
"Gross, you'd still fuck her even though she's not human?"

▸ Guard A:
"I mean... she's still got the same thing between her legs, right? Hey, you haven't seen her, man. If you had, maybe then you'd understand."

▸ Guard D:
"Eh, I'd probably still fuck one of them things, s'long as they looked normal and were at least hot. But just once -- you know, for the experience."

▸ Guard B:
"Yeah, you'd probably fuck anything as long as it walked on two legs."

▸ Guard D:
"Hey, nobody asked you, so shove it, dickweed. Besides, sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures... I bet plenty of guys have still fucked her."

▸ Guard C:
"If she's as good as y'all say she is, bet she's probably ruined a whole buncha marriages. Ha!"

▸ Guard B:
"I wouldn't touch a bitch if she ain't fuckin' human, man. That's like fuckin' a dog or a horse. Honestly, might as well take fish-boy too, while you're at it."

▸ Guard C:
"Yeah, I'll pass, man. Anyway, of course I gotta at least see 'er. So, which ward is she down again?"

▸ Guard A:
"She's down A-Ward. That one room with all the glass and lightbulbs--? It's top-tier; honestly, you'd have to be stupid to miss it."

▸ Guard B:
"Wait, I know that room! Scarborough told me about that room, said they've had it on standby 'cause they been looking for that girl for years. So they finally got 'er then... wow."

▸ Guard C:
"Yeah, guess so."

▸ Guard B:
"Well fuck... she'll probably be in solitary for a while then, 'specially if she really went nuts in containment. Anyway, guess that means shit's about to get interesting 'round here, boys. Better buckle up, sounds like we're in for a bumpy ride."

​

(Conversation fizzles out as the men go to leave the locker room; the shift is about to start, and some -- the four among this group included -- are already running late.)​

CAPTIVITY

DAY 1 - ONWARD​

Before she opened up her eyes, before she knew where she was or what had happened — before she was even fully conscious of the world around her — Wray could already feel the presence of light within the room. It pushed down on her eyelids like a heavy, relentless weight; it crawled across her skin; it infiltrated her mind, burrowing deep into her brain like a parasite. Her entire body was buzzing with the energy, but it wasn't the good kind of buzzing that she felt, not the kind that came with alcohol and certainly not the tempered calm that she was used to with the dark. Rather, this buzzing was more like tension, a pressure so thick it made her hands tingle and go numb. It was uncomfortable, to say the least, and she hated every bit of it.

Most of light's energy, save for some visible wavelengths and a general glow of warmth, is purely invisible to the human eye — we know what we think it looks like, but of course we've never truly seen. But for someone like Wray, the light and dark had other unique physical manifestations, too. Beyond that warm glow, there was something else that only she and other people (and animals) like her could sense. It was an odd sense of familiarity; if she had to explain it, she would say that it felt the most like how static sounds, and that even the smallest charges of light giving off the lowest frequencies of sound were still deafeningly loud in contrast to the soft, gentle hum of the dark's own otherworldly whisper. Close your eyes and imagine.

Shadow was just there—present within every room, constantly drawing ever-nearer, constantly drawing her in ever-nearer. Though it might've seemed rightfully dark and foreboding on the surface, Wray had never once felt she had anything to fear from it. (Of course, this might've only been because it had always been on her side; if it hadn't... Well, who's to say how she would have felt then?) Over the years, it had shielded and protected her from a great many dangers; it had given her strength that she had never known possible for herself, even taking it away from others when she needed it more. She could rely on the dark, because although it could be snuffed out, it was, in fact, incredibly difficult to entirely erase its presence. Only light could do that.

However, no matter how hard she tried, Wray could never seem to fully block the light herself. Even in the here-and-now, it dug at her as brutal as a serrated blade carves into flesh when the knife slips on accident, ripping her to shreds so completely that she had no other choice but to simply relent and grant its purchase; she was unable to fight back. Then, twice as easy as it had won its dominance, it took her over. That's how light vs. dark worked, right? The natural order of things: One could not exist without the other, but the two could also rarely coexist in their entirety.

But in a way, perhaps that served as a blessing, for her to be so keenly aware of the light's presence at all times — after all, forgetting would only be extremely dangerous for a person like her, would it not? Some might even reason that she needed to stay aware of the light and its effects, otherwise how would she be able to determine whether or not its energy was strong enough to weaken her? How would she defend herself without the dark to draw from — would she only exist as a mere mortal, without her powers? Or would she persevere and find some way to adapt? How would she fight back?

If asked that question herself, to those people, Wray would've likely said nothing at all; in moments of extreme duress, she didn't entertain hypotheticals, she only entertained action. She would've simply defended herself the same as she always did: like a woman with just as much skill using a knife as a weapon as she did the shadow. Or perhaps more like a woman with a thirst for vengeance who was not afraid to stand up for herself, even if it meant having to spill a little blood. She'd only had her entire life to learn you didn't make it in this world by being weak, after all. (She was far from the 'sit there and take it' type — much more the 'fight to the death' type, really. It had always worked for her in the past, so why stop now?)

It was horribly inelegant, the pained groan that slipped past her lips the very first time she tried to open up her eyes, but Wray had little chance to care for appearances. Her head was throbbing; however, when she made to lift her hand to shield her face from the strength of the light (what she initially thought was just the sun—oh, how very wrong she was), she quickly found herself unable to do so. Trying to move her hand, she found her wrists were bound, and when she strained to sit up, she found so too were her ankles. She didn't think, she only immediately fell into panic.

Thrashing atop the surface of the sturdy medical table she was strapped to, Wray's shoulder blades banged against the cold metal, but for the most part, her efforts were only met with a deep, cutting pain at both her wrists and ankles when she pulled too hard. The restraints were too tight; they dug into her skin, purposely made to cut off the blood circulation if she didn't lay still enough. She continued thrashing anyway, until her skin was bruised and her wrists were bloody; until she could hardly breathe, her heart pounding out of her chest. Eventually, she fell back with a heavy thump, barely having made any slack to the restraints. Her hands were numb, pain tingling throughout her body.

The world was ridiculously bright, almost garishly white. There were bulbs built into every surface of the room around her — into every wall panel, every floor tile, every single piece of furniture. There wasn't a single shred of shadow, because, alongside the vast amount of bulbs casting light all over the room, there were also mirrors reflecting that light into every crevice, every nook and cranny, so that there was no way darkness could even exist within the room. (Of course, they were completely fucking overdoing it... but it was working, so was that even unintentional? 'Better safe than sorry', right?)

Her pupils dilated to sharp pinpoints of black with the intensity of the light flooding (and overwhelming) every single one of her senses; she squinted to see, but even that was difficult. Searing pain burst across her skin, though at least it didn't burn enough to blister — yet. At the same time, her hearing sharpened as the raw static noise of the light's energy screeched out like an alarm, making her ears ring with its shrillness piercing and reverberating against her eardrums. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, attempting to ignore the feel of what could only be blood dribbling from her nose, slowly working its way past her mouth, all the way to her chin.

It took a long few minutes (what instead felt like hours—miserably long hours—to Wray) before she was eventually able to filter out the noise and begin to move past the moment of intense, searing pain and deeply uncomfortable overwhelm; before she was able to reset her senses, more or less. As the world swayed and then slowly began to settle all around her, she tried to focus her attention on perceiving the room beyond the light reflected off its mirrors, so that she might be able to figure out where the hell she was and what the hell was going on.

The first thing that came back to her normal, not so sharp and buzzy, was her hearing. Wherein she could hear a steady beeping coming from what sounded like a heart monitor attached to the wall somewhere over and behind her "bed", she could hear practically nothing else beyond her own restless heart and her own erratic breathing. The table they had her laid out on was situated exactly square in the middle of the room, and when she looked up, she was shocked to find she could see both herself and the entire room around her. Even though she hadn't been able to focus on much else in the beginning, now she noticed the mirrors in full.

It reminded her of a hospital, the general antiseptic feel of the entire room — the pure, blinding white light; the sharp scent of cleaner and chemical mixed together; the near-complete lack of personal touches or any furniture and general pleasantries. There were cameras fixed to the glass of the ceiling in each corner of the room, most pointed straight at her bed, and one at the doorway. There was a line of cabinets spread along one wall, a steel countertop with various medical supplies and tools, all sorts of new-age gadgets laid out on top of it. Test-tubes and beakers, syringes, vials already filled with blood — her blood? (Maybe.)

And yet, of course, she knew it wasn't just a hospital. No hospital she had even been in had this much mirror or glass inside a patient's room — or, in general, treated its patients quite like this. Of course, the restraints might've been understandable, had they not been so tight — or even had a guard or nurse come to attend to her, when the heart monitor started going crazy with her numbers climbing into triple-digits. But no one had.

And then there was another realization: Whoever was keeping her here, they clearly knew about her powers — after all, how else would they have known to use the light and mirrors like this? They were purposefully draining her, no doubt.

Her mind was fuzzy, thoughts scattered, but she could still remember the ambush that had happened outside of the bar the night before (was it the night before? Time seemed fickle; nonexistent, somehow, in this bright white room with little outside stimuli). She could remember the painful sting of multiple tranquilizer darts hitting her chest at once, the unholy white glow of that van. She most remembered how as soon as she had been hit with the drugs, the officers had picked her up and carried her away, as easily as if she weighed nothing at all. How incredibly useless she had felt being unable to control her own limbs in that moment... like some kind of fucking rag doll. She'd never felt more useless her entire life.

She struggled to recall much of the rest of the night; for instance, she couldn't remember what had happened after she'd been tossed into the van (the pain blocked everything out, and reasonably so). But there was one other memory that resurfaced later: the dark, beady eyes of the guy who had later approached her, who had been tailing her around all over the place most of the time she'd spent inside the bar. He had laughed in her face when she had screamed out in pain; he had mocked her, demeaning her pain as if it mattered none. She felt nothing but boiling rage when that memory resurfaced. He'd been in on the ambush, of course, but that's all Wray could guess as to his involvement. Beyond that, she had no idea who he was. She had never seen him before last night, and yet, somehow he had known her, or at least he had acted like he did...

She didn't want to admit it, but of course, she knew exactly where she was. All the cases of odd disappearances happening in the news... the increased police presence, the rumors, the government secrecy. It wasn't hard to piece it all together; it was just hard to come to terms with the fact that she herself had wound up here. Though where or what here even was, she had no idea. Not just a hospital, surely. It gave off more 'lab' vibes, which was just... oh, joy.

It was undeniable how conveniently the odds had been stacked against her, how easily they had found her, out wandering the streets after only a couple hours spent at the bar... but she had patterns, didn't she? Even that didn't make complete sense of all of it, though. They had known exactly how to take her down, exactly how to contain her, exactly what her weaknesses and vulnerabilities were... They'd known her every move, her every thought, like it'd been predetermined since the very dawn of time that she would only ever end up here before the end of her life. (Of course, it hadn't really been predetermined, but good luck telling that to someone who believed fate was always acting against them, you know?)

