Chapter One

Ch. 1

 

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” David asked, his English accent muffled by his pristine surgical mask. I paused before answering; this was my last chance to back out. It was one of those 'speak now or forever hold your peace' moments. Even realizing the stakes, however, I knew my answer. I had made a promise and I was not going to back down now, not when I could be so close to a breakthrough.

"Yeah, I'm positive. If there's even the slightest chance that this could really be the cure…" I took a deep breath. "I'm willing to take it." My voice was surprisingly steady despite my nerves.

"Good to hear," He said, clasping my shoulder with his right hand and turning me toward him so that he could see my face more clearly. I looked up to find his sharp features full of concern. Though the expression caused rare crinkles and lines to appear on his face, he still looked young, just as he always had; with high cheekbones and a long pointy beak of a nose that made him look more like a hawk than a human. Added to that the white lab coat, the single earring, and the dark, unkempt pony tail, he was the picture of a mad scientist. Strangely enough, though, his presence reassured me.

He had done so much for me since I joined the organization when I was sixteen, acting more like a father to me than I remember my own father doing in the longest time. He had been alright while mom was alive, but as soon a she lost the battle to the tumor, he lost the battle to the booze. David knew what it was like. He'd never told me his own story, but I had been able to pick up bits about an abusive father and a mother who died when he was born. Maybe that was why he had taken me under his wing when I first arrived and urged me to relentlessly pursue my research even when it became hard.

…it made me realize that he had almost as much to lose as I did if this operation turned south. I felt the need to reassure him, as strange as that sounds since I was the one that could be dead in a few minutes, so, I gave him a quick but heartfelt squeeze on the shoulder, and then smiled.

"Don't worry about me, even if..." I faltered. "Even if I don't make it through this, you'll be another step closer to finding the cure and if my death can contribute to that…it will be worth it.”

We both knew that there was a fifty-fifty chance that I would make it through with my life. Something could go terribly wrong so easily. A slight misstep, a miscalculation and it would all be over. I wasn't scared. Nervous, slightly, but I was not going to back down now.

He nodded in reply before motioning toward the surgical table in the middle of the vast, white-washed room. It gave off an eerie feeling to the room, but I paid no mind to it.

I stared at David for a moment, and took a deep breath before taking my place on the table. Once seated, I swung my legs over the side. During the next unnaturally quiet minute, I almost forgot what was happening in the present as I reflected on my past…

"Now just relax and lay back." David said, pushing my back down to the table. A shiver ran up my spin as the cold of the metal greeted my skin once more.

A skinny lady with short red hair, wearing the white suit of a nurse walked in gracefully, her hips swaying perfectly to the rhythm of her steps as if in a dance. As she came closer, I saw the syringe in her left hand.

"Doctor, we're ready to begin the procedure once the patient is," she told David as she stepped closer to where I lay in wait, her high heels clicking on the tile floor.

She handed over the liquid filled needle, then turned to me and flashed a quick smile. She looked to be in her early thirties with a beautifully shaped oval face and gorgeous dark blue almond shaped eyes that almost completely diminished the few wrinkles her delicate skin possessed. She paused, and looked from David to myself before heading back out the door, the echo of her clicking heels following shortly behind.

"Are you sure you want..." David tried to say, but I cut him off before he got any further.

"I already told you I'm positive; you know full and well why I'm doing this." I said.

He accepted this without further argument and pushed the needle into my arm without hesitation. I winced.

"You know that if this works… if we have finally found the cure because of this… because of you, we'll be able to save so many lives... You'll be a hero, Xavier..." He trailed off as he walked towards the door, only to stop and turn towards me when I began to speak groggily.

"Yeah… a hero. Hear that, Mom? I'm going to be a hero. If only you were still alive so I could be your hero too…"

Then my eyes closed and the darkness took over.

The first thing I heard through the throbbing pain in my head was David's voice saying, "I just can't believe it. It was supposed to work." He broke off into a sob. I think. I felt like I had been run over so the last thing I wanted to do was open my eyes to verify that he was in fact starting to cry, but if he was, something must be very wrong.

