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xp_logsLaurie, Kyle, Nica, and Alison also decide to visit the haunted house. It isn't very nice to them either.
"Okay, said Nica, looking at the pamphlet in her hands. Of course she had the pamphlet - she always did on outings. "This says the whole thing starts at the front door, then winds its way around upstairs and back down to a place where everyone is gathered at the end."
"Do we go in as individuals, or a group?"
Laurie glanced over Nica's shoulder at the pamphlet, her fellow Residents had been talking all week about the local Haunted House planned by the fraternity. She'd decided to come along to check it out, despite Halloween being one of the busiest days for the hospital. Something about the fact she'd be no good to them without at least a little fun in her life. She'd be heading in for the night shift afterwards anyway.
“Looks like groups of four. Which, hey, that’s what we’re in.” Nica didn’t know Laurie very well, except for the odd weird journal post. “Has anyone done this before? Germany wasn’t big on Halloween and I stuck to the mansion parties before.”
"I mean it's a haunted house. People in zombie makeup, scary clowns, creepy noises and a guy with a chainsaw only they take the chain off." Kyle said, with a shrug. "And sometimes they'll put like, ringers in the lines to get names so they can give you a for reals personalized scare." He bent to pull his shoelace tight - the converse sneaks were blown out the fronts but it kept him from stepping in anything gross. "Sometimes they're themed, like, zombie infested hotel, or zombie rednecks take over a mall. Basically, though. Mostly zombies."
"So basically, just think early 2000s horror movie, but like, one of those bad B-movie horror flicks that went straight to TV on the SyFy channel after it went downhill," Alison chimed in. "Honestly, a lot of these things are so bad they're actually funny, rather than scary... at least, the ones back at college were. It's not one of those big budget professional companies, I don't think, so it should be pretty low-key." At least she was pretty sure it wasn't one of the big famous ones that popped up around here every year. There was a logo on the brochure that she certainly didn't recognize, at any rate.
Honestly, Alison wasn't a huge fan of the pro haunted houses. She didn't exactly 'do' horror, and like sane and normal people she didn't understand the appeal of having the life scared out of her. especially when it was just a train of jump-scares. She just found a certain type of fun in turning things back on their heads, like using fake names in the waiting line for the ringers and finding the seams where she could peer behind the curtain, as it were, and see some of the underlying techniques that made these things worked. Basically, she enjoyed them less on a primal fear level and more on a conceptual one.
"It's basically a bit of silly fun to relax." She dropped her voice to a whisper and put on a pretty terrible fake British accent. "And here we have the rare Securis Contra Parricida in its natural habitat. Sadly, urban renewal and the rise of skepticism and rational thinking has driven this once mighty predator to the brink of extinction. Unable to adapt as its preferred hunting style of slowly shambling forward towards its prey became less and less popular, it has been forced into the use of jumpscares just to survive. This specimen, trapped within a home as it is, likely will not survive to November. Truly, the world of fear is a harsh and unforgiving place."
Monica snorted at Alison's imitation. "Sounds like fun, even if it's a bit silly. Like watching cheesy horror movies." She moved to open the door in front of them and as she did, a skeleton unfurled from above the door and dropped down to hang in front of them, grinning toothily. "Like that," Nica continued, once her heart stopped hammering. She was also at the back of the group, having jump-phased through the rest of them out of startlement.
"If you do the Alison Blaire's Wild Kingdom" bit for this whole thing, I will like..." Kyle waited until the skeleton was pulled back up to continue. "Probably wreck their whole scene by laughing the whole damn time, but I will also like, buy you a pizza." He glanced back as the door creaked shut, dropping them into eerie dimness, lit only by the purple glow of a UV bulb behind a vent that leaked chilly fog down towards the floor. "Nice, they went for the fog machine that uses dry ice and not the stanky one."
“It’s pretty.” Laurie murmured as she crouched to run her hand through the purple fog. “What do you think? Zombies or chainsaw wielding murderer next?”