With that thought, anger flooded her system — although, without the dark to fuel her energy reserves, letting any strong emotion overwhelm her only seemed to weaken her body more. Regardless, she couldn't resist the pull of temptation, not when she felt so strongly like a wild animal who had been backed into a corner (or perhaps more accurately, backed into a cage). Therefore, it was only inevitable she lost control, raging once again against her restraints. Tugging and pulling and thrashing and screaming with all her might, she was using up every bit of strength she could possibly muster, and she didn't even care that it hurt. That was her first mistake.

Her wrists cut deeper, the blood dripping from her nose beginning to flow a bit heavier, staining what had once been a perfectly good, clean white blouse. When she inevitably ran out of energy (already running low as is), she fell back against the table—thoroughly exhausted, practically heaving for breath, her chest so tight it felt like her ribs were crushed with each impact. Through it all, the restraints still didn't budge a single inch. Within minutes, she faded out of consciousness.

When the doctors came to check on her later, they might've assumed she'd never woken up in the first place if not for the gore of her newly mangled wrists and the blood running all down the front of her face and chest. They issued a sedative, cleaned her up, re-dressed her in the standard jumpsuit complete with name and ID number, and made a note of the incident in her chart. Only the footage from the cameras could reveal what exactly might've happened, for Wray herself didn't wake up again another two whole days, her body needing to recover from the strain of both the overdose of UV radiation and the overexertion from her struggle.

Regardless, it was beyond convenient for the doctors that she was too weakened by the high concentration of UV light to be able to stay awake, as it meant an easy patient while they took the opportunity to run their tests. By the time she recovered enough to regain consciousness, Wray had lost 3 pounds in the first 78 hours, her elbows were covered in needle tracks, and her skin was mottled with bruises. Even with the intense full-body ache, the continued prickliness of her skin's reaction to the light, and the uncomfortable lightheadedness of extreme hunger setting in, she was still none the wiser to what exactly she had been through.

She wouldn't understand until hours later, when the doctors came in the first time while she was awake to talk through with her "the plan."

She's awake, staring up at the glass-mirror ceiling, at herself: at the bruises on her arms; at the medical tubing and tape holding in needles strapped to her inner elbows; at the hollows of her cheeks, the pale shadows collecting underneath her eyes. Her jaw is clenched, teeth grinding, as she observes her new outfit. She tenses at the patch on her chest reducing her to a mere string of numbers and a shortened version of her full name. Her blood is boiling at the fact that all of her piercings have been taken out, her face wiped clean of any makeup, jewelry removed, nail polish scrubbed away. She's not naked but she feels naked, and the fact that there are cameras in the room to catch it only makes it worse.

At some point when they had come into her room to change the dressing around her bandaged wrists and ankles, they had also brought in a real bed and moved her over to that instead. ('Real' was a loose modifier, though -- in truth, it was more a thin mattress, extremely shitty in quality and ridiculously rickety on its frame. Not to mention, it still had the restraints, which... okay, maybe her own bed had some version of those too, but not like this.)

She had been sleeping more than ever, weak and lightheaded to the point of feeling nauseous. The thin sheet they had given her by way of covering herself was kicked straight to the floor, smelling too much of chemical bleach for her to want it anywhere near her. She wanted to stand up and stretch, walk around the room, (walk right out of this place, honestly), but she couldn't. She was still tied down, 'unable to be trusted', though at least cotton padding had been placed underneath the straps of the belts looped around her wrists to make them softer. As if that made it any better.

She hears the latch in the door click before it even opens. Multicolored eyes flit across the glass ceiling to observe a small team of doctors walking into the room, flanked by no guards, but hauling a wheelchair along with them. Without even greeting her, one walks over and begins to undo her restraints. Adrenaline surges through her veins as she watches the straps come undone, and the very instant one of her arms is free, she rips it up and clocks the doctor right underneath the chin. She hears their teeth clack sharply, a pained hiss and heavy groan echoing throughout the room. Blood spurts from his mouth as he bites the tip of his tongue. His hand flies to his face, eyes glaring in shock as they look down to Wray, who doesn't say anything, doesn't even smile, doesn't even bother to sit up. She looks back at him with a gaze sharp enough it could cut through wire, her jaw clenched, her face scrunched in anger.

The door is still hanging partly open, but Wray is so locked onto the doctor in front of her, she doesn't notice the energy flowing into the room. She doesn't get a chance to absorb it before someone walks over and snaps the door shut, the suddenness of that movement making her jump and look over. She immediately recognizes her missed opportunity, her vision turning red in fury aimed more inward than it is outward. She's about to clock the doctor a second time for distracting her when another one of the group paces over and shoves a needle into the side of her neck. They pump her with a sedative so strong her head lolls back and bangs against the side of the metal frame.

Her eyelids slide partly shut, but she's still conscious, still able to watch as the doctor reaches to undo her other bindings, then unhooks the tubing from the port connected to her elbow. Someone lowers the bed and one of the larger male doctors comes forward to lift her up, hauling her into the wheelchair. They slap new bindings around her wrists and pump her with another drug, something that does knock her out this time, but not because it's a sedative... more because it injects her veins with something that feels like actual fire, the pain so intense she seizes up, her pupils blown so big the color within them nearly disappears completely in the black, before her eyelids slide fully shut.

"Give it a few minutes, then we should be able to move her out. We need to be fast; we're only going to get one chance to do this right."

They take her upstairs to the lab with the initial intention to only run scans, then decide to take a few extra DNA samples while they're there. Pulling bone marrow from her hip, scraping tissue from the inside of her cheek, plucking multiple strands of hair with follicle attached... Anything and everything they can get, they take, because who knows what her results could provide. It's a curiosity that they're squirming to itch: how does this power work? How is one able to control an element? Is there a limit to a manipulator's capabilities-- such as, can it work long-distance or remotely? How far can its reach extend? Can it be transferred or copied in another subject, if able to find the source DNA that makes the ability possible in the first place?

They have so many questions, though they almost never bother to ask any of them to Wray, even with some of them being things she could easily answer herself if they did. In fact, she rarely gets to talk at all. No one wants to hear her opinion, and even more than that, she doesn't want to give it. They aren't deserving of her energy, what little that she has needing to be channeled into fueling her anger instead. It's the only thing that gets her through the day-to-day, planning what she's going to do if she ever gets out, if they ever make the mistake of leaving that goddamn door open again.

Time wears her down, but it can never entirely crush her spirit. See, she's lived most of her life in some sort of forced captivity already; her childhood, a nightmare of its very own breed; her experiences living on the street, and then in 'government care' ... Everything's a disaster when you're different, and boy, Wray sure was different, wasn't she? After all, there's only so much you can hide about a power that reveals itself so physically; when it's just as much that the darkness controls you as it is that you control it. There were only a few times she had ever been in such terrible pain she had wished for death to combat it; even circumstances being what they were, now was not one of those times.

"We're going to push the envelope, see what all you're capable of-- if there's a maximum potential to your abilities, if there's more you're capable of that you might be holding back without even realizing it. Imagine the terror you could inflict on unsuspecting enemies if you can work your abilities through a camera-- like a real Bringer of the Night; you'd be the ultimate war machine! Well, not necessarily you, but if we can clone your abilities, find the gene that's most mutated to accommodate this-- are you even listening to me, Olivia?"

She wasn't, but as soon as the doctor said her name, Wray looks up and considers telling them to go fuck themselves. Instead, they take the moment of brief eye contact before she skirts her vision away as a sign that they do indeed have her attention, and thus they carry on without a further hitch. She tunes their voice out again, picking at the new type of bindings around her wrists, trying to find some way to undo the clasp that keeps her from being able to free herself. At least they've let her sit up now; she's still chained at her ankles, but she can readjust atop the bed, even move to the floor if she'd like. It's a limited range of motion, but it's better than nothing. (Unfortunately, she still has to push a button if she needs to go to the bathroom. How fucking humiliating is that?)

"Your lab results have been highly irregular-- your numbers are off the charts, even with the light treatment dulling everything. It's truly astronomical, I've never seen anything quite like it-- hey, leave your restraints alone, I won't tell you again--"

When the doctor reaches to push her hand away, Wray doesn't hesitate, lifting her chin up and spitting straight into his face.

"Don't fucking touch me," she hisses, her words coming out almost more a raspy, low murmur, as she hasn't used her voice in days. Her throat feels raw, scratchy, like it's coated with barb, clearly still healing from all the screaming of her first few days in solitary. She expects the doctor to recoil in shock, as most do when spat on, but instead, they do the opposite. Their hand swipes up and slaps her hard across the face, the class ring on their middle finger cutting a sharp line into her cheek. A bruise begins to form almost right away. Wray gnashes her teeth together, her eyes watering but still practically shooting sparks as she looks to the doctor and considers wrapping her hands around his throat, or grabbing the pen in his left-side breast pocket and jabbing it into his eye.

"That wasn't very nice of you," he says, as if he thinks he still has the upper hand here, likely just because she was in restraints and he wasn't. As if to prove this, he reaches to push her hair back from her face for her. (She had barely noticed, but it seemed her bangs had fallen halfway across her eyes from the slap; too stunned from the pain and shock of being hit, she hadn't yet reached to move them back herself.) When he reaches towards her, she makes a split-second decision and tilts her chin up to meet the gesture eye-to-eye. He lingers his hand a second too long, by which she jumps at the opportunity to strike him back, turning her face sharply and clamping her teeth down onto his fingers, biting hard.

He starts screaming when she locks her jaw and refuses to let go, bone sinking straight to bone. She can taste blood in her mouth, not her own, and feel skin tearing, but she doesn't care. She reaches with her hands and grabs the doctor's wrist, pulling on the fingers still locked between her own teeth. He screams harder as she pulls, and within seconds, the door bursts open. Before she can react to the sweep of energy come into the room, a tranquilizer dart shoots into her neck with all the precision of a sniper taking out a target. She lets go of the doctor's hand to reach for her neck, to pull the dart out. Before she falls under the spell of the sedative, she jabs the needle into the doctor's thigh.

The doctor growls with the sting of the dart sinking into his skin, but it's nothing on top of the pain in his hand. "Get her the fuck off of me," he orders to the guard still standing in the doorway, gun lifted to his eye in case he needs to shoot another dart. "And close that fucking door! What are you, a moron? Jesus fucking Christ!"

The last thing she perceives is her hair being grabbed, the guard pulling her head back as the doctor screams, "Let go of her, she still has my fucking finger! Just get her goddamn mouth open!"