There was a short pause before a soft female voice answered David's. "It's not your fault, David, it's no one's fault… how could you have known it would do this?" The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it at the moment between the ringing in my ears and the fact that my temples were pulsating so emphatically that my head was pushed back into the table every other second. Even so, a thousand questions were racing through my head.

"What do you mean it didn't work and what was it supposed to do? David, why are you crying? What could have made you that upset? Oh, the cure didn't work, did it? That's why you're crying? Don't worry; we'll eventually get it right. This isn't the end, David; we can always try again. Wait… but who are you talking to? I think I should know who she is…"

 tried to ask all of these questions, find out what was going on, but my mouth simply refused to form the words. Since that didn't work, I tried to raise a hand to get his attention. Maybe David would explain things when he saw that I was awake, even if I couldn't find the ability to ask myself. That plan failed as well. It was not so much that I did not have the strength to lift my hand, but it felt as if there was a definite barrier preventing me from doing so.

It made me want to hit my head on the table in desperation. Why was I so helpless? And why did my head feel like it had been hit repeatedly with a hammer? Perhaps rolling it on its side would relieve some of the pain. When I tried, nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.

It was as if my hair had been tied to the table like the guy in Gulliver's Travels. That would explain things. I had been tied to a table by a hoard of angry miniature people. That was why I could not move a muscle. All that I was missing was the hoard of miniature people. They were not there, I was pretty sure. So why then, was I unable to move? Unless…

I did not want to believe it, did not want to even consider the possibility, but the more I tested the theory, the more I became positive that it was what had happened. Somehow the cure had backfired. Something had gone wrong. I was not dead but I was the next best thing. I was paralyzed. A living vegetable. I could not even open my eyes.

"Forget about the cure, Alice! Xavier is dead now because of me! Why did I let him go through with it? I knew the risks. How could I have been so stupid? He’s dead! He’s dead! It's all my fault!" David said before beginning to cry once more.

 How could the cure have failed so miserably? Yeah, there were risks, but becoming paralyzed was never one of the possible side effects. No one had ever mentioned it. It had never crossed our minds. Not this. I had been ready to fall asleep at needlepoint never to wake again, but not to wake to this permanent state of uselessness. But, hold up again… they didn't think that I was paralyzed. David had said dead, that I was dead. How could he think that I was dead when I was lying right here able to hear everything they were saying? Surely they would have checked for a pulse. We were all scientists here. Even if they couldn't pour into the recesses of my brain, they could recognize a pulse and a breath. That thought sobered me because it called attention to my breathing pattern which I then realized was entirely non-existent.

"An autopsy?" the female voice protested. "But, David, we already established how and why he died; an autopsy is unnecessary and will only cause suspicion.”

An autopsy? Why am I hearing this? How could they want to dissect me when I was still here? The pain pulsed throughout my entire body and suddenly spiked when I realized what this would mean.

Perhaps, though, I really was dead. Maybe this was all that death really was, being trapped in your own body unable to move or to speak, only able to hear those around you who mourn your death. No one had really been able to scientifically prove what the afterlife was like, even if there was one, so who was to say that this wasn't how it happened? I shuddered with horror as I began to think of what was to become of me now. Was I to be buried (alive-ish?) and plagued by the cries of loved ones then left in silence? Was I to be cremated and to be spread about and left to travel the world by air or by sea? Was I to be stuck forever in this body with no way out?

"No." David's voice interrupted my thoughts once again, but he was slow to continue.

“I need to know what went wrong, and how I can fix this.” He paused, his voice was so full of regret and loss… and something else I could not pinpoint, something that did not seem to belong there. Perhaps I was biased since it was my supposed death he was reflecting on, but he seemed to know something else that could have happened in the injection process, something he didn't tell me? I did not want to believe that he had kept something from me, especially something important enough to warrant a second opinion on my death.

"I just... I just want to make sure he wasn't in pain." His voice cracked.

It's official. I'm dead. David wants an autopsy.