"How about cobwebs and giant spiders?" suggested Nica as they walked into the first sticky tendrils hanging from the ceiling. "I wonder what they used for this. Feels almost real."
"Oh, that is so gross!" Alison exclaimed, sounding less grossed out and more excitedly confused. "I have no idea how they did this. Maybe cotton covered in some sort of lubricant? It's slick, but sticky, and... seriously, how?!"
“That’s unsanitary at best.” Laurie replied. “Also, the use of animals in such a fashion would seem unethical and against this university's stated charter.”
"Well, if we find any spiders, giant or otherwise, being exploited, we can call in the ASPCA," replied Nica with a grin. Ahead of them a long corridor stretched, broken by occasional doors on either side. "Bets on things jumping out of those doors?" she said, turning back to the others.
"OSHA. I think it's OSHA." Kyle said, voice flat. "There's blood in here." He snorted once, and then took a deep breath through his nose, already regretting it. "A lot of blood, some barf, shit... " He bent down, one fingertips brushing the ground. "One of you call the mansion, Alison, light us up. I want to see what the fuck is going on."
No sooner had the words been spoken then the lights went out. Darkness, thick and impenetrable to even enhanced vision, surrounded them.
Nica waited for the lights to come back on, preparing herself for whatever scare would be revealed and resisting using her powers to cheat. Not only would that be against the spirit of the game, but there were 'mundanes' around and outing herself - and possibly the others - as mutants wouldn't make for a fun night. Everyone was being so quiet though... "Guys?" she called out. There was no reply. "Haha, very funny, but you really don't need to help scare me." Still nothing.
Then the silence was split by the extremely obnoxious ringtone she'd set on her phone for X-Men mission alerts. Nica groped for her phone and in the darkness read the message scrolling across the screen. <I>'Mission Alert. All team members report asap.'</I>
"Crap," she said aloud. "Guys? Sorry, but I've got to..."
The lights suddenly came back on. But instead of the dingy hallway of the haunted house, she was standing at the bottom of the main staircase in the Xavier mansion.
"...go." Nica turned in a slow circle, trying to figure out what had happened. There was no sign of Kyle, Laurie or Alison, so residual sulphur smell from Kurt's 'bamf' or the purple glow of one of Clarice's portals. Just her, standing in the mansion, which was just as it had been when they'd left only an hour ago. "Huh."
Had she done it? Had she finally done what Reed had said was possible for her and she'd travelled at the speed of light? It had to be the only explanation. Then her phone alarm went off again and she came to her senses, running for the hidden elevator that led down to the mission room. Save the world first, work out how she got here so fast later.
***
Complete darkness was so rare for Kyle that his head spun from it, so used to relying on his excellent night vision to orient himself. He fell to his hands and knees, bracing against the slick linoleum under his fingers. It was still too dark, wrongly so, and he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand uselessly. Either it really was unnaturally dark, or he'd been blinded, and either way, he thought, fuck it, he had a nose and ears to rely on. He hadn't spent time in the damn sparring ring with Matt Murdock for nothing, after all.
He kept low until he found a corner and stood slowly, keeping his back against the damp wall. The darkness was finally edging to grey and red blobs, and his whole head hurt like he'd been punched on the inside of his skull. He crept along the wall, feeling ahead of himself with one arm, until he found a door. He nudged the handle, and took a step back to listen, and then rattled it again, and again, five times until he was sure either no one was coming through the door after him. The door made no noise as he slid it open, but he could feel the cool air sweeping away the smells of blood and vomit and shit.
It was as though the noises were waiting for him to rub his eyes and nose again, and for the flashes of red to finally peel away from his eyes. The breeze through the door, which he could finally see led down a long concrete and tile hallway brought screams for help. Voices he knew - young and scared, and calling his name, yelling for Kyle, Mr Gibney, K-Gibs, Wildchild, someone to come help them. Voices that if Kyle had stopped, if he could have stopped himself from reacting, from running down the hall, he would have realized - the voices he heard, Rahne and Maya and Xavin and Bobby, none of them called him K-Gibs, he wasn't Mr. Gibney, or Mr G. No one called him Wildchild anymore.