Her jaw is pried open so that the doctor's hand can be pulled free, and just as soon as it is, he whacks her over the top of the head with his fist. "Fucking cxnt, I swear." he spits, flinging droplets of blood all over the room. "You ever doubt these things aren't human, you remember this fucking moment," he says to the guard, pointing a shaky finger between them and the mutant laid out across the bed, now unconscious with someone else's blood staining across her mouth. Even still, it seems a satisfied smirk lingers on her lips -- or maybe that's just a trick of the light.

When Wray thought she'd never wish herself dead over dealing with more trauma, apparently she'd been wrong.

Normally, she can go days without eating if she kept a low enough activity, most of her core strength fueled by the energy she acquired from the dark. But she liked the taste of food, which was one of the main reasons that she ate, and then on top of that, she still needed it to nourish and sustain her body, and to provide extra strength as well. Through all the tests they've been conducting, the doctors pick up on this irregularity pretty fast -- that she doesn't technically need food like a regular person -- and anytime she acts out of favor, they exploit it, using it as a means by which to punish her when she disobeys.

The incident with biting Dr. Colbeck's finger earns her one such starvation period. She's locked inside her room for 6 days with no outside stimuli and no visitation, only the occasional delivery of water, a clean bucket, and nothing else. It's Humiliation 101, subjecting her to the necessary use of a bucket for facilities, all while knowing she was still being recorded, too. She damn-near refuses to buckle, curling up in a ball atop her bed, barely moving an inch the first couple days. The bleach-fumes of the sheet wrapped tight around her cold, thinning torso make her lightheaded, almost high, and she relishes in that feeling, even if she knows it might only be due to hysteria.

By the fourth day, she's practically clawing her eyes out with boredom, and really, really needs a shower. She squeezes the trigger on the call-remote for 20 minutes straight, wearing down the battery, but still, nobody comes.

Over the course of the next three years, she endures multiple other similar treatments, too.

She thought they'd never kill her fight, but they do. They wear her down to bones, cover her in scars, crush her self-esteem, and take everything she has to offer and more.

She doesn't even pay attention to the experiments anymore, after the first six months. Unconscious, conscious, whatever. They haul different machines into her room, always keeping a close eye on the door, but never take her back out again. Eventually, they just start leaving the machines in there with her, for regular use, and even though she could get up to quite a bit of chaos tearing them apart if she wanted, she doesn't. She's too weak to formulate a plan; she's too beaten down to care.

The room is cramped, but she mostly sticks to her bed, getting used to the tightness of the restraints, the smell of bleach on her sheets, the feel of needles prodding her all over. The only time she keeps an active mind is when the guards come in to clean her room, knowing most of them seem to think they can get away with doing whatever they want to her, either too stupid to notice the cameras or simply not caring in the first place. Even what is caught on camera doesn't get reported, because without a complaining victim, who cared about following up on an incident? They'd tried to make her a rag-doll once, and now she really was one. (If she'd had more freedom, she would've hated that, but now her mind spirals into thoughts of: So what. Whatever. It doesn't really matter anyway. )

She can't do much without getting hurt again, so she just commits their faces to memory every time someone touches her without her permission, and spends most of her days plotting her revenge down to the finest, minute detail. The things she had planned, she would make them wish she'd only bitten their fingers and not straight-up torn them limb-from-limb.

Someday, somehow, they would slip up, and when they did, she would be ready.

She thinks it's either late at night or very early in the morning when the storm first starts. Wray can hear the crashes echo throughout the facility, wide awake as she listens in (wide awake most days, really). Lying on her bed bundled into her sheets, she feels an odd sense of comfort in the sound of the thunder and the rain beating on the rooftop and the walls somewhere far, far away. She's never been afraid of storms -- actually, she's never been afraid of most things that normal people felt afraid of; the most stereotypical of her fears (before captivity) being death, and even that was more rooted in a wariness for the concept of not existing than it was any sort of fear for the actual unknown.

Storms make her feel things that remind her of the days when she still had the dark to rely on as a friend. If she closes her eyes, she can almost imagine shadow pooling around her as the rain beats against her windows; sitting on the floor inside her living room, legs crossed beneath her, meditating to the sound of the rain atop her roof. When she calms her breathing and stills her ever-racing heart, she feels she can almost nearly (but not quite) even return to that deep sense of peace; how she'd felt first moving to Alaska, where the night was more dominant than morning, and society so much more spread out. She'd felt so much freer then, even though she also knew she couldn't simply deny the truth now as she had before. In reality, she'd never once spent a single moment of her life not on the run from... something. (Herself, her family, her abilities, love, her own fear.)

She's not running now, but she wishes that she could. How freeing it would feel to be out in this storm, to have the rain drench her to skin and bone; to have it consume her, drown her, pull her underneath its surface. It's not even that she necessarily wants to die, it's just that, for the first time in nearly a decade, she's returned once again to wanting to disappear.

She releases a shudder of breath, involuntary, when the first flicker happens.

Her eyes snap open with the sensation. For the briefest second, she can feel power racing through her veins. She flexes her fingers and they don't hurt the same as they would before, but when she goes to sit up, she finds she's used up all her energy in a single instant. She deflates back against the thin mattress, resting her head atop the crumpled pillow, and stares up at the ceiling. Had it just been a trick of the light? She'd experienced those before: delusions so strong she'd struggled with reality; times she'd imagined herself doing something out in the real world, or using her powers, and almost managed to forget where she truly was; to the point remembering she'd been held in captivity the same place for the past-- god only knows how long-- hit her like a punch to the gut every single time.

She stares up at the mirrored ceiling, at herself reflected in the glass, illuminated by the ever-present light, and wonders if she'll die here. Or will they simply keep her around forever, just to drain her of everything she's got to offer?

It happens again. The light flickers around her room, glass shuddering with the force of the BOOM of thunder that reverberates throughout the facility. There's no window in her cell door, no cracks by which the outside light or dark can seep through, but when the power first goes out, shutting down to the backup generators with blue-green light kicking on likely everywhere but her room, she can feel it. (Her own lights are backup battery-powered, so that even if the regular power kicks off, they always stay on. Preventative measures, see? These are scientists, after all-- they were cruel, but not stupid. As long as they have the backup generators, there was nothing to fear, right? Ha. Haha. Or so they think.)

Even with her own lights staying on, Wray can sense the shadow pooling around outside her door, wanting to creep inside, calling out to her like a whisper in the night. The hairs stand up on the back of her neck and goosebumps prickle across her skin. She feels more energized than she has in years, but it's all in her head. She's still just as tired as she was yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that...

She can practically feel the storm, the impending outage clear on its horizon. In her mind, the rain beats down on her own skin, the thunder crashes atop her corpse. She sits up in bed, her restraints jostling at her wrists and ankles. She looks to the cameras. The red lights aren't blinking, which means their own power had been cut with the first outage. A small grin begins to creep across her features. And then it happens.

The crash is so loud, Wray is surprised it doesn't bring the whole facility down with it. It shakes the building mean as if Godzilla himself is stomping across the earth, which sends hairline cracks throughout her mirrors, from wall-to-wall they stretch. It short-circuits the power, static electricity filling the air mere seconds before every single bulb in her room explodes in a flash of bright white light and then goes out in a hiss and single puff of smoke. She's cast into absolute darkness in the aftermath, and a single second is all it takes.

It's like she'd been asleep the entire past three years -- or longer -- and now, after all that time, finally, she was waking up.

Adrenaline floods her veins... and something else too. It feels like cool water rushing over her limbs, like a sweet, gentle embrace, and also like the most powerful climax she'd ever experienced. She breathes in the cold comfort of the night and exhales pure tension; every doubt, every worry, every bad feeling sweeps out of her and she's rejuvenated in an instant. Even though she's still exhausted, even though she's still malnourished, even though she's still restrained, she feels the most alive she's ever felt. She feels hope... and then she remembers anger.

She lifts her hands, and with the motion, she conjures up every hint of shadow in the room. When the crackle of energy invites her to use it, for once, she doesn't resist. She sweeps her fingers slowly downward in a thin, straight line, drawing up a blade, and within seconds, a teeming mass of pure black emerges in the air before her, glinting faintly in the dark. Wray grips the hilt of the blade and presses the tip into the clasp of the restraints around her wrists. A faint pressure and they click free, falling to the ground in a clang of heavy metal. She does the same to her ankles, and when she moves to stand, unlike every time before, she doesn't struggle with her own weight buckling at the knees. She's at full strength, if not over it, for the first time in three years.

She doesn't hesitate.

With a sudden outward push, she blows the door to her cell open, and more energy creeps in as the lights flicker out into the hallway, the storm too strong for the power to fully stabilize. The dark still mostly outweighs the light, and now it overflows the room, overwhelming her senses like a shot of straight menthol. She breathes it in, but before she can get too caught up in the moment, a single guard wanders past the entrance to her room. He has his gun pulled up to his shoulder firing off rounds at a crowd Wray can only hear, but not see. When he registers the teeming mass of shadow collected in one cell from his peripheral vision, he looks over and freezes in place. His expression registers pure terror; he immediately recognizes the danger of who this cell belongs to, and that its inhabitant is clearly still inside.

Though he can't see in, Wray can see out just fine. He's too worried about not knowing where to aim to fire off right away, practically pissing down his leg as he stands shell-shocked in the doorway. In a single sweep, she makes another blade and then shoots forward, light enough on her feet to not be heard even as she clambers over shards of broken glass. Snatching the officer by his shirt collar, she pulls him into the room and right up against her chest. He drops the gun in surprise, but before he can react any other way, she jams the makeshift blade straight into his stomach. Blood pools around the hilt as she twists the knife sharply. Something like steam evaporates off the entrance to the wound, the coolness of shadow mixing with the warmth of his blood (and not mixing well).

He's dead before he even hits the ground -- especially because, even though the first one was more than enough to kill him, Wray doesn't stop stabbing. She jams the blade in over and over, making gashes in his chest, his face, his groin; until his blood is a straight puddle on the ground that she's not only standing in but also covered from head to toe. It coats the front of her jumpsuit, creating streaks all across her face and arms. The scent of iron is so strong it lines her nostrils and she almost throws up.

She only stops assaulting the guard when she hears the sound of boots echoing down the hall outside her room. As soon as she drops the current shadow blade, it evaporates and melts away, its energy pooling back with all the rest. Wray stands slowly, listening to the sound of footsteps growing closer, waiting for the first signs she might need to make another attack. When the first guard from the new wave begins to cross her doorway, she lifts her arms and a second later sends all the shadow in the room out into the hall in a flurry of daggers, pinning the bodies of near a half-dozen guards against the opposite wall.

She holds them there just long enough to make them really suffer, then drops them. She waits a moment to see if more will emerge, and when they don't, she walks out into the open.

