THE DAY THE WORLD WENT AWAY

Part II

By Chris Munn

Growing up in Kentucky, you learn real quick not to judge people by the way they speak or act. Have any of you ever stopped to think about how difficult it is for someone from another culture to blend into a group of completely different people? Take myself for example – my father was a coal miner who died when I was just a little girl, forcing my mother to step up and take care of me and my eight other siblings. We lived in a tiny little house nestled in the mountains of Cumberland County, a town that looked like it could’ve stepped from a Norman Rockwell painting.

Meaning, of course, that it was all utter bullshit underneath the rustic country surface. My family was always looked down upon in that town, especially after my oldest brother, Sam, was shipped off to the ‘special school’ in the north. They didn’t know that he was a mutant with the power to explode thermonuclear energy – they just assumed he was retarded.

Anybody asking themselves this question yet: how can a girl from Shit-Town, Kentucky talk with such eloquence? Hold on; let me slip out of character for a moment.

Hi, mah name’s Paige Guthrie. Ah’m an inbred hick down from the hollers of Kentucky, and Ah have the funnest ol’ times doin’ the nasty with mah cousins.

Ahem.

Intelligence is never something my family was credited with, truth be told. It wasn’t too long after Sam that I discovered my own mutant power and was shipped off to a similar ‘special school’ – and, naturally, my inferiority complex shone like a beacon as soon as I stepped through the front door. I tried so hard to hide who I was during that first little bit at the school, and looking back now I really can’t believe how big of a ditz I was being. Being the studious one, always the first in class and the one to make the best grades, the teachers had to have been able to see how uncomfortable I really was. Like they say, hindsight is 20/20.

Jon was there, too, back in the early days. I still smile every time I think back, remembering how easily I fell for him – and when I, uh, kinda got drunk and came onto him.

But then I remember what a backstabbing son of a bitch he is, and the smile goes away.

But yeah, I stuck out like a sore thumb. I wasn’t the daughter of an Algerian millionaire, or an angry minority member, or a former British musician, or even an orphaned mallrat. They were all unique when they came to the school – but me? I was there by default, because my brother was a big super-hero. Just like at home, I was amalgamated into a new ‘family’ simply by relation – and just like my siblings, my classmates took me for granted.

“Paige isn’t going anywhere. She’s family. We can always count on her.”

Well, you know what?

Fuck that.

Mah name’s Paige, and Ah may look like a dumb ol’ blonde-haired girl from the middle of nowhere…

…but Ah’m still smarter than y’all.

Paige Guthrie watched impatiently from the corner of the small laboratory, the secret space in the heart of Wonderland that the man known as Essex had carved for himself, as the scientist doted over a small vial of chemicals. She had attempted to follow his work at first, but quickly gave up – though being quite intelligent in her own right, the intricacies of molecular genetic biology always seemed to pass over her head.

“The sample I procured of the Starsmore boy’s energy matrix is a wonder,” Essex stated, though Paige was unsure whether he was speaking to her or to himself, “and once I return to my rightful state, it will definitely be something worth following up on.”

“When am I going to get to see my friends?” Paige asked hesitantly, slightly timid at the thought of interrupting the doctor’s work. Essex turned slightly from his station, leering at her from the corner of his eye.

“I saved you from a fate worse than death, child,” he chided, “and if you wish to remain as you are now, you’ll keep yourself to this part of the facility. Were Adam to learn of your existence, we would have the entire staff of this accursed place down upon our heads.”

Ms. Guthrie sighed and nodded, knowing that her benefactor was correct in his statement. “Are you any closer to finding us a way out of here?” she asked, again breaking his concentration.

“That,” Essex replied with a sigh of his own, rubbing his eyes with thumb and forefinger, “relies on whether or not I can locate the teleporter that arrived with your group. Without someone to break through the spatial barrier surrounding this plane, we are quite stuck.”

“Clarice,” Paige muttered, thinking back to the one member of her former team that she’d never really taken the opportunity to know. “What if I went looking for her?”

“I do hate repeating myself, Miss Guthrie,” Essex hissed, returning his eyes to the microscope in front of him.