He ran, slamming open doors, and the voices echoed, bouncing off the tiles, too loud for the hallway, and growing louder the further he went. He turned, following the doors and screams and calls for help and the hall ended in a set of double doors, and a sign in bright danger green "Operating Theater"
***
She startled, and opened eyes that felt slightly gritty from lack of sleep. She was sure something was happening, some event she should probably remember but it was like smoke at the back of her mind and a pounding headache spoke of a few too many late nights.
She’d come in here for something, but she couldn’t say what. The Baron wanted more from her every day and always there was the threat of what he’d do to Hope and her if she didn’t comply.
She’d long since given up on her friends coming, or such things as ethics or right and wrong. There was simply what she did to survive, and if that made her a monster, than so be it.
With a sigh, she pushed open the door to the operating theatre and walked over to the washstand to clean her hands. The patient, a young mutant already strapped to the table appeared already sedated.
They’d given her a staff once she started cooperating. Better to remove the organs and keep them as undamaged and fresh as possible. Of course, there were also the experiments.
She couldn’t help the scientific curiosity of genetic manipulation and forced cross breeding. As vile as the methods were, they certainly produced results she couldn’t argue with. There was always so much they wanted her to do, and so little time in which to do it.
Best to get on with it, she supposed.
*** "...see what's going on."
Alison could feel the change in the air the moment it happened. It wasn't that the lights all cut in a single, perfect moment, or the blast of cold air that hit her in the same moment. No, those were pretty common tricks. What wasn't common was how the air was suddenly heavy and clammy, clinging to Alison's skin the way that damp air in dark places tend to do. It was cold, wet, perfectly black, and eerily silent.
Alison didn't like it. Only, when she went to do as Kyle asked and light the place up, she couldn't. "Gonna need one of you to make some noise if you want some light, guys." It was a limitation of her power that came up so infrequently, Alison wasn't terribly surprised that the others had forgotten it.
"...guys?" she called out, with much less confidence than before. "Hello? ...okay, very funny. Yes, you got me. You must be so proud of yourselves." Nothing. "I swear to god I am going to get you all back for this, you know that, rig--"
Off in the distance, a single note sounded. Somehow both high and low pitched at once, Alison couldn't put her finger on exactly how she knew it. Whichever of the others thought they were being funny was about to get a piece of her mind. Still, it was enough to get her powers running again and---
Out of the darkness floated a ghastly visage. The black melted to green, murky and swimming as if deep ocean currents were swirling around her. Her light only reached a few feet before being swallowed by the blackness. As the note ended and the light began to fade, the pressure began to set in. Like a weight from god itself it settled on her shoulders, across her chest, chaining down her arms and shackling her legs. She gasped in a breath and stepped backwards, tripping over something in the darkness and falling on her rear. Something echoed a rattle in the dark.
From the other direction, another low and mourneful note sounded, and this time Alison recognized it. Whale song. Shaking from both the effort and her nerves, Alison raised a hand and let the light return.
And found herself face to face with a wooden carving, noses inches away from touching. The ocean swallowed her shriek of terror even as it clawed at her limbs, slowing her as she scrambled backwards into the darkness. The light, without her effort to sustain it, vanished abruptly, leaving her cast into Darkness again.
It was years before the next whale song echoed from somewhere far above her. She was trembling, arms hugging herself tightly as she spun in place. She didn't know where to turn, lost in the ink as she was. She couldn't move, couldn't run for fear of finding something, or having something find her, but she couldn't stay either. There was mud on her hands, and her arms, and everywhere she'd touched when she fell to the ground.
A deep, full-body shudder ran through her, starting between her shoulders and traveling all the way to her feet with such violence she feared for a moment she'd hurt herself. She let the next song pass, paralyzed by indecision. What was worse: the dark, or what lay hidden within it?
At the fourth whale song, she slowly let the light creep out again. The carving, a wooden figurehead of a rotten and derelict old ship, rose out of the mud ahead of her, far enough away now that she could only make out the general shape through the murky water. Alison flinched, slamming her eyes shut and jerking her head to the side.