And it's pure chaos.

(Over the sounds of fighting and screaming, she hears someone shout an odd command and nearly has to cover her ears with the volume they emit. She sweeps her eyes across the scene just in time to see a scrawny blonde stand up, pushing aside a pair of guards who are now... oddly fighting each other?)

There are bodies everywhere, most so heavily mutilated they're unrecognizable as guard or mutant, though the vast majority seem to be guards, judging by the stockier appearance of their (non-malnourished) frames and the uniforms that they wear. The entire hall is in ruins, walls cracked and glass shattered, some doors hanging off their hinges, most open with the rooms inside empty. The entire scene is cast into complete disarray. Wray breathes in a sharp breath as she registers the fighting, all the different powers being used at once. She inhales the still-lingering scent of charred skin from the girl who had set the entire first wave of guards on fire with her breath. She's behind in her body-count taking so long with her first victim, but not by much. (Of course, she fully intends on catching up, and within minutes of joining the fight, she does.)

​

Everyone's heading in mostly the same direction. Though likely none of them know the exact layout of the facility, it isn't hard to figure out by the fact the guards are assembling from all one direction. Not only that, but they're clearly trying to block the exits. Wray sticks to the back of the group as she wanders down the hall behind everyone else, keeping a close eye on the others, taking out guards when someone seemed nearly overpowered, fighting off her own as easily as if she hadn't even had to break a sweat.

When they get to the next closest exit and find a line of soldiers stand there blocking it, Wray feels pure rage at the seemingly endless supply of military and the sheer stupidity of humans. Enraged by the fact they won't simply back down and admit defeat, she steps forward just as the fighting reaches its worst point yet and... yeah, okay, maybe she went a little overboard in her brutality ripping apart the entire line of guards in a matter of mere seconds, but so what if they might have had children and families and lives outside of their jobs that maybe could've proved them half-way decent human beings? Considering what they were doing to her own people, Wray highly doubted any single one of them was innocent; by way of association, they deserved exactly what they got. (Besides, if it saved a few of her own people, she figured any means necessary was entirely worth the stain such violence might've left upon her soul. She'd worry about PTSD and trauma later, alright?)

She branches off with the rest of the group, leading attacks as necessary, other times holding back when she knows she needs to save her strength. Even with the body count rising as it is, it's clear the death toll is climbing on both sides. She's starting to grow worried they might not get out of here alive, and that strikes her with a new fear, as she no longer finds herself wishing for death.

​

When she winds up fighting alongside another blonde, Wray barely even notices their presence at first, not until the first time they use their vocal powers and she recognizes the voice from the incident with the guards who'd begun fighting each other earlier. She sweeps her eyes over their frame, making a quick assessment of their injuries the same as she has everyone else she's taken to fighting alongside in the group over the course of the last several minutes. (That's about all the attention the blonde gets from her, really; not because she doesn't care, but because she doesn't have time to get distracted.)

There's one little problem with fighting in a group, the main reason Wray tends to avoid getting involved in violence as much as possible: she's often among the strongest with her powers being purely elemental and long-range as well as close-distance. Having physical capabilities drawn off of elemental manipulation meant she surely fought among the hardest, often picking up the slack where others fall short, but she also went down the slowest, meaning others sometimes tended to use her as a shield, or relied on her abilities to cover their own asses when they were too exhausted themselves. She's happy enough to lend a hand, but sometimes it could get a bit overwhelming.

If she hadn't just spent three years in captivity, she might've lasted longer and been sharper with her focus, but as it was... It still wore her down pretty fast. There might've been plenty of dark to lend her energy, what with the storm continuing to knock out the power, but she was still malnourished, still going on just over 3 days without any meaningful rest, still mostly running on fumes (and pure stubbornness). The longer she fought, the heavier her body became, and the harder it got to stay upright. She could feel sweat collecting in a thin sheen up the bumpy ridge of her spine; her breath whistled past her nostrils, her ribs surely bruised from a few punches she'd taken here and there earlier in the fray.

She's not sure if the blood on her hands is hers or the guards' anymore, same for the blood smeared across her nose and mouth. (The blood oozing from her ears is definitely hers, but covered by her hair and intermingled with so much other random fluid, it's easy enough to miss. So long as she pretended not to notice, she could easily say the problem didn't exist, right? Right?)

She nearly misses the guards coming up on her left side, distracted as she is by the fighting happening on her right. Actually, she does miss them, and as soon as she realizes that, Wray is beyond angry with herself. Jerking around when she hears the sharp note of a whistle too close for comfort, she looks up just in time to see the guard sent backward by the other blonde's attack. She watches them take down the second for her too, and feels almost-- annoyed? Grateful? It's hard to say for sure, as she huffs out a breath, making brief eye contact with the other before the emergence of more officers from the right becomes a more immediate concern. They both paused, seeming to weigh the situation just the same.

When she glances back to the other, she sees them wiping blood from the back of their hand onto the front of their shirt and her eyebrows wrinkle in concern. She's about to take the guards down for them, (even though she knows it might not be the smartest decision because she's already treading thin ice as is) when the other surprises her by sweeping around to position themselves behind her. She feels their backs touch and almost flinches away on instinct with that one small point of contact, but the blonde motioning her to duck and cover her ears is more important, so she does exactly that.

Her spine goes rigid as she slaps her palms over her ears and hunkers down behind the other. It's a good thing that she does follow the other's lead, because when they open up their mouth and emit a cry so loud it fractures cement and shatters glass, effectively destroying the entrance to their exit, if she hadn't covered up her ears, Wray likely would have passed out, her superior hearing being what it was. Even still, the blood leaking from her ears begins to flow a little heavier with the strain, and it doesn't take long for her to realize she's shaking from the force of pressure. Her breath catches in her lungs when the sound continues to echo through the hall a second after she's finally removed her hands, heart-wrenching with the emotion the sound contains and the emotion it elicits in herself.

She doesn't think. Standing still for this long at a time, she notices a few things of importance: the blood on her mouth is definitely her own, because her nose is bleeding (and so are her ears). Beyond that, her legs are too weak to keep fighting any longer, and as she stands back to her full five-foot-nine, Wray nearly stumbles and loses her balance. She catches herself on the blonde's shoulder, which inspires her to action just as soon as she recognizes the true weight of the situation. She slides her hand down from shoulder to wrist, taking hold of their arm just before she takes off running for the exit, pure adrenaline kicking in. The two are lost in the crowd of other mutants doing much of the same thing. The guards, mostly fallen back or crushed beneath the weight of fallen rubble, don't even bother to chase after most of them.

Wray takes the blonde with her, because they've saved her life more than once by this point, and as much as they've sacrificed in doing so, abandoning them seems far too selfish to even consider. She doesn't let go of their wrist as she runs on long, loping strides, hoping they can keep up. She doesn't stop running until they're far, far away from the facility, until it's a mere wink of light in the far distance, surrounded by a storm cloud that continues to rage on, despite the fact it should've moved elsewhere by now.

At least she gets her wish of feeling the rain pour over her, a realization which has Wray almost laughing as she tilts her head back and lets it wash away the blood caked all over her features. When she finally stops running, she tumbles, falling in a heap to the ground in the shade-cover of an old barn. Her whole body aches, chest heaving with every breath, hand hovering over her stomach as she fights back the urge to vomit due to what is clearly overexertion by this point.

"I need a minute," she gasps out, explaining to the other though she knows she owes them no real explanation. They likely need a minute too, but if she hadn't dragged them along with her, maybe it wouldn't have been quite as bad. "We need to get farther away, but I can't keep going like this, I need a minute to recharge." She doesn't explain that it's literal how she means, as others rarely understood that part of how her powers worked (or how her powers worked at all, really).

Simply lying back into the grass, Wray stretches out her limbs and focuses on letting her breath catch up with her. She knows she's only slowing them down, but unless the other wanted to go off on their own, she'd only slow them down more continuing as she is now.

TEMPLATE © BOKEH​

 

[starboob]

MARS BATISTA

She's many places,
but she's homeward bound

“If you give us their names and locations, we’ll consider leniency.”

Heat flares through Mars like a volcano on its way to eruption; she almost launches herself at the suit sitting across from her, but the cuffs keeping her secured to the chair prevent that. Were she not restrained and the chair bolted to the floor, she might have been successful in cracking his head open like an egg on the metal table that separates the two. Instead, her nails bite into the palms of her hand while she wishes for the ability to belch fire.

He smirks, noticing her agitation and reveling in her powerlessness. “We’ll catch them all eventually––you may as well help us now and gain an early release.”

She may not be able to do much to express her disgust, or how insulted she is at the notion she’d ever betray her loved ones, but she does settle on spitting in his face (it’s mixed with her own blood from earlier beatings). In response, an officer comes from the corner of the room and, without any hesitation, hits the unruly mutant with the end of his weapon; this rips open (re-opening) the wound above her right eyebrow. Blood spills from her brow like a stream and her eye is forced shut before it’s irritated (again). No one offers her any medical attention despite the gush. (Earlier, her healing had been able to clot these injuries quickly, but now she’s finding the limits of her healing and its exhausting itself the longer this ‘interview’ drags on––this is the sixth time the officer has opened this cut.)

“No need to be savage about it––refusing to speak would have sufficed,” the interrogator says in a calm, cool tone as he removes his glasses and uses the end of his shirt to wipe the spit from the lenses and then his face. Earlier he had introduced himself as Agent Holmes, but Mars hardly commits his name to memory; his face, instead, is associated with red and his image will always call that red to swell in her vision. “We already know that you are well connected to other high profile mutants. After all, you were seen with the intended target––who could help us immensely with our project.”

‘How is stealing people helping?’ she thinks, jaw clenched tight. She hasn’t said much since being brought into this plain little 10 by 10 room and almost outright refuses to answer any questions. It even took them awhile to figure out that she understood the language just fine. In any case, she knows it's better to keep quiet. She knows the man is lying. She knows better to believe that selling out her friends would make her circumstances any better. They already have her and that is all she will let them have.

“Well, if you won’t share… Then...” His eyes roll, as if this is an everyday occurrence. Another Thursday night staying late at the office. He closes the notebook, putting his pen back into his shirt pocket as he rises. “Officers Howlett, Clark, I think the bitch-mutant may need to be reminded who exactly is in control.” The two officers standing at opposite corners of the room smirk as they approach Mars; she looks up at them with defiance, baring her teeth as they come forward. Neither cower from the warnings, there isn’t much reason to as she is restrained.

The one with Clark stitched across his chest brings the heel of his boot down onto the top of her foot. Pain explodes, shoots throughout their entire leg and she feels bones fracturing, if not snapping under the force. He slowly starts to grind the rubber sole into the blooming injury, with such force that tears involuntarily begin to stream down her scraped cheeks. Her features contort and she lets out a quiet, forced whimper as she twists in her seat trying to get away from the pressure.