I don't know who I feel sorrier for, him or me. He was grieving for my death and for a cause that was lost from the beginning. I was dead and had not been able to keep any of my promises. I had let everyone down. I hadn't found the cure, and I wasn't even alive to help discover the next step.

Had I been able, I would have looked up to the Heavens with tears streaming down my face. I'm so sorry, Mom…

"Right; tomorrow, we'll get Gerald to do an autopsy on… on the body." She took a deep breath. "Come on, David; it's getting late and you need some sleep."

Her attempts to soothe him were not very successful. He replied in a loud, and angry voice.

"Do you really think I would be able to sleep? You're acting ridiculous, as if Xavier's death means nothing! I know you, and he had a bad relationship but you could be a little more respectful, Alice!"

Alice? At the sound of her name, everything clicked in my mind and I would have convulsed if my stiff body had let me. Alice was the girl who was here talking with David. By the tone of her voice, I think it was safe to say that she wasn't here to mourn for me. She didn't sound sorry at all. I couldn't really blame her after everything that I had said and done to such a fragile girl, but people always said that you think better of people when they die. Maybe it was too soon. Or maybe I had hurt her too deeply. I never meant to hurt her. God, I'm so sorry, Alice…

And then she began to cry, small sobs wracking her shoulders as the tears fell down her face.

I could feel my whole body fighting the sound. I couldn't bear to hear her cry, especially not now. Not after I had left so many things undone. I could almost hear the thumping of my now silent heart as I screamed inside my head. No! I couldn't be dead! I couldn't leave her like this! I couldn't leave David like this. I just, I couldn't!

I felt the adrenalin rush throughout my body as I desperately tried to lift myself from this table. I wanted so desperately to embrace the two; my family or well the only thing close to a family I've had since, well you know the story.

I had never felt so strongly about anything before, not even my promise to find the cure. So many regrets. I couldn't just leave things like this. I couldn't….

I felt a sudden rush of blood through my dried and empty veins, sending a shock of electricity through my body until my limbs lifted from the cold, hard table.

"David!" Alice shrieked. "Look!"

My eyes surged open and I saw them, I saw David and Alice, as if in a dream, or a daze. It didn't seem real.

David's jaw worked up and down silently before he forced out a whisper, "he's… he's alive? Amazing…"

I wanted to crack a grin and the look of pure terror on his face. It isn't every day that you see someone rise from the dead, even if it was just a dream. After a minute, however, I realized that this was not a dream. I really was sitting up and staring at the two most important people in my life, hours perhaps, after I had been declared dead. I must have looked terrible.

Alice stood with fresh tears rising in her eyes. Neither of them said a word.

"Please… stop crying." I managed to say, although my voice was hoarse and so low I don't think either of them could have heard me.

"Xavier!" Alice gasped.

"Alice!" I cried, my voice cracking and sounding like that of an old man.

The surge of energy that allowed me to get up began to deplete and I had to grip the edges of the table in order to hold myself upright.

Alice walked slowly toward me, cupping my face in her hands. Then she kissed me, her delicate fingers tracing the scar than ran above my eyebrow, over my eye and ending in the middle of my cheek. Slowly, the kiss ended and she pulled away.

When she looked at me again, her eyes grew wide, and she shook her head.

 "My god Xavier…your eyes… there white… there's, there's no pupil… there…" she stuttered in a raspy voice.

"What… what do you mean?" I asked, my voice a little stronger, but very different. Its timber sounded eerie and almost inhuman.

I placed my hands upon hers, feeling her delicate skin beneath mine, as if to reassure me. All of a sudden she let go of me and pushed me away.

"You're not Xavier." She whispered, backing away from me, her eyes searching the room in confusion.

Before I could respond, David spoke for the first time since I had woken up, risen from the grave, or come un-dead.

"Oh that's Xavier all right..." David claimed as he rose from his chair in the corner ,and walked toward me, laughing that mad scientist laugh of his.

"So it did work…" he breathed.

"What do you mean? Alice, it's me, I'm Xavier…" I tried to reassure her that all was well, even though I was less sure of that by the second. "David, what is she talking about? What worked? What's going on?" I demanded, looking him in the eye as if that would give me the answers I sought. I knew that he was not talking about the cure. That didn't work, that killed me.