When she turned back to look, it was gone. Alison stared, wide eyed at the spot, until the whale song ended and the area plunged back into darkness.
With her pulse pounding away in her ears, Alison didn't even hear the next whale song until she'd already begun to light up the area again. No ship, no fish... just a bubble of murky water. She stepped forward and out of her shoes as the mud swallowed them, leaving her toes to squish in the damp seabed. She turned, sweeping her hair out of her eyes where it'd begun to rise off her neck and float as if she were truly under water, shining a brilliant orange-red against the black and green of the world around her.
She took one more step backwards and bounced against something that hadn't been there before. She shrieked, bouncing away and twisting. Her momentum carried her back as her feet carved grooves into the soft floor.
What she'd backed into was clearly a large stone cross. Celtic, some distant part of her recognized, about chest high and heavily eroded by time and water. It was leaning heavily to one side, kept up only by the silty ground and a prayer, and against an otherwise empty landscape it looked very much out of place.
It was a tombstone. Again, Alison shuddered hard enough to wake the dead, and again the cry ended and the light fled. When both returned, they brought with them an unwelcome sight; where once stood a celtic cross, now stood three.
A small part of Alison's mind realized that at some point she'd begun to hyperventilate. She was tensioned tighter than a coiled spring, but the weight of the ocean around her kept her bound in place. Every time she turned, or the lights went away, the world around her changed in the darkness. Three graves became five, then six, then ten all around her.
Then a hand of bone burst from the silt at her feet and clamped onto her ankle. Alison shrieked, reflexively blasting the hand with a red laser. The attack moved sluggishly through the water, but still packed enough force to blow the hand into a dozen tiny bones in an instant. She continued to scream as more hands rose from the ground. They latched onto her ankles and lower legs, pulling her down to her knees.
A hand grasped her from behind, wrapping around her head and pulling her back as her legs sank into the earth. Then another, then another, until there were dozens across every inch of her body. She thrashed. She struggled. She screamed until the mud covered her face.
The whale song ended. The light went out.
Neither returned.
***
The Blackbird hanger was an immense empty space. No aircraft, no team, no activity. Nica stopped, confused. Where was everyone?
There was a gust of hot air and the rumbling of the hanger doors above. Nica moved away from the landing pad and waited for the 'Bird to touch down. When the ramp let down, it revealed Cyclops, grim-faced, beaten and bruised. Blood was seeping from a wound in his gut, oozing out past the fingers that tried to hold it in.
"Where were you?" his voice was flat.
"I came as soon as I could," she faltered. "What happened?"
"You were too late. We needed you. And because you weren't there, the team..." Cyclops' face crumbled, then resumed its stony facade. "They're dead. All of them."
"...what?" Nica tried to breathe, but all the air seemed to have left the room. "how...?"
"Does it matter? It's your fault. You told me I could rely on you and I did. And this is what I got in return." He gestured and Nica saw the bodies of her team mates being rolled out of the 'Bird on stretchers, white sheets over the top of them but blood seeping through, the smell of burnt flesh, a purple hand hanging down where it had slipped out underneath. "You failed."
"But I..." Nica wanted to deny it, but the proof was there in front of her. Her team, dead, because she hadn't been there. "I tried my best..."
"Then your best wasn't good enough. And our blood is on your hands." The words were harsh, brutal, and Nica couldn't stand it any more. She ghosted, running blindly away through walls, doors, vehicles, whatever was in her path. It didn't matter where she went, only that she got away. When at last she reached her limits and turned solid again, she was standing outside a door, marked "Operating Room".
With a sense of futility - what else could she do? - Nica paused, staring dully at the door and waiting for something to happen.
***
"Okay, said Nica, looking at the pamphlet in her hands. Of course she had the pamphlet - she always did on outings. "This says the whole thing starts at the front door, then winds its way around upstairs and back down to a place where everyone is gathered at the end."
"Do we go in as individuals, or a group?"