Grunting in frustration, Paige reached up to the side of her face, puncturing the flesh of her cheek with her fingernails. With a wet, tearing sound, she forcefully ripped away the skin on her face, the pink tissue falling away in ragged chunks. A moment later, she stood as a changed woman – her shape now that of a young, blonde-haired man. Essex turned back from his microscope, a dour grin passing ever briefly over his lips.

“You’re lucky I don’t kick yer bollocks in, you sandal wearin’ Lynard Skynard hippie piece o’ shite. Heaven? More like wanker-ville!”

The man known only as Adam chuckled slightly at the fuming English lad standing in front of his desk, knuckles buried deep into the oak finish of the tabletop. Much to his expectation, Jon Starsmore hadn’t taken his words very well. “Please, child,” he said, raising an out-turned hand to his young guest, “calm down.”

“I don’t know, Adam,” Everett Thomas chimed in from the back of the room, his arms wrapped around the girl he loved in as much a gesture of comfort for him as it was toward her, “Jon’s got a pretty valid excuse for his reaction.”

“Shut up, Everett,” Monet St. Croix ordered, pushing her lover away. Grabbing Starsmore by the arm, she pulled him back to look him in the face. “Don’t you dare talk to this man like that again, Jonothon. You have no idea what he’s done for us.”

“I know that he just said we died, gel,” Jon yelled, denying Monet’s statement, “so pardon me for taking offense t’ that.”

“It’s quite all right, Monet,” Adam said while standing from his desk, “I expected this kind of reaction. It’s not every day that one stands in the halls of Heaven, after all.”

“What you’re saying,” Everett responded, “it doesn’t make a bit of sense on any level – religious, metaphysical, or biological. It’s also very offensive to my personal beliefs, I have to say.”

“We come across megalomaniacal super-shites quite often,” Jon said, jabbing an accusatory finger in Adam’s chest, “so all this talk o’ spiritual nonsense ain’t gonna keep us from kickin’ yer arse.”

Adam sighed heavily, but immediately covered up his reaction with a beaming smile. “I’m afraid you simply misunderstand your situation, children,” he said as he walked toward the door, “and if you follow me, I’ll try and explain everything to you.”

The three youngsters exchanged glances. “Alright,” Jon finally answered, “but this better be damn good.”

“C’mon babes, give me a break here. I can take any shape you like, so just think of the possibilities…”

Jennifer Starvos and Sharon Smith looked up from their positions at the large desk that blocked off the entrance to the long hallway behind them. Kevin Sidney, whose incredibly unattractive face seemed to flow and change with each passing second, simply gave a smarmy grin – followed by a licking of his teeth with a forked snake-like tongue. “No offense, doughboy,” the blonde Starvos answered, returning to her paperwork as she spoke, “but I’m a big dyke. So I’m not interested.”

“Hey, that’s no problem!” Sidney replied with exuberance. Suddenly, his features liquified, changing shape within moments to that of a nubile, and quite naked, teenage girl. “I can turn my hands into two giant cocks, too, if you’re interested,” s/he offered with a wink.

“God damn it, freak show,” Jennifer said sharply, lifting her head to say some final words to her antagonist, “I’m not really a lesbian. Can’t you just take a blow-off and accept what a fucking loser you are?”

Sidney stood in shock for a moment, but eventually responded with a gruff humph before turning to the second girl. “What about you kitty cat,” s/he said while squeezing together the two oversized breasts that hung from his/her chest, “care for a little pussy on pussy action?”

Sharon glared at the man, her feline eyes glowing a faint yellow. “Catseye knows what she’d like,” the white-haired teenager purred seductively, reaching out her hand to the shape changer. Kevin grinned, sure of his success, and placed his hand in hers.

“What’s that you like, baby?” he asked. Sharon grinned shyly.

Suddenly, her hand twisted around his, catching it in an inhumanly strong grip. Sidney found himself jerked over the desk, pulled face to face with the girl’s feline beast form. “Turn into a big mouse for Catseye,” she growled, “and feed her tummy.”

“Let him go, Sharon,” Roulette said softly, glancing at the newcomer that was making his way toward their station, “manager’s in the room.”

“Buzz off, ugly man,” Catseye ordered the frightened Changeling, releasing him from his hold. Transforming into an insect, the gentlemen did just that, flying past the blonde-haired young man as he approached the girls’ desk.