"Ah, Xavier," He taunted patronizingly.

 "So many questions all will be answered soon." He walked up to me, slowly, cautiously, as if he wasn't sure how I would react.

I looked at him, confused from the strange expression on his face; I suddenly knew that he knew exactly what had happened, and that he had even expected it. In fact, he was the one responsible for whatever was happening to me. And he was pleased.

I was furious. He was pleased that he had secretly injected me with something that had killed me and then done who knows what else. I had never felt angry at David before, not really angry, but now all I wanted to do was hit him.

"I don't know what you've done but you had better start talking old man!" I yelled before doubling over in pain, and falling to the floor.

"What have you done to him?" Alice yelled running to my side.

The pain coursed through my body until the room started spinning around me.

I saw black dots swirling around my field of vision, but soon they turned colors, changing into an intense white-red as they began to burn.

This was the last moment I saw Alice; her long brown hair, her gorgeous hazel eyes, her bright smile… I’ll never forget her smile.

I cried out as the pain escalated. I tried pressing the palms of my hands to my eyes, rubbing them, but nothing helped. I blinked several times and opened my eyes, but it did nothing. The shooting pain increased until I thought my head would split in two.

I could not even tell a difference between when my eyes were open and closed. It was the same tingling dots, swirling, swirling to fade into blackness. I could not see anything. I put out an arm, blindly, wondering if the world had truly disappeared or if I was the only one unable to see it.

David began to speak calmly, and casually, and I latched onto his words like they were the only thing holding me afloat.

"Don't worry, Xavier; the pain will ease soon enough, but, I'm afraid that you won't ever gain your sight back."

He didn't sound sorry at all.

I opened my eyes only to be greeted by darkness. I blinked rapidly, looking around and waiting to be able to see something, anything. A light, a face, the tiles on the floor… But I didn't see anything, just that inky blackness. 

"What do you mean he won't gain his sight back?" Alice demanded taking the words right out of my mouth.

I lay on the floor in agony; the sounds around me began to fade until I heard nothing but the beating of my heart. The burning in my eyes let up slowly, but was quickly replaced by an excruciating pain in my mouth.

I screamed as the pain increased.

The sounds around me faded back as if in slow motion.

"It's killing him!" Alice screamed, rushing to my side in an attempt to protect me.

"It is doing no such thing, Alice." David replied. "He's going to be perfectly alright, so stop screaming at me like I've done something unspeakably wrong. What I have done, I have done for the best. We both know that."

There was a long pause, filled with ragged breathing from all parties.

“Now listen to me, Alice!” David’s tone was firm and serious.

“We must leave the lab immediately. I wouldn’t be surprised if an alarm goes off soon, and if the authorities find us here like this, you know what it’s going to look like.”

“Yes, I know exactly what this will look like, because that is precisely what has happened. David, you’ve experimented on Xavier, you’ve taken away his sight, his humanity.” She practically hissed the word. I winced.

“And for what reason you want us to believe? For his health? That’s what you said when you got us to go along with this scheme of yours, but is that really it? That’s not the real reason. Do you honestly thing this is better than the alternative?” She has worked herself up until she was screaming at David with her every strength.

"You're a monster, David! That isn't why you did this at all! You didn't do it to save him, you did it for yourself. I know why you did this and I was going to tell him, warn him about this before you had the chance to-!" She broke off, overcome for a minute before picking up her tirade again. "But I was too late. I come back to hear that you had already injected him. Not only that, but he was dead! Xavier was dead and your precious potion hadn't worked. And you know what? I was glad to hear it. Seeing Xavier like this, seeing him change, it's more painful knowing what's happening to him now than knowing he had died. You should have let the cancer run its course; it would have been the humane thing to do. But no, you used him for your own sick purposes. You used him!"

She emphasized every word, low and clear.

“Well, guess what? This ridiculous plan you've thought up isn't going to work. You honestly think that he'll still follow you after what you've done? There's no way that he'll follow you after this!"