Laurie glanced over Nica's shoulder at the pamphlet, her fellow Residents had been talking all week about the local Haunted House planned by the fraternity. She'd decided to come along to check it out, despite Halloween being one of the busiest days for the hospital. Something about the fact she'd be no good to them without at least a little fun in her life. She'd be heading in for the night shift afterwards anyway.
“Looks like groups of four. Which, hey, that’s what we’re in.” Nica didn’t know Laurie very well, except for the odd weird journal post. “Has anyone done this before? Germany wasn’t big on Halloween and I stuck to the mansion parties before.”
"I mean it's a haunted house. People in zombie makeup, scary clowns, creepy noises and a guy with a chainsaw only they take the chain off." Kyle said, with a shrug. "And sometimes they'll put like, ringers in the lines to get names so they can give you a for reals personalized scare." He bent to pull his shoelace tight - the converse sneaks were blown out the fronts but it kept him from stepping in anything gross. "Sometimes they're themed, like, zombie infested hotel, or zombie rednecks take over a mall. Basically, though. Mostly zombies."
"So basically, just think early 2000s horror movie, but like, one of those bad B-movie horror flicks that went straight to TV on the SyFy channel after it went downhill," Alison chimed in. "Honestly, a lot of these things are so bad they're actually funny, rather than scary... at least, the ones back at college were. It's not one of those big budget professional companies, I don't think, so it should be pretty low-key." At least she was pretty sure it wasn't one of the big famous ones that popped up around here every year. There was a logo on the brochure that she certainly didn't recognize, at any rate.
Honestly, Alison wasn't a huge fan of the pro haunted houses. She didn't exactly 'do' horror, and like sane and normal people she didn't understand the appeal of having the life scared out of her. especially when it was just a train of jump-scares. She just found a certain type of fun in turning things back on their heads, like using fake names in the waiting line for the ringers and finding the seams where she could peer behind the curtain, as it were, and see some of the underlying techniques that made these things worked. Basically, she enjoyed them less on a primal fear level and more on a conceptual one.
"It's basically a bit of silly fun to relax." She dropped her voice to a whisper and put on a pretty terrible fake British accent. "And here we have the rare Securis Contra Parricida in its natural habitat. Sadly, urban renewal and the rise of skepticism and rational thinking has driven this once mighty predator to the brink of extinction. Unable to adapt as its preferred hunting style of slowly shambling forward towards its prey became less and less popular, it has been forced into the use of jumpscares just to survive. This specimen, trapped within a home as it is, likely will not survive to November. Truly, the world of fear is a harsh and unforgiving place."
Monica snorted at Alison's imitation. "Sounds like fun, even if it's a bit silly. Like watching cheesy horror movies." She moved to open the door in front of them and as she did, a skeleton unfurled from above the door and dropped down to hang in front of them, grinning toothily. "Like that," Nica continued, once her heart stopped hammering. She was also at the back of the group, having jump-phased through the rest of them out of startlement.
"If you do the Alison Blaire's Wild Kingdom" bit for this whole thing, I will like..." Kyle waited until the skeleton was pulled back up to continue. "Probably wreck their whole scene by laughing the whole damn time, but I will also like, buy you a pizza." He glanced back as the door creaked shut, dropping them into eerie dimness, lit only by the purple glow of a UV bulb behind a vent that leaked chilly fog down towards the floor. "Nice, they went for the fog machine that uses dry ice and not the stanky one."
“It’s pretty.” Laurie murmured as she crouched to run her hand through the purple fog. “What do you think? Zombies or chainsaw wielding murderer next?”
"How about cobwebs and giant spiders?" suggested Nica as they walked into the first sticky tendrils hanging from the ceiling. "I wonder what they used for this. Feels almost real."
"Oh, that is so gross!" Alison exclaimed, sounding less grossed out and more excitedly confused. "I have no idea how they did this. Maybe cotton covered in some sort of lubricant? It's slick, but sticky, and... seriously, how?!"
“That’s unsanitary at best.” Laurie replied. “Also, the use of animals in such a fashion would seem unethical and against this university's stated charter.”