Agent Holmes, meanwhile, leans against the back wall, with phone in hand, paying no attention to how the subject is treated. “When you tell us her location, we’ll set you up with a nice dose of morphine and you can move on with your life. Sort of.” A smirk stretches across his placid features, though his focus is clearly on launching another bird into some obstacles on his app game––not on his ‘interrogation.’

The second officer, Howlett, seems to have a moment of hesitation and Mars makes the mistake of hoping for an ally. No, instead he is only waiting for his partner to finish before he brings his club down right above her knees, and then again. Her head flies back, entire body tensing as she pulls against the restraints, bucking wildly against the chair as if it could help her cause. Though it really doesn’t matter if it helps; it’s the principle of fighting, thrashing back that matters most to the free spirit.

Just as the officer finishes bludgeoning her legs––too little too late––the door to the room flies open and an angry woman comes storming in. “Agent Holmes! What is the meaning of this?!” She shoves the two large officers to the side and comes around to the front of the chair, in front of the dazed, seething mutant. She reaches for Mars’ chin and tilts her features toward her. The woman has long raven hair tied into a sleek low bun, with eyes just as dark to match––even dark painted lips that standout against near-translucent skin (Mars thinks she looks sickly).

However, this woman is not looking at Mars; she is looking at the bruises and cuts that now litter the mutant––not yet realizing all the other wounds that covered her under her clothes. “This is not a C.I.A. blacksight. We are professionals, Holmes, and these are subjects––not people to interrogate with illegal force.”

Mars shakes her head out of the woman’s hand and growls at her, fighting off the tears and the need to anguish in her injuries. When their gazes meet, even only for a second, even with the vapid darkness of the woman’s eyes, she almost looks apologetic but the wild woman isn’t sure if she believes its sincerity. ‘No one here is safe.’

“Now we won’t be able to start for another month, at least, you idiot!” She scolds Holmes, who looks neither sorry nor concerned; his shoulders are slouched and his hands are in his pockets––she’ll have to deal with him later. Then she turns towards her subject, who is boiling in the anger she’s forced to barrel age and bottle. It wages an ugly war inside of her. “I’m so sorry about Agent Holmes. He’s new here and still understanding our policies and procedures,” she might have sounded kind if Mars were not automatically suspicious of every person at this strange place. “Oh, and my name is Dr. Waldorf––I’ll be working with you throughout this process. I hope to get to know you so that we can work together on this. I’m quite excited to work with a mutant of your talents as I specialize in physical enhancements.” She smiles, and it is genuine––for all of the wrong reasons and that makes her twice as lethal. A genuine smile that is rooted in ignorance is still poisonous as far as Mars is concerned.

“Officer James, please escort the subject to the infirmary. If she suffers any more injuries under your watch it will be your head under the axe,” Dr. Waldorf commands to an unseen figure. A third officer steps into view, but Mars can barely take in his features before there is a prick in her neck and she succumbs to the drug’s embrace.

“James, make sure you have triple doses on you next time. Her tolerance and metabolism seem to work faster…”

………….​

Much to the pleasure of Dr. Waldorf, they’re able to start experiments much sooner than she had initially anticipated after discovering that her subject has a healing and resilience factor. This also opens more potential for her areas of study, once approved by the facility director and board, of course. This does not mean anything better for the subject.

The subject, in fact, is prodded and poked more. Cut open and stitched up. Things are removed, scraped, or siphoned out of her. Blood, bags and tubes and vials of blood are collected. Things like pain medication and anesthesia are kept minimal, Mars only feels what the doctor wants her to feel. Though sleep never willingly comes to her, Dr. Waldorf is inventive and has her subject sedated each evening so that she is well rested. If too groggy the next morning, Waldorf ensures she is jolted awake. Mars feels like a bag of drugs more than she feels human, mutant, subject.

Everything is as Waldorf wants it. She rises when told. Feeds when served. Quantities, portions, calories are always calculated to their macronutrients ensuring Mars only has the energy she needs. Never more, often less. She has Mars on a tight leash and seems to have studied not just her subject’s ability, but seems to have gathered behavioral information to deal with all of the aggression and defiance she is met with. The psychological torments seem most effective.

“Oh, Mars, please calm down. How long is it going to take before you give up struggling?” She rolls her eyes but wears the face of a friend. Mars hates her. She imagines what it would be like to pull that smile so wide her face tears apart. “We already know you can create tornadoes and run to speeds near as fast as the fastest sports cars. But we want to see for how long––your stamina seems rather low.”

Her eyes scream disbelief, because of the disconnect between herself, the doctor, and reality; it is like they live in two different worlds and in many ways Mars knows that they do. Waldorf lives in the outside world and can always return to something; Mars belongs to the facility, a property to a government she has no loyalties or ties to. When she speaks, she does not address the line of inquiry. “How do you sleep with yourself at night?”

“Ambien,” she replies without thought or any semblance of irony. Mars isn’t even sure if it’s supposed to sound funny and if this is Waldorf’s way of trying to connect with her (she has been trying to for the past week or however long it's been without much success; Mars shares her hostilities as openly as she wears the heart on her sleeve). “I don’t want to make you run; I would rather this be a collaborative process, Mars, but I was also not hired to waste federal funds that could just as easily be used for schools. The choice is entirely yours.”

The mutant snarls and lurches forward with gnashing teeth that nearly threaten to tear her nose off her face had she not backed away when she did. Her eyes open wide in surprise, despite knowing the subject’s behavioral history quite well at this point––intimately even. The surprise is mainly out of habit, but the anger that follows is purely her own. The back of her hand comes down against Mars’ cheek with a loud smack, wedding ring leaving a cut in her skin; the impact echoes through the large rectangular simulation box. Mars’ head snaps to the side and when she whips back to face her, she’s cursing in a mixture of Spanish and Italian.

When it’s clear that there is no way to salvage the rest of the day’s experiments, Waldorf pinches the bridge of her nose before reaching into her breast pocket. “Fine, then we’ll do this your way.” Though Mars tries to move away from her as she approaches, she sticks the triple dose into her (now) track-marked neck.

“We tried nice. Put her in her room and make sure to restrain her––use something with minimal slack. We’ll keep track of her vitals, but no one is to check her. Do you understand?…”

[divided=thick][/divide]

Their head rests against the wall of their cell. It’s a rare moment of reprieve. A rare moment where they are actually able to be awake outside of the laboratory. With their eyes closed, they recall as many memories of themselves as they can. As many memories of their friends as they can. Their family. Lovers. Slowly, they begin to list them off in their head.

‘Osmunda, Jose…’

It hurts to remember before. Though Mars sees this as necessary if they are to preserve who they are and keep any part of themselves through to the next day. It’s not that they are hopeful for freedom––to a certain degree, they know that the odds are against them. But they cannot stand the thought of losing who they are to this facility; to Dr. Waldorf; to the officers. They will remain staunchly themselves. Even if it meant cuts or bruises because Mars knows there are things that violence can never touch and if they can hold onto that… Well, maybe there will be satisfaction in that small victory of keeping one part of themselves intact. Though honestly, they aren’t sure how bright and brilliant they feel, shackled at the ankles and made to feel like a dog.

‘Camila.’

Somedays, it is much harder to remember. Somedays, they do give in. Somedays are becoming more frequent as time wears them down to near nothing.

“Kafele. Mercy,” They whisper, because things spoken are more powerful than things thought. Tears drip down their cheeks as they wish, desperately wish they had listened to all the warning they had been given. This place is bringing out sides of Mars they hadn’t known existed. The weight of their circumstance slowly crushing their bones and they know eventually they will crumble. And yet they still fight against the toll that being stuck, being powerless, helpless, near hopeless has on them.

From across their cell, there is a clicking noise and the small opening on the door drops the ‘food’ they have to eat (not eating is just as unpleasant as eating the flavorless blocks, piles of mush, liquid sustenance; not eating results in more tubes being forced into them). When they look up at what has been delivered, a ghost settles in their stomach because the ‘meal’ indicates long days are to come. While days are usually long, being fed more means tests that forced them to overexert their body.

Mars doesn’t understand why they have to keep running. Or why they are still needed at all––they don’t see the point in the repetition of these experiments. It’s not that Waldorf ever explains much about what they are supposed to be doing or what she is even researching, but the measures always seem the same. Feel the same. Leaves them feeling violated with dirt that can’t be scrubbed off from the outside (if they were even allowed to shower––rather than being hosed off like a fucking dog as needed; listening to the mocking guards and their nasty comments; how roughly they’re toweled down that they feel raw and are reminded of their fragility).

If they do not start eating soon, swallowing the empty nutrients though everything in their body rejects the gruel, there would be a barrage of nurses attaching them to tubes and forcing them to absorb it. Experience tells them this, so they crawl over to the tray of briquettes and pick one up. They bring it to their lips and it’s like kissing Death.

………….​

When they find themselves through the fog of sedatives, they are back in a familiar room. Bigger than most other laboratories they have been in, this room is rectangular, bright, with white walls. Currently, they are sprawled on their stomach at the center of the room––likely (carelessly) dumped there only a few minutes ago.

“Please, get up,” Waldorf calls over the intercom.

Mars groans in response and lifts a thumb up to indicate that they had heard. However, they find it difficult to find the motivation to lift their body. Even the threat of knowing what happens when they do not heed these requests is not enough to gather strength. (Waldorf must be patient today, because no one comes in to force cooperation.)

Weakly, they push themselves up from their stomach into a plank position and stand with their arms out as they catch their own wobble. If they had been given better, more consistent nutrients they could have done more; been better; been stronger; but Waldorf insists on yo-yo caloric diets to keep them in various states of nourishment though they are rarely ever satiated or at their peak––yet somehow she still manages to force a peak performance from them.

Once the subject is standing upright, the intercom crackles and Waldorf’s voice fills the room, “The simulation will begin in thirty seconds; do your best to avoid the obstacles.”

………….​

It is hours of endless repetition, going through the same obstacles, each time being asked to best the prior performances; and each time Waldorf believes her subject is being uncooperative, she has a laser sting at their back. Eventually, in the middle of an exercise, their body collapses and they roll like a tumbleweed into the wall; they collide not with a thud or smack but with a crack––as if they are breaking bones upon impact (and they might be). The simulation they had been running glitches before the mirage drops completely and the room returns to its stark white.

Their chest heaves and they try to catch air, but nothing stays; each time they hold their breath it is sputtered and forced out of them––they cannot, cannot make their lungs hold oxygen and they’re coughing desperately as they try to steal air. They half expect medics to rush in to check their vitals as they sometimes do when Mars has a crash, but they are left in a heap as they wrestle their cardiovascular system into a state of calm.