She had draped her arm across my body, resting her hand against my shoulder in an effort to protect me from David.

The pain had eased until I thought that I could stand up, but when I tried, gravity took over and forced me back to the ground. My head was throbbing again and I had no idea what Alice had been talking about. Something about a scheme… David trying to make me follow him… good for my health… all I knew what that this sure didn't feel like it was good for my health.

"Stop struggling, Xavier, your transformation isn't complete yet. The pain will only increase if you continue to struggle," David said, completely ignoring Alice's speech.

His voice was surprisingly caring and comforting.

I grit my teeth as they began to hurt, spitting out terse questions through my clenched jaw.

"What are you doing to me? What plan is Alice talking about?"

Another spasm wracked my body, pulling me into contortions even worse than the others. Along with the renewed pain came a new feeling, strange thoughts of killing and death and things that I had never thought of before.

My body tensed as I got the irresistible urge to kill something or someone. I had no idea where it came from or why it was happening. I certainly had to idea how to control it.

I began shaking.

"David, what's happening to him?" Alice asked as she backed away from me, her voice was full of concern.

"I wouldn't stop it even if I could." He spoke calmly, scientifically. Then he paused and spoke again as he understood what was happening in front of him. "His new self is awakening, his transformation is nearly complete!" David laughed a hideous laugh that bounced eerily off the metal walls to mix with my increasingly shaky breaths.

I stood up, or perhaps it was more accurate to say that my body stood on it’s own, seeing as I was unable to control my body but it was doing whatever on earth it pleased with me.

Right now, it pleased to release every feeling, every emotion, every pain that had been growing inside me since I woke up to find my world turned on its head. My mouth opened in a hideous snarl before I bellowed like an animal, my voice echoed off the walls with a deafening tone.

Without consciously thinking about it, my body moved forward toward David as quick as lightning. In a few strides, I had crossed the room, reaching the objective that I had not even known I set for myself. It was all a blur and I had no idea what had just happened until Alice screamed.

"My god, you've killed him!"

I was suddenly aware that David was curled up in a ball at my feet. Reaching out, I could feel the warm sticky liquid covering his torso. I took a step backwards, horrified, and one of his arms which had been resting on my shoe flopped lifeless to the ground.

I felt a wave of nausea begin to swell in the pit of my stomach.

What had I done?

"I… I don't know what… what came over me."

As I fell to the ground, I looked up wildly, desperately at where I thought Alice was. I needed her to know, to understand that I didn't… I hadn't… ever meant…

My voice sounded like that of a monster.

Because it belonged to one.

I had become a monster.

I dug my long, ragged fingernails into my scalp, hoping to rid my mind of the image that had seared across it"the image that I would never truly see"the image of his corpse, lying just a foot away.

The blood. I could see and taste all of the blood. In a flash, I remembered what I had felt, what I had done, realized what it actually meant.

I had just killed a man. And not just any man; I had killed David. God, I had killed David.

Even as that realization swept through me, something else did too. A new feeling, a new kind of pain that tore at my insides, calling me to act, to move"to kill again. It came gradually, each new wave overwhelming me until I could not ignore it any longer. I could not fight it.

I tried. God knows I tried to fight it. I knew what it would do to me, that feeling. I sobbed. I had killed once, and I had enjoyed it. Enjoyed the way the skin had torn and the blood had splashed onto my skin. 

I never wanted to feel that again. I never wanted to feel the urge, feel the delight as I took another life. That wasn't me and so I fought the waves off in a last desperate but ultimately futile struggle. It was simply too strong.

A new wave came, sweeping through my hands, making them itch with power. I convulsed.

Another one came, this time to my neck, paralyzing me even as my back arched off of the floor.

And after a few more has cleared my brain of all my thoughts of struggle, I twitched and jerked violently on the floor until my body felt like it was going to fall apart.

Then, silence.

It was over. The transformation in all of its hideous glory was complete.

Dread seeped through every fiber of my being as my mind registered the change. I was different. Not just physically, with blood lust and blank eyes, but also changed inside.

Xavier was dead.

And I wept for Xavier.