“What was that all about?” Doug asked, giving the two a curious look.

“Oh, the usual,” Jennifer answered, resting her elbows on the desk to help support her head while she talked, “Sidney’s been trying that shit on us for years now, and he never seems to get the message. What we can do for you?”

Doug glanced back toward Sharon, who had returned to her human form, but was sniffing the air for an unknown reason. “Uh, Adam sent me down here to look in our guest,” he said, turning back toward Starvos, “make sure she’s still where she’s supposed to be.”

“Sure, no problem,” Jennifer said while standing from her chair. Taking Doug by the hand, she led him to the pressure-sealed door behind their station. “Buzz us in, Cats,” she said to her partner. Sharon hesitated for a moment, examining Doug with her strange cat-like eyes.

“Be good, pretty kiddies,” she finally said, pushing a button on her computer terminal. The door slid open, allowing Doug and Jennifer to enter. Sharon’s eyes didn’t leave the two until the door returned to its closed position. “Douglas not smell right,” she mumbled to herself, “curious indeed.”

“So which one of our little inmates you down here to see?” Jennifer asked, her hand gripped tightly around Doug’s as they made their way through the prison hall.

“The newest arrival,” Doug answered, a bit of sweat starting to form on his brow.

“You got a few minutes to kill first?” she questioned, stopping their walk. Without waiting for him to answer, the blonde girl spun him around, slamming his back into the wall between two of the cell doors. She was on him not even a second later, her hands exploring his body extensively. Her mouth opened, engulfing his as he felt her tongue in his mouth. Doug offered no resistance at first, returning her kiss with an awkward, unsure hesitance.

“Oh baby, it’s been too long since we partied,” she whispered between kisses, and her hand slid down into his pants, searching for her prize with eagerness.

“Whoa, okay,” Doug interjected, pulling back her hand just as it made contact, “I can’t do this right now. I really am down here to see the prisoner.”

Jennifer looked at him with disbelief, not understanding why he was rejecting her advances after so many other romps they’d had in that very place. “Fine, whatever,” she said after a moment, pointing down to the end of the hall, “Ferguson’s in the last cell. Have fun with her, lover boy.”

Doug sighed in relief as Starvos walked back up the hall. Turning toward the back of the cell row, he muttered quietly to himself, “Paige, girl, what have you gotten yourself into?”

“When I first arrived in this place,” Adam began as he led his three young companions into the large room called the Mass Transit Station, “it was a formless void. Only I existed, and the only way I could access it was – quite unfortunately – to die.”

“You say that as if you’ve done it more than once,” Everett commented, looking around at the complex machinery that lined most of the free space in the room, “and the place doesn’t exactly look formless anymore.”

“I have returned to life on more than one occasion,” Adam answered, “the first time being nearly immediately after my arrival here. Imagine my surprise upon learning that the handful of hours I spent here translated to three days in the real world. As for the facility that surrounds us now, this Wonderland – it is my creation.”

“Yer creation?” Jon asked, continuing the line of questioning.

“Like you – like every person in this place, in fact – I am a mutant,” the bearded man explained, “and though my gifts are varied, one of the more notable is my ability to recreate reality in this void to my liking. I created this place as a way station for those like me whose life had been taken from them prematurely. I created Heaven for mutant kind…”

Allowing his explanation to linger in the minds of the three, Adam made his way to a computer terminal. Placing his hand on the shoulder of the red-haired boy seated at the station, he smiled at what the screen displayed. “Rusty, I see we have a new arrival in transit?”

“Yes sir,” Rusty Collins answered, “and trust me when I say that you’re not gonna believe who it is. He’s a fighter, though – there’s no ETA on when exactly he’s gonna get here.”

“Hol’ on,” Starsmore interrupted, rubbing his temples with his fingers, “I’m getting’ a bleedin’ headache from all this. Yer sayin’ that you been pluckin’ mutants away when they die and bringin’ ’em here? That’s nonsense, mate – there’s more dead muties out there than there are guys that wanna fuck Britney.”

“He’s got a point,” Everett chimed in, “since your staff looks a little miniscule compared to how many you’re professing to have ‘rescued’.”