The intercom crackles, “Get up. Run it again.”

Mars, to their credit, they do try, because they know what happens when they don’t and the lasers are beginning to burn instead of sting, indicating that their healing factor is giving out. With their hands firmly pressed into the ground, they push up but their arms shake, muscles straining against the movement before ultimately giving out under them. Their eyes shutter close and let out a whine and fold into a ball to contain their shakes. This is the absolute max of their natural limits and it feels like punishment for making this discovery.

After a few minutes of stillness (peace), a medic comes in. Instead of assessing their injuries, however, she simply slaps a patch onto the back of Mars’ neck that numbs out the pain they should be feeling; the pain that signals to them they’re breaking. The medic then pushes their soaked curls away from their neck and they half expect the sweet sedative, but instead it feels like pure electricity shooting through their veins.

The drug’s effect is instant. Their eyes snap open, revealing pupils so dilated there is no brown, only a gaping dark abyss. Their heart kickstarts to a hundred and now their body shakes for an entirely different reason. “No, no, no,” they mumble, clutching their chest as they stretch out and flip onto their back, as if this would stop the spread of electric currents pumping through their body.

“Shelley just hit you with a new performance enhancer. You should be able to hit top speed despite having reached zero. Now get up, wipe those tears from your face, and run. It. Again.”

Mars doesn’t really hear Waldorf’s explanation. They are far too focused on the stimulus that is rampaging inside of them. “No, no, no,” they continue to mumble––it’s like everything is going too fast and their breathing is too slow to keep up with the rest of their body. Red wisps of electricity collect around their legs, climbing up and around their torso, into their arms. This kind of unnatural strength is more than they can bear to contain in their current state. Mars shoots upright into a sitting position and then doubles over with their head between their knees; the veins in their neck bulge out and their eyes shut so tight they’re giving themselves a headache on top of whatever is attacking their nervous system.

Waldorf must have grown impatient with waiting for them to launch, because a few seconds or minutes later two lasers are fired from the side of the room, sizzling against the back of their ribs. However, they barely register the pain and only feel dull thwaps against their back. And immediately after their head tears around to find whatever has hit them (it’s like they have forgotten everything, all memories locked away and the only thing that exists is the current moment; it’s as if they have been reduced to primal instinct only). Just as they lock onto the laser retracting into the wall, they spring up faster than they knew they could even move and rush the weapon before it recedes another centimeter. Their fist closes around the device and it’s ripped from the wall and tossed to the side.

The drug continues to rip through their veins and it feels as though it’s tearing through their skin; the only thing they can see is brilliant shades of red. Though they do not register this, Waldorf has started the simulation and decides to test the combat abilities of her subject given their current heightened arousal––this seems like another potential area she can exploit from her subject.

It’s not until she realizes that Mars is avoiding the obstacles to reach the edge of the simulation box that she begins to understand the full effects of the berserker-esque drug she had administered. She watches, and allows, the mutant’s fists to beat against the walls of the room in rapid succession. From her side of the observatory, she can feel the room shaking as the mutant searches for the invisible door that leads to room of scientists. Waldorf’s finger hovers over the panic button. Dents begin to show on her side of the door and while that does bring a smirk to her lips, it is also when she knows to press the button.

Three triple doses are immediately deployed, homing in on the mutant’s genetic signature and landing in the back of their neck. Though they don’t immediately collapse; the other drug, the one turning their world to red, seems to help them fight off the effects for a few more minutes. In those minutes they are able to completely break the door down, ignoring their broken fists––the patch on the back of their neck killing all pain responses and the drug providing the strength to bust through the barrier. However, at the same time that the door comes off its hinges, the second drug starts to hit and they start to collapse against the doorway. It's evident that they are going down, but Officer James must have decided more decisive action should be taken and he slams his fist into their ear to bring them down faster.

“James, that was wholly unnecessary––the sedative was going to take over a few seconds. Rinley, come walk with me...”

[divided=thick][/divide]

Mars is under heavy sedation when the lightning bolts strike the facility. The electric air does little to stir them; little to inspire them. She is gone to the world. Had it not been for the sparse escapees checking cells to ensure people knew to clear out, she might have been left behind. When her door is pushed open by another, her body remains slack. The mutant who had come to her aid sees this and immediately runs to find help––Mars is not the only mutant forced into a near coma. By some miracle, there is, thankfully, another in their block with healing capabilities who has been acting as medic for those fallen, those sedated.

So, with no warning or build up to the climatic events transpiring just outside of her cell door, Mars’ groggy confusion is justified. While she comes out of her stupor, struggling to place which reality she is in, her rescuers are pulling her to her feet before she has even located her legs for herself. All she hears or registers are the sounds of thunderclaps, storming boots, and a rain of chaos.

“Hey, hey, over here––look at me,” the other grabs Mars’ shoulders, turns her face, and forces her attention. “We don’t have much time––we’re ditching this place!” The words… The words don’t make sense to Mars and her brows knit in confusion as she wonders why someone is talking to her––why guards aren’t dragging her into a laboratory, why she isn’t in a simulation chamber, why she’s even up. ‘Is this a dream? What is happening? Where am I?’

As delirium releases her from its hold, Mars notices the flickering blue-green lights; from behind the rescuer, her eyes catch officers flying down the hallway just outside her cell; she starts to put together what is happening––or at least the things she needs to know. The rest she can figure out later. Right now, she has gathered that there is at least an uprising within the facility and that is enough for her to hold onto. Questions begin to form, but she isn’t able to ask them.

Soon after this realization, a rush of guards flood into the cell and it does not even take a second for Mars to react. (Being made entirely of impulse can occasionally pay off.) The flickering lights are no longer as disorienting when she is moving at such a high speed. As she moves on her own accord, she is reminded of this cosmic truth: if she is moving they cannot catch her. Thus, her strategy is simple.

And temporarily, it is uncharacteristically selfish too.

She had the half thought, admittedly, to leave before she remembers the two women who had helped her from her chains and the plethora of others that she hears clamoring and shouting just outside her door. The next thing she remembers is herself and all of the things that had gotten her to this place. She remembers who she is and the person she fought to keep alive during these unknown days trapped inside this hellsite.

Yes, Mars is going to get out, this is something her deep self knows. That alone helps provides a state of calm, because while she does not know what this path to freedom looks like she knows it will be her destination by the end of the night. She can afford to help the two who had saved her, at the very least (and of course more, always more––but she would get out. She has to, for Mercy and her family especially).

All of these revelations and rememberings happen in less than 15 seconds and in that time, Mars has already turned on her heel and has her arm around one of the guard’s neck; she grabs his chin and wrings it to the side. Before his body even drops to the floor, she has claimed his knife and has it jammed in the other two officers’ necks (multiple times). She doesn’t stay in the cell much longer than that; there isn’t time to say thanks, or she sees it as unnecessary as she figures taking out the officers is thanks enough to the two other mutants.

Outside is pure wrath. Elements fly through the air; she sees a tiger ripping out an officer’s throat; a metallic person uses themselves as a human shield against the onslaught––there’s a lot happening and while somewhat disorienting, still, she finds it inspiring. For the most part, she leads the crowd. Where she can, she pulls officers off of mutants and makes sure they meet Hell in the form of her fists.

Briefly, in all of the fighting, the officers take over a portion of the cell block but Mars and a few others make sure that doesn’t last long. With the knife from earlier still in her grip, she lifts it, and positions it so that when she bolts through a narrow gap of officers, she rips into their necks, shoulders, cheeks, arms, whatever she can hit. The force of the action is enough to lacerate, and thus immobilize, the line of antagonists. While this also brings her to the end of the block, she does not exit just yet and goes back once more to tear through the chain of soldiers once again.

When she finishes, her arms are soaked in red, the front of her jumpsuit is as well––it’s smeared across her face. She looks like she’s stepped off the set of a horror film––though her mess is not a concern. She slows (though to the naked eye she would still appear as a blur) and scours the mess before her. Reasonably satisfied with the damage she’s done, she decides to leave this block and continue onto others, to continuing helping others.

Though on her way out she catches some lost, confused mutant running in the complete wrong direction and she slows her stride to a full stop (the officers have thinned out enough she feels safe doing so). “Kid,” she grabs their collar and somewhat violently yanks them backward (mostly an accident––she hasn’t been this excited in who knows how long and it’s not the first thing on her mind to be aware of her own strength). She puts her hands on their shoulders, spins them towards the exit and shoves the curly-haired fawn in that direction. “The exit is that way! Get running and whatever you do, don't stop!”

Though she doesn’t stay much longer after that; she doesn't wait for the kid's reaction and instead zips, in a flash of electric red wisps, towards the neighboring cell blocks where she continues to aid other stragglers and strugglers. One block, where she spends more time than she had initially intended, seems to be filled with children. It breaks her heart to see them, to know they had been robbed of their youth, and she takes great care in helping them out of their cells. Though there isn't much time for comfort or explanation she points them towards safety and assigns the oldest in the groups the leader roles. (She knows helping them does not guarantee anything; this is something that gnaws at her, but she knows this is not something that she can control. She can only do what she can––it’s hard to accept that she cannot save everyone.)

At this point, the blocks are mostly cleared out and the officers who haven’t succumbed to the righteous fury of their subjects are starting to retreat. Feeling comfortable that she has done her share, she starts to turn towards the direction she had been sending everyone else. Though she doesn’t get far before she is forced to stop and cover her ears as an ear-shattering scream echoes through the facility; even from where she is, she can feel the vibrations underfoot and through her chest. It forces her eyes shut––as if that would help block out the noise.

When the wail finally ceases, she pulls herself up and staggers through the facility until she is able to reorient and re-steady herself. Just as she is about to make a final rush to depart and get the hell out of the state, she feels a tug on the back of her uniform. When she whisks around, she doesn’t even think––she decks who she assumes is an assailant associated with the facility. Though she realizes her error a half-second later as the Bambi from earlier is knocked backwards. “Kid! I told you to get out and you have done the opposite of that! Why are you still here?” She bends down and pulls the kid up by their collar, looking at them with wild intensity––it’s unclear whether she is angry or concerned. “Are you trying to get tossed back into one of these cells?”

elsewhere, NV

rage

jumpsuit

sean

coded by natasha.

 

[heartstringss]

SEAN NEILSEN

CAPTIVITY​

There's something underneath his skin. He can feel it grating against his nerves, sharp metal edges cutting into delicate fibrous tissue. Although he can't see what it is, he can visualize it by the feel of it embedded in there so deep it leaves a vague impression in his mind. He knows that it is there because it is something that does not belong and, as it is his body, he knows what should and should not be there quite intimately -- in some ways, perhaps a lot more intimately than he would truly like.