In those frantic minutes, a monster had been born, been created, a monster that took over Xavier's face, his scar, his body, his memories, and his name, but Xavier is no more. It was as if he had never existed.

Alice backed up to the farthest wall. I could hear her high heels click nervously on the ground and feel the table shake when she bumped against it and knew she could go no further.

It was quiet until a shrill peal of laughter poured from the dead man's lips. David positively cackled, his signature laugh which once made me shake my head and smile now made my blood run cold as I gripped the floor to steady myself.

My body was trembling, almost shaking. I had never been so scared in my life.

"What… what is there to be… laughing about… old man?" I yelled through my sobs.

"He…he's still alive?" Alive stuttered, her whole body shaking in terror.

"Yes…" I breathed, hardly able to believe it. I would have said that it was a figment of my imagination, that once I had gone blind, I had started hearing things. But Alice thought he was alive as well, and she could see. He must be then, but God only knows how he survived that attack.

"But not for long…" I rose shakily to my feet, wiping my tears on the back of my hand. I found David bunched up on the ground in front of me; I grabbed his neck and shoved him against the wall. He continued laughing.

""Now, now…" he said as his laughter finally died down. "Don't be so rash, my child." I shoved him against the wall again, but he continued on, so smug and sure of himself. "If you kill me now, you'll never understand what you are."

"I don't need you to understand what I am! Anyone could tell me that I'm a monster. A freak that even nature couldn't hope to create in a billion years."

I shook him hard. "Do you see this? Do you see me? Do you see what you've done to me? What you've created? And I… I trusted you! I thought you were trying to help find a cure, that you were trying to help me! And this is what you turn around and do? Why? Why'd you do it, David?"

"You don't understand!" David said, choking under my grip.

"Oh, I do understand! This was all part of your twisted scheme. You couldn't find the cure, you knew you couldn't and you had given up long before I joined this organization of yours. Then I came along and I was so determined to find the cure. So determined… and so incredibly stupid." I was becoming more and more incensed with every word. "I didn't open my eyes enough to see what was really happening around me. I didn't think that I should have to, but now I see; now I see everything! You… used me, David! You used my determination and drive to fuel your own sick experiments. You knew that I would be willing to do anything for the cause, anything for you… and I… trusted you!" I slammed against the wall again. He let out a little moan. "You were working behind my back this entire time. I was nothing more to you than a guinea pig, wasn't I? You were just waiting for the right moment to get me down to the lab and I would be the perfect experiment for whatever it was you had concocted. You sick…"

I could feel him squirming beneath my hands as he tried to force out a desperate plea.

"Don't understand… let me… explain… Xavier…"

I could feel the fear and air both pulsating through his veins. I slowly eased my grip a little, still irate and breathing hard from my catharsis.

He wheezed a little as the air whistled back into him. "Thank you," he said before clearing his throat.

"You be quick. No more games, David, my patience is wearing thin." I gritted my bare teeth, giving him a clear message.

"I… I've always thought of you as my son…" he started again. I dug my fingers into his throat, making him gag.

"Cut the crap!" I yelled, furious with him now.

He gasped for air and tears were streaming down his face, hitting the fingers still clenched around his windpipe.

"Xavier, please stop! You're going to kill him!" Alice yelled.

I stopped, doing a double take.

"Kill him? Look at me!" I turned my head. "Look at what he did to me? And you are worried about me killing him?"

"I know! I know what he's done to you, done to everyone, but you don't have to kill him!" She cried.

I let David drop to the floor and I turned to walk toward Alice, pointing an accusatory finger.

"You! You were in on this too! You agreed to it, you let him do it. You are just as responsible for this as he is!"

I punched the wall beside her face. She looked from side to side in a panic, trying to find an escape.

"It's… it's not what you think!" She yelled, looking from side to side in a panic. She couldn't find an escape route. Not with the way I had positioned myself to block her in by the table.

"It's exactly what I think!"

"No it's not!" She choked on rising tears. "He did it to save your life, Xavier!" She cried out, desperate to get away.