“I know better than anyone, my students,” Adam said grimly, his head hung low as he spoke, “about the extent to which humanity can demonstrate their hatred toward we who are different. If I cannot offer my people this world that I have created, then I have failed as a man…”

He raised his head, giving the three former pupils of Xavier an intense stare.

“…I have failed them as their savior.”

Suddenly, the moment was broken by the sound of a throat being cleared – rather loudly at that. Adam turned slowly, a curse perhaps being muttered under his breath as he saw the patiently waiting Dr. Essex standing behind him. “Nathaniel,” the man greeted, the smile returned to his face once again, “what can I do for you?”

“Giving them the ‘ask not what your savior can do for you, but what you can do for your savior’ routine?” The doctor smirked. “That speech got old the first hundred times I heard it.”

“Heh, I like this bloke already,” Jon commented, prompting a sharp look from his host.

“Doctor Essex is the head genetic researcher here at the facility,” Adam stated, “and is invaluable to the work we’re producing.”

“What kind of work is that, sir?” Monet asked, the first time she’d spoken since leaving Adam’s office.

Essex glared at his superior before answering. “I take it Adam has yet to show you the Amalgamation Chamber?”

“Could it have a more cryptic name?” Everett asked snidely.

“The Amalgamation Chamber is nothing for them to be concerned about, Doctor Essex,” Adam interjected, “nor you, if I remember your duties correctly.”

“Point taken,” Essex admitted, turning away from the group, “but my work awaits me. Good day, children.”

“Something about that man,” Monet whispered softly to Everett, “makes me feel like we should know him…”

Paige, still disguised in the form of the young man named Doug Ramsey, cupped her hands over her eyes as she peered through the glass viewer in the steel cell door. The darkness was overwhelming in the room, with no forms of light visible to the eye. “Clarice?” she whispered, talking more to herself than to the cell’s hopeful occupant. “Are you in there?”

Suddenly, an intense flash of light erupted from the back wall of the cell, causing Paige to recoil from the door in a quick backward jerk. Rubbing the spots from her eyes, she returned to the door, the light slowly fading from the energy burst. Suspended in the air by chains, completely nude, was the barely conscious Clarice Ferguson.

“Oh shit, how do I get this door open?” the Guthrie daughter muttered as she looked over the electronic key pad. After thinking for a moment, she took a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure she was alone in the hallway. Digging her fingernails into the palm of her opposite hand, she concentrated as the flesh ripped away, revealing a chalk-white body underneath. Rubbing her fingers together directly over the keypad, a powdery substance flaked away, covering the electronics like a blanket of snow. After a sufficient amount had been applied, she bent forward and pursed her lips. The powder blew away quite easily, leaving remnants of fingerprints on the key pad’s numbers. “Paige, ol’ girl,” she congratulated herself, “you are just too cool for school.”

With a hiss of moving hydraulics, the door slid open. Cautiously, Paige entered the room, creeping toward the groaning girl hanging a few feet away. “Clarice, can you hear me?” she asked, placing her hand on the lavender-skinned girl’s cheek. “How can I get you out of here?”

“She’s not allowed to leave,” a voice said from behind, causing Paige to shriek in fright. Spinning around, her eyes focused on an extremely young girl standing in the doorway. “My name’s Illyana,” the girl said, a pleasant smile affixed to her features, “thanks for letting me out.”

“What?” Paige stammered, shaken by the girl’s unexplainable appearance.

“They aren’t going to let her go,” the eight year-old girl continued, “because she’s too dangerous. They didn’t think I was dangerous…”

Paige watched with widened eyes as a luminous circle of light opened beneath the little girl’s feet.

“…but they were wrong.”

And then the girl disappeared.

Paige shuddered, a cold chill running down her spine caused by the little girl’s statement. Turning back toward her captive friend, she examined the complex bonds that fastened her to the ceiling. “I think I’m gonna have to get some help before I free you, girl,” she whispered, saddened by Clarice’s condition, “but don’t you worry. I’ll be back.”

“So if we’re dead, right,” Jon asked his host, “then where are our mates? Jubes, Paige, Blink – ‘ow come they ain’t here with us?”