(Whether he likes it or not, he always knows when something is there that does not belong. For example, if he were to have a splinter or some kind of bug bite, it would feel downright unbearable for him to need to leave it alone, hence why he never could. Of course, a normal person might easily recognize these things too, but Sean's way of recognizing them was quite a bit different from the norm -- after all, he himself was very different from that norm, too.)

Fingers move to his bicep, dirty nails scratching at skin already faintly raw due to the fact he's been scratching at this same spot off and on all day. He wants to tear into the tissue, dig down deep into his skin and rip out the intruder object, but he knows he can't; that would only do more harm than good, and it simply wasn't worth the risk. So he lets out a frustrated huff of breath before pulling his legs up onto the mattress to tuck them Indian-style beneath himself instead. He moves his hand down to his knees and forces his shoulders to relax. The room is quiet, but every sound seems to be amplified as soon as he goes to shut his eyes. He has to work hard to block out all the different outside influences.

He begins to visualize his body, the multiple stacked layers of his skin, the tendons and ligaments wrapped around muscle and bone, intermingled with fat. He's studied enough anatomy to know the systems fairly well, although it's not something that he necessarily has to know in order to use his power -- he could do this with or without the visualization if he wanted to, really (but he rather likes it with).

Breathing deep into his lungs, he begins to weave his way through the intricate web of his own vascular and nervous systems. His brow pinches with the depth of concentration, movement flickering behind his eyelids as he works. After a long few minutes of searching, he finally finds what he is looking for: there, lodged inside the muscle of his baby-thin upper arm, he finds the thing that does not belong. It has embedded itself into his body so deep that removing it is physically draining, but as he slowly pulls it up and begins to work it out, Sean feels relief wash over him.

(That is, until he nearly gags while it's traveling up the back of his throat--)

The metal is cold and slimy on the far back of his tongue, coated with the sting of sharp, bitter acid and tasting more or less entirely of old, stale saliva. After what seems like eons of time has passed, he finally lifts his hand and spits the thing into his palm.

Sitting in the center of his hand is what looks to be some kind of tiny mechanical object. It's smaller than his thumbnail, square-shaped, encased in plastic with a faintly glowing red light that blinks out of its center. A number sequence is etched onto the back of its surface, a code he recognizes fairly well by the fact it's printed on the chest of his own shirt. His brow pinches further as he stares down at the thing, what he can only assume to be some kind of microchip.

After a long couple minutes of staring, he shakes his head and tosses the chip across the room. It ping!'s against the wall and then falls straight to the floor, the delicate metal/plastic casing shattering to pieces. The light blinks out as the thing's battery dislodged and its internal power reserves deplete. Sean stares a few moments longer, then shakes his head, lays down, and goes back to sleep.

When they find out he's removed the microchip, they're pissed. Someone comes in to deliver his nightly 'meal', and as the male guard sets the tray down on the end of his bed, they see it. Stooping down to examine the object on the floor several feet away, Sean turns his head to watch them. He is bored out of his mind and feels numb beyond comparison.

"What is this?" the guard asks, seemingly confused at first, as they pick up the broken pieces of plastic and examine the object a little closer.

Sean's not sure if they're really talking to him or if they're simply talking aloud, so he only shrugs at first. When that awarded him a cold, blank stare in response, he opens up his mouth and comments, "I dunno. You tell me."

The guard doesn't seem to like that response. "Listen here, you mouthy little shit--"

He tries really hard not to, but when the guard turns on his heel and suddenly crosses the room with his hand raised, Sean flinches and makes to cower into himself. His tiny body folds up like a pretzel as he turns away, exposing his back rather than his front, hoping only to protect his face.

It stops the guard, for some reason. He grumbles, hands tightening to fists that tremble for just a moment or two longer, then he begins to turn away. He crosses the room and rips the door open, exiting without another word. The door is pulled shut behind him so forcefully that it slams.

The next morning, the guards come in pairs lugging a stretcher between them and a pair of restraints by which to transport him safely through the halls. He backs himself into a corner trying to get away, but they still pin him anyway, jabbing a needle into his neck to sedate him before finally snatching up his limbs and hauling him onto the stretcher. Even though he's been sedated, they still restrain him anyway. 'Just in case you decide to get a little squirrely,' the guards tease as they linger hands in places he wishes that they wouldn't. His prisoner mind screams for when his mouth cannot.

They take him to the infirmary, lay him out onto a new bed, and do up the straps around his arms and legs again. They're stretching a belt across his forehead when the first doctor comes out. (Or whatever passes for doctors in this place, he guessed. They're all a lot more like scientists, really-- every one of them only wants to cut him open, peel back his layers and see what they can find inside. 'A genetic miracle,' they've taken to calling him every time they run a new series of labs or tests. 'So much potential,' he keeps hearing. He spits into their faces in his mind, though in the real world he's often only able to glare.)

"I've heard you found out how to remove your tracker chip," the doctor says, not even looking at him as they walk up and grab his hand, beginning to pull back his sleeve. "No use lying to you about what it is, now that you've seen it, of course. Just a little something to keep you people on your rightful leash. Guess we'll have to find a different method for you, though." He grabs a tray and drops something into it. Sean thinks it's the original chip, but with his head held down by straps, he can't exactly tell for sure.

He whirls his eyes around to find the doctor-- the patch sewn to the front of his lab coat reads 'Mills', but it's a new face, one that he commits to memory just as easily as he has all the others. "I'm not a fucking dog," he spits, the words coming out roughly as it's hard to move too suddenly.

"No, that you are not," the doctor comments idly, not really paying attention anymore. Something sharp stings at his wrist. When he flinches, the doctor smiles and pats a hand to his arm. "There, there. You stay still now, you hear? See, this is going to hurt, but unfortunately, it's simply what we have to do. Really, perhaps we should've known the usual trackers wouldn't work on your type -- with your regenerative healing, the body manipulation ability and all that... now we have to go a few steps further, don't we? Shame, this will likely leave a scar. Less mobility in your wrist, too. We'll figure something out later, though."

Sean can barely focus on the doctor's words, as his mind and body have now erupted with a sensation of pure panic coursing through his veins. There's a cutting at his left wrist as the doctor continues to work, and then something liquid pours over his arm-- an antiseptic, maybe? He can hear something else moving too, a bit more inorganically than the doctor's own movements-- some sort of slithering over metal, wet and sticky and weird.

A second later, some sort of ooze is placed atop his skin, and it's cold, so cold, like metal mixed with slime, and the lick of flame is replaced with icy cold all at once. It feels like something is crawling inside his arm, and the pain is otherworldly, quite literally off-the-charts.

Through the fog of confusion and panic that overwhelms him, he can hear the doctor speaking, "This will bond with you genetically, as well as attach itself mechanically -- you won't be able to take this off as easily as you removed the other. There'll be no rejections here -- it'll be a part of you, an extension of sorts..."

What that's supposed to mean, Sean has no idea. He won't find out what they did to him until a few hours later, when he wakes up later in his room (apparently having passed out at some point during the procedure). He's groggy at first, but then as soon as his mind awakens, he quickly springs to action -- hands fly up to tear away the thin sheet, wrenching up his sleeve to reveal --

A bracelet? That's what it looks like, anyway. It's chunky, metal wrapped around some kind of black leather-like material, but when he peels up the cuff it doesn't budge-- it fits atop his skin like a whole new layer, and when he pulls it aches, the pressure pulling at not just the gauntlet, but his own skin as well. Something like wires or hooks dig deep into his flesh, a parasite clinging on. When he pulls again, it zaps him straight at his nerve endings with a jolt of electricity, white-hot and punitive. He leaves it alone after that. He learns his lesson, in a sense.

He starts out being wheeled down a long hall. A number of doors line either side of the hall, stretching all the way from one end to the next, seemingly never-ending. They are all tightly sealed, windows vented shut, most with signs hanging loosely from their handles, each reading:

❝ ROOM OCCUPIED

TESTING IN PROGRESS

DO NOT DISTURB ❞​

Sean's breathing is tight, his mind panicked. He sits folded up and slumped over inside the chair, his body far too small for the width of space he has been given. The guard pushing his wheelchair takes him to the farthest end of the hall, to one of the few unoccupied rooms. They wheel him to a table before handcuffing him in, then lock the wheels on his chair and promptly leave the room.

When he looks around, he can see fluorescent bulbs hanging from thin wires that protrude like bony fingers out of small holes cut into the ceiling. The light flickers from time to time, though the effect seems to be man-made, to make the room seem like it was built underground rather than inside a top-notch, state of the art government facility.

On one side of the room, there is a one-way glass mirror that stretches all the way across the wall. There are cameras in every corner and an intercom system built into the ceiling, its volume cranked up so high it crackles endless static throughout the room. A sharp hum of feedback whirs out as the line clicks open and a woman's voice echoes out. Sean startles with the sound, his head lifting slightly as he tunes in to listen.

"In front of you on the table, there is a manila folder with a stack of photographs inside. The girl you see in the pictures is being held by the U.S. government pending trial; the nature of her containment is need-to-know, however, make no mistake -- this girl is a criminal, highly dangerous and completely undeserving of your sympathy. You are to examine the pictures closely, then you will shift to match her form. Next, you will read the script stapled to the back of the folder. This will all be video-recorded. Begin now."

The line closes, another sharp whir of feedback ringing throughout the room as it does.

Thin hands lift to the table as Sean reaches for the folder. Flipping it open, he draws in a deep breath and holds it all the while he scans the thin sheet of biography. There is a picture clipped to the top of the folder's insides that he simply cannot ignore -- in the photograph is a girl, probably close to the same age as him. A small stack of photographs sits inside the folder -- school yearbooks pictures, old government IDs, family photos; an entire life reduced to just a couple dozen pictures and a small biography of five lines.

When he finishes examining the pictures, he places them aside and carefully picks up the script instead. Doe-brown eyes flicker over the text as he reads, his face slowly changing. He has given up the facade now; he is no longer pretending to hide his emotions anymore. The clock is ticking, but he does not begin to shift just yet. When he opens up his mouth, his voice breaks as he begins pleading, "Please don't make me do this. I really, really don't want to do this."

His stomach is sour with the thought of begging, but he cannot hold the words in, for his mind seems even sourer than the acid in his belly. He can taste vomit creeping up the back of his throat, though he pushes it back down, unwilling to show that much weakness at once (he has already shown enough).

There is no response from the intercom. Instead, a small panel lifts out of the wall behind him, revealing a machine that he recognizes fairly well by this point.

He looks down at the folder, at the pictures of the girl inside, and swallows back another mouthful of acid. Though he knows exactly what kind of reaction this will get him, he looks back to the mirror and slowly shakes his head.