I fell backwards a step, nearly unable to process what I had just heard. He did it to save my life? He turned me into a monster in order to save my life? No. No, that couldn't be. That wasn't how it happened. He was just a crazy… crazy old man who was using me, he always had been.

Part of me, perhaps the last remaining part of the old Xavier, wanted to believe her. Yes, David did care for me. He hadn't faked it. He was trying to help me, protect me. He saved my life!

But at what cost?

"Explain!" I shouted at her, my voice harsh and angry.

She fell back and I suddenly regretted my tone of voice. I had hurt her and I didn't want to hurt her. I wish I hadn't now and that I hadn't ever hurt her at all.

Yelling at Alice brought back memories of another time when I had done so. I fell to my knees and buried my face in my hands. The tears flowed like streams down my cheeks as I saw past images rolling into my mind.

I saw Alice standing at the foot of the bed I sat on that summer in a hotel in France…

I was shirtless, hair tangled in a mess, eyes red rimmed.

"Get the hell out of here!" I yelled.

It was the only time that I had ever yelled at her, and I never would have believed it of me, but I was just so angry and hurt.

Tears poured from Alice's eyes like so many raindrops.

She looked gorgeous in her white skin tight low cut tee and black short shorts. Her brown hair was draped over her shoulders and her bangs shaped her face beautifully.

She shook her head and walked toward me.

"Xavier, I'm sorry I..."

"No!" I stopped her.

"Cheated!" I barely forced myself to say the word.

I still couldn't believe it. Not her. Not us. It never should have happened, but I had seen it with my own eyes. I saw the proof in black and white that very afternoon.

"You cheated on me! You didn't think I would figure it out did you? You thought that you could hide it from me, go behind my back like that? Get out!" I shouted standing up.

"Xavier, it was nothing, really! Please, just let me explain! I love you, Xavier! You and no one else!" Alice sobbed.

"Oh?" I spat out, fed up with the entire thing." You love me so much that you would cheat on me?"

"Xavier, you don't understand! It's not like that. But you have to calm down. I have something to tell you!" Alice cried.

"No! I'm done listening to your lies, Alice. Now get your s**t and get out!" I roared.

She scrambled around the room picking up her scattered belongings and quickly shoving them into her suitcase, muttering in between her sobs that she was sorry and not even bothering to make sure that she had each half of her various pairs of shoes.

She was still clearing out her side of the closet when I lost my patience. I got up and rushed over to her, grabbing her by the hair and dragging her forcibly to the door. All the while she screamed and begged for me to forgive her, but instead, I shoved her out the door and threw her still open suitcase behind her.

I didn't feel sorry at all.

Alice would be fine; she would just hop over a few streets to spend the night in her parent's hotel. Tomorrow, the three of them would give me hell, but I didn't care. Their daughter, my best friend, cheats on me after four years, and then she comes into my hotel room saying that she needed to tell me something, no, there was no way I was going to listen to what she had to say.

Not after what she had done to me.

Not when I was left replaying over and over in my mind the incriminating evidence that I wished with all my heart and soul didn't exist.

Somehow, I found my way back to the bed and I cried myself to sleep.

How vivid these images were as they passed through my head. They seemed to be more incredibly detailed and intense than anything I had ever been able to see with my eyes.

What surprised me was how alive the pain still was, even after this time. All of the emotions I had buried long ago threatened to surface again, but I was saved from that when Alice's voice brought me back to reality.

"Xavier, remember when you first came to CSS, We all knew that you were very sick, and were not going to live much longer. So David came up with the idea to inject you with a virus that would multiply the cancer so much that it would turn and destroy itself. We knew the risks, we knew what it could do to you, but it was the only way to save you! Xavier, Xavier listen to me! I love you and I can't stand the thought of loosing you. You must understand that feeling…" She stopped, her sobs took over.

"Look at me!" I roared as I stood up, my tears flowing freely now.

"I'm a monster! What on earth made you think that I could ever be better off as a monster than I would be dead? When you injected your stuff into me, you took away whatever humanity in my short life I had left! You took away my only chance to be reunited with my family! You took away everything that I had that was good!" I sobbed. "I knew that I was going to die soon. I knew that. I've always known it. I was prepared for it. I was ready to die. But I wasn't ready for this…!"