Adam breathed heavily, addressing the three mutants with sullen eyes. “How can I put this lightly?” he asked rhetorically. “I’m afraid they survived…”

“Oh, that’s just bleedin’ great,” Starsmore exclaimed, throwing his hands into the air, “so while we’re stuck here in the afterlife-by-way-of-Xavier, the others are still kickin’ it back home? Fuckin’ crock, that is!”

“Adam, you say you’ve returned to life on numerous occasions,” Everett interjected, cutting off his friend’s protests, “so I have to ask… can you return others as well?”

Their benefactor laughed slightly before answering. “Of course, Mister Thomas – just think about how many acquaintances of yours that have returned from seeming death. Jean Grey has visited so often that we’ve considered naming a wing of the complex after her.”

“Are you going to send us back?” Monet asked.

“My young guests,” Adam responded, opening his arms in a warm gesture, “these are questions for another time. You’ve only just arrived, and now you need your rest. Mister Starsmore, I’ve taken the liberty of placing cigarettes in your room, as I was informed about your asking for them after your rebirth…”

“So we just wait?” Everett asked in confusion. Adam smiled once again, taking note of the newly arrived Doug Ramsey that approached from behind the three youths.

“Come on guys,” Doug began, placing his hands on Jon and Everett’s shoulders, “I’ll escort you back to your rooms. There are some formalities to take care of before we can go any further.”

Reluctantly, the three allowed themselves to be pushed by the charming Mr. Ramsey, though Jon allowed one final glance back at the grinning Adam before he walked out of the room. Immediately after their departure, Adam’s smile faded into a grim scowl. John Proudstar, his arms crossed in a patient manner, walked to his lord’s side.

“I want Mister Starsmore to be moved to the top of the amalgamation schedule,” he commanded the Native American, “the sooner we’re rid of him, the better.”

As quietly as she could, Paige pulled close the door to Clarice’s cell, only halfway noticing that the hallway had darkened considerably since she’d last occupied the space. Still possessing the form of Doug Ramsey, she turned back toward the way she’d entered, but stopped in her tracks upon hearing the soft hissing sound that came from behind her.

Turning slowly, she attempted to see through the darkness, her eyes finally falling on a pair of yellow glowing eyes crouched down low to the floor. With a fierce growl, the animal pounced toward her. Hitting her full force, the large cat dug its claws into her shoulders, weighing her to the ground quite painfully.

“Doug boy not smell right,” the panther purred as it slowly changed shape into the werewolf form of Sharon Smith, “this Catseye knows. Tell me name, girly girl, before Catseye gets frisky.”

“Fuck off,” Paige vented, spitting a wad of saliva directly into the cat girl’s face. Growling at the indignity, Smith pulled her arms downward, ripping away at the girl’s body. To the feline’s surprise, however, the blood and gore she was expecting was exchanged for a smirk on the face of the boy below her. As the flesh on his chest tore away, a smoky mist erupted from the wounds, the body beneath bubbling forth. Catseye shrieked as her hands touched the acid form exposed by her rending, prompting her by instinct to withdraw her grasp. Freed from her enemy’s grip, Paige finished the job that the other girl had started, pulling away at the ragged chunks of her skin as quickly as possible.

“Please, no,” Sharon pleaded, having returned to her human form as she knelt on her knees, her arms burning away into smoldering stumps, “Catseye sorry.”

Paige hesitated for a moment, her acidic body exposing the air to noxious fumes. After a weighing of options, she thrust her hand forward, palming the Hellion’s face with a burning palm. Catseye screamed for several long moments, until she finally collapsed to the floor. Paige stood static for several long minutes, staring at the body of the teenage girl she’d just killed.

“No time for tears now,” she whispered to herself, “no time at all…”

NEXT ISSUE: Paige deals with being a killer, but what does murder mean in a place populated by the dead? Also, Jon and Everett begin their investigations into the mysterious Amalgamation Chamber, while Monet and Adam get up close and personal.

A Lovable Bastard, I Am

Okay, so this issue was nearly four months late – man do I suck. But, since this issue was written over a span of like three days (which must be a record of some sort for me), I’m taking it as a sign that my momentum on the book is going to remain strong. I can’t guarantee that #3 will be released in a month’s time, but I’ll try like to hell to make sure it’s not TOO late, lol.