"Please. This is wrong, you have to know that that is wrong, you can't--"

The machine fires up behind him and a second later, a bolt of electricity shoots out on a thin wire. It hits him square in the center of his back, muscles clenching tightly just before they begin to seize. He lets out a cry. It goes on for only a few seconds, then the line retracts.

"Last warning. Begin your transformation now."

-- And that's the rub, isn't it? Sure, they could beat him with their toys, shoot him with their lasers and their stun-guns, find a variety of different ways to torture him, but his power could still only be controlled by him. It was his mind that made it work, his body that had to make the change. There was no switch that could be flipped, no magic word that could be said -- it was all up to him when and if he wanted to do it. They could not exactly make him use his power (but they could damn sure try, couldn't they?)

Which is exactly why he refuses-- because he still has that choice. They haven't found a way to take it from him yet.

"No."

The line shoots out and another voltage of electricity hits him in the back. They hold it longer this time, so long he crumbles against the front of the table, his breathing erratic. It feels like his lungs are about to explode. A line of saliva dribbles from the side of his mouth; his veins begin to bulge.

"No," he groans, spitting blood. Just as soon as the word falls from his mouth, the door rips open and a guard tears into the room. He crosses the room in a few quick strides, baton already in hand that he flips around in a single toss, then slams onto the side of the table mere inches from Sean's head.

"You forget who is in charge here, freak," the guard warns him sternly.

Sean turns his head and looks the guard over with a hard, derisive glare.

The change is gradual as it takes place over the course of the next several seconds. Curly brown locks shorten to a dark red-brown buzz cut; brown eyes lighten to blue. Sickly pale, sallow skin darkens to a natural tan and then becomes dotted with freckles and age spots, wrinkles spreading all across his face. His features become more masculine and older; he grows and broadens in size, bulking up within his jumpsuit. His composure flickers as he focuses on the chest, trading out breasts for pecs instead. Within a minute, he's an exact copy of the officer standing in front of him at the table. Aside from the gauntlet and the restraints around his wrists, he's looking up at a mirror image of himself.

"And you forget who has all the power," he says in the officer's own deep voice. He smiles menacingly as he does. It's fake courage, but courage all the same.

"I'll show you power," the officer mumbles, reeling back all of a sudden. The baton cracks down on the top of his head at the same moment that the intercom squeals to life ordering the officer to stop.

Really, captivity does not suit Sean well. He's lived in hell-like conditions before, so it's not that that bothers him -- rather, it's the complete lack of freedom. Perhaps he could've managed if they'd let him take whatever form he liked, or if they'd fed him real food rather than the shitty space-protein bars they've supplied instead. If they'd let him go outside a little, soak up the sun and roam around... But no. None of that is allowed, of course.

He sees the four walls of his cell, the interrogation rooms, occasionally the mirror-walled gym, and the infirmary, but that's it. He doesn't know where he is otherwise, and that sense of nameless/facelessness is nearly to the point he starts to question whether he might be in a whole other universe altogether. A vacuum of space, that's what it's like. Secluded. Alone. Everything seems... wrong.

But he sure knows why he's there -- after all, they simply won't shut up about it. Every time they take him back for some new experiment, some new medical procedure to extract "valuable genetic material", he has to listen to those stupid fucking doctors going on about his potential again and again and again. He wants to beat his fists into their heads until their faces are no longer recognizable; the violence is overwhelming and feels foreign -- he's never really been this sort of violent before.

Days blend into weeks and weeks blend into months, until time disappears altogether. He's no longer sure how long he's been there, be it months or years; he doesn't know his own age, hardly even recognizes his own life before captivity. Only the four walls of his cell feel familiar enough to relax within -- everything else is like being an animal trapped inside a cage, but he's no longer fighting for his life, no longer resisting treatments or pushing back at the guards during experiments. He'd given up that act long, long ago.

When they tell him they're happy he's finally cooperating, his only response is a brief flicker of brown eyes swinging around the room to land on each new doctor before he lays his head back and follows out their next command.

(Now he really is a dog, and a well-trained one at that -- the leash is too tight, almost suffocating, but he doesn't dare resist. He's had enough pain to last him a lifetime; the very corpse he drags around is near enough to do him in, and that fact alone is... overwhelming, to say the least.)

When the storm starts in one night, it's nothing too far out of the ordinary at first -- it's louder than usual, sure, but he's begun to lose track of time in here, and it's hard to focus on outside stimuli anymore. He lays with his head tucked underneath his pillow, eyes squeezed shut blocking out each crash of thunder and lightning that dares to interrupt his sleep. He groans with the heavy rattle of the building; it's just another nightmare.

He doesn't notice the flicker of lights, nor the stomp of boots outside his door, until someone comes and bangs his door open. He shoots up then, staring across the dark of his room to the pair of figures standing in his doorway -- too thin to be a guard, and one of them is-- glowing? Regardless, they shout at him, telling him he needs to get up and get his ass moving if he wants to get out of here alive, and that solidifies a plan, or something like a plan, at least enough of one to prompt him up so he can do as he's been told.

When he clambers out of bed, it's on newborn shaky legs that he rises, eyes wide as they sweep the room. He shuffles into his boots before moving out into the hallway. It's chaos all around, true carnage and mayhem as the freed mutants tear apart the building and the men and women who've held them captive over the years. Sean lingers in the doorway far too long, unmoving, shocked -- however, when a pair of hands wrap around his neck and begin to shove him back into his room, he acts entirely without thinking. His leg shoots up, knee connecting with the officer's groin. He yells as the body falls to the floor, hands clutching at privates.

He takes off running down the hall, and as he gains momentum, he also acquires steam. Or maybe not necessarily steam, but rather-- confidence? It feels so foreign to be feeling, to have some kind of emotion, some kind of adrenaline flooding through his veins. It's that same adrenaline which prompts him to join the fight as well, though his efforts are quite a bit weaker, a little more odd as he doesn't use his power, or even his fists or any other sort of weapon. He isn't shooting flame or punching steel, or flying around like a bullet down the hallway cutting throats. There is no kicking ass and taking names with Sean at all, really; instead, he's-- sort of like a wasp.

Anytime an officer tries to grab him, he darts away, and then if bravery suits him well enough, he might come back swinging-- not with his fists, but rather, with his hands. It's almost comical the way he smacks an officer open-palmed across the face and then shrieks away, or how occasionally he'll jump into the fray just to kick one of the males in the gut or between the legs and then runs off again. No one who knows him well would've been surprised he couldn't fight -- actually, anyone who looked at him now might not have been surprised either, seeing as he was only 5'3" in this form, more a child than a girl man of twenty-one years.

It doesn't even occur to him to shift his form; it's hard to disconnect from the fact he hasn't been given permission enough to do so, and it's not until way, way later that he'll realize he can do it freely again.

He tries to stick to groups (because at least he knows there's safety in numbers, if nothing else) but there's so much going on that he gets a little lost. It's hard to keep things straight when every hallway blends together; when they're all wreaked with the same carnage, blood and bodies scattered everywhere, more and more danger lurking around every corner that he turns. Perhaps he's seen more of the layout of the facility than most others in his position, but it's hard to recognize in such a panic.

A blur shoots past him, and he only vaguely recognizes it as a human (though, 2 years in captivity has taught him humanity is subjective now; he would've considered himself human before too, but now he'd rather anything but). When the blur stills, the person screeching to a halt, he doesn't notice because he's not paying them any attention. He's running, just running without a path--

When he's yanked backward by the collar, a scream rips out of his throat. Wide eyes catch on the tall -- so tall! -- lanky form of another mutant in a jumpsuit, this one splattered with blood, for the briefest second before they spin him around and shove him in the opposite direction, telling him which way to go. He doesn't get a chance to thank them, only barely having enough time to grasp the neck of his shirt so he can fix his collar before the mutant shoots off and disappears in red wisps of pure energy. They become a mere blur within seconds.

He's still pointed the same direction the mutant had directed him, and though it should be simple enough to link up with another group and get himself out safely, instead, he maintains his distance. It's pure luck that keeps him alive, wandering around without a single lick of combat training or any useful physical skill. He winds up trapped beneath more than a few guards intent on taking him back dead or alive, but every time his life begins to flash before his eyes, someone rips the guard off and saves him.

The force of the wail echoing throughout the facility tosses him in a crumpled heap to the ground, hands folding over his ears far too late to truly block the pain. He cries out in his own anguish, the sound piercing his eardrums so sharp his head pounds with the force.

When he stays in that position a second too long after the wail has finished, he doesn't notice right away that he's being swarmed, that guards are lumbering towards him ready to haul him off at any means necessary -- truly, he doesn't even realize he's putting his own life in danger. Someone flies forward and pushes the guards back with a bolt of electricity aimed at each one's face, then reaches down and hauls him up by the arm, shoving him out of the way. "Get the fuck up and get going, you fucking idiot!"

He's got a number of guardian angels there, and in a natural state of awe, he worships every single one. They're all so much more powerful than he himself, he can't fathom how he's wound up among their ranks. But when he sees the mutant from before -- the one with the red wisps that erupt around them when they take off at full speed, the one who's tall and fast and brave enough to save others before even taking a second to think about saving themselves -- he picks that one as his favorite.

(Why? Honestly, who fucking knows why Sean does anything, really.)

Perhaps it isn't very smart to approach any of these hero mutants in a practical warzone where they were all fighting for their lives, without giving them some kind of warning first... but with what only feels like half a brain inside his head -- always more visual perception than he was cognitive -- Sean isn't thinking about how the other might react when he tries to grab them by the shirt before they can dart off too quickly and disappear again. He's only thinking that he won't survive for long if he tries to leave this place alone; he needs to team up with somebody, a group or a single individual, whichever will take him first.

He winds up with a fist thrown at his face, a blow so powerful it smarts, and his nose is gushing blood within seconds, but he's grinning through the tears because, at the same time, he can't help but think he hasn't felt more alive in months.

“Kid! I told you to get out and you have done the opposite of that! Why are you still here?”

His hand folds over his nose, staunching the flow of blood as best he can. He's so preoccupied with that he doesn't notice the hands reaching down to haul him up until he's being lifted into the air and righted on his feet. Doe eyes whirl up to the mutant above him, nearly a whole foot taller than himself. Her words echo back a second later and just as soon as he filters through the accent, he begins to understand, until his face contorts with his own confusion. Why was he still here?

Good question.

"I'm scared," he admits freely, almost so freely that he even surprises himself. His free hand clings to the other's sleeve, so tight he's not letting them leave unless they want their shirt ripped off them in the process. "Don't wanna go alone." He flashes desperate puppy-dog eyes up at the other, truly looking more and more a (doe-like) frightened animal by the second. "Can I go with you?"

TEMPLATE © BOKEH​