I wanted to go on but I was too angry to continue.

I felt a hand on my shoulder; His hand.

"We should have told you what was going on..." He wheezed. "I'm sorry… I see that we should have told you, but we thought it was for the best. Please try to understa…"

He couldn't finish his sentence for I had thrown him across the room.

I heard his spine break once he hit the wall; he let out an antagonizing cry before hitting the ground. I immediately regretted the action, not that I felt sorry for the doctor in the least, the monster I had become felt no sorrow for killing David, but I regretted doing it so soon, and in front of Alice.

On un easy legs I walked toward Alice, who had put her hands up, offering a feeble defense, afraid that I would do to her what I had done to David.

My hands found hers and I removed them gently but firmly from her face, intertwining my fingers with hers. I stood there for a long moment, taking in the sweet fragrance of her perfume before wiping the tears from her cheeks. I kissed up her neck until I met her lips then stepped back away from her.

I loved her. I truly did, even after everything she had done. I was a fool to love her, but I still did.

I drew in a long, deep breath before speaking again.

"I guess… this is where we part, Alice. I'm sorry for leaving you like this. I'm sorry for all of the other times I've left you… but this time it's for good. I can't trust myself around you. I'm… I'm not like I was before. I'm not the same." I tilted my head and looked toward David, whom I could hear raggedly gasping for air, despite the broken neck. He wasn't dead yet, but that was no thanks to my actions thus far. "There's no telling what I'll do to you…" I whispered, turning away from her and toward my old friend and mentor.

It was pitiful, the sound coming from his half-dead body. He was just barely holding onto life, and it seemed as if he wanted to relinquish it, but was just unable to finally finish it.

I stood over him for a long minute, a perfect picture of what he must look like, bloody and battered, as he lay on the white tiles. I don't know what his expression looked like and he was unable to speak, but somehow we communicated.

My voice was flat and emotionless, filled with the new harsh qualities, but still housing echoes of the old Xavier as I said my goodbyes to the man who had meant so much to me for so long.

"You shouldn't suffer like this. I'm sorry, old pal…" I raised my foot and positioned it on his gargling throat. "But this is for the best…"

Fresh tears sprang to my eyes as I crushed the life out of him. This time, I knew it was all over.

I turned to Alice for the last time.

"What will you do? Where will you go?" She asked her voice small and almost childlike.

I took a deep breath.

"I'm going to put as much distance between us as possible so that I can't hurt you. Then, I'm going to find a way to put an end to this monster you and David created." My voice was calm and without anger.

She paused, trying but failing, to find another meaning for my words.

"You don't mean to..." She paused, unable to specify what she was sure I had meant.

"Yes, I do." I answered quickly. Then I turned back to her. "You should probably leave too. If the authorities come and find this…"

"Yeah, but, Xavier, I… I…" She trailed off.

"You what, Alice? Changed me into this monster, and now you regret it? You want to say sorry now, is that it?" I asked walking toward the window and fumbling to open it. I didn't turn around as I quietly said, "I'm sorry too, Alice."

I finally just resorted to breaking the glass and, after wiping the broken fragments away, sat on the window sill long enough for her to say that she loved me. All of a sudden, my breath stopped. I wanted to go back to her, hold her once more in my arms and feel her soft skin against mine, but I knew it wasn't right. I couldn't do it.

I had to get out of the city and then to some remote place to put an end to all of this, to me. I shook my head, unable to believe what she had said and trying to banish all distracting ideas from my mind. Then I jumped out of the window.

Even without being able to see, I somehow instinctively knew how to move in order to hit the ground without breaking every bone in my body.

When I pulled myself up, I could have sworn that I heard laughter. I paused, waiting for it, trying to tell where it came from. But when I heard nothing else, I figured that I was so worked up that I imagined it. I put the recollection from my mind and continued on my way.

Reviews

[Kate Hunter]

well done, very descriptive and the character's thoughts were very believable.