"Well, if we find any spiders, giant or otherwise, being exploited, we can call in the ASPCA," replied Nica with a grin. Ahead of them a long corridor stretched, broken by occasional doors on either side. "Bets on things jumping out of those doors?" she said, turning back to the others.
"OSHA. I think it's OSHA." Kyle said, voice flat. "There's blood in here." He snorted once, and then took a deep breath through his nose, already regretting it. "A lot of blood, some barf, shit... " He bent down, one fingertips brushing the ground. "One of you call the mansion, Alison, light us up. I want to see what the fuck is going on."
No sooner had the words been spoken then the lights went out. Darkness, thick and impenetrable to even enhanced vision, surrounded them.
Nica waited for the lights to come back on, preparing herself for whatever scare would be revealed and resisting using her powers to cheat. Not only would that be against the spirit of the game, but there were 'mundanes' around and outing herself - and possibly the others - as mutants wouldn't make for a fun night. Everyone was being so quiet though... "Guys?" she called out. There was no reply. "Haha, very funny, but you really don't need to help scare me." Still nothing.
Then the silence was split by the extremely obnoxious ringtone she'd set on her phone for X-Men mission alerts. Nica groped for her phone and in the darkness read the message scrolling across the screen. <I>'Mission Alert. All team members report asap.'</I>
"Crap," she said aloud. "Guys? Sorry, but I've got to..."
The lights suddenly came back on. But instead of the dingy hallway of the haunted house, she was standing at the bottom of the main staircase in the Xavier mansion.
"...go." Nica turned in a slow circle, trying to figure out what had happened. There was no sign of Kyle, Laurie or Alison, so residual sulphur smell from Kurt's 'bamf' or the purple glow of one of Clarice's portals. Just her, standing in the mansion, which was just as it had been when they'd left only an hour ago. "Huh."
Had she done it? Had she finally done what Reed had said was possible for her and she'd travelled at the speed of light? It had to be the only explanation. Then her phone alarm went off again and she came to her senses, running for the hidden elevator that led down to the mission room. Save the world first, work out how she got here so fast later.
***
Complete darkness was so rare for Kyle that his head spun from it, so used to relying on his excellent night vision to orient himself. He fell to his hands and knees, bracing against the slick linoleum under his fingers. It was still too dark, wrongly so, and he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand uselessly. Either it really was unnaturally dark, or he'd been blinded, and either way, he thought, fuck it, he had a nose and ears to rely on. He hadn't spent time in the damn sparring ring with Matt Murdock for nothing, after all.
He kept low until he found a corner and stood slowly, keeping his back against the damp wall. The darkness was finally edging to grey and red blobs, and his whole head hurt like he'd been punched on the inside of his skull. He crept along the wall, feeling ahead of himself with one arm, until he found a door. He nudged the handle, and took a step back to listen, and then rattled it again, and again, five times until he was sure either no one was coming through the door after him. The door made no noise as he slid it open, but he could feel the cool air sweeping away the smells of blood and vomit and shit.
It was as though the noises were waiting for him to rub his eyes and nose again, and for the flashes of red to finally peel away from his eyes. The breeze through the door, which he could finally see led down a long concrete and tile hallway brought screams for help. Voices he knew - young and scared, and calling his name, yelling for Kyle, Mr Gibney, K-Gibs, Wildchild, someone to come help them. Voices that if Kyle had stopped, if he could have stopped himself from reacting, from running down the hall, he would have realized - the voices he heard, Rahne and Maya and Xavin and Bobby, none of them called him K-Gibs, he wasn't Mr. Gibney, or Mr G. No one called him Wildchild anymore.
He ran, slamming open doors, and the voices echoed, bouncing off the tiles, too loud for the hallway, and growing louder the further he went. He turned, following the doors and screams and calls for help and the hall ended in a set of double doors, and a sign in bright danger green "Operating Theater"
***
She startled, and opened eyes that felt slightly gritty from lack of sleep. She was sure something was happening, some event she should probably remember but it was like smoke at the back of her mind and a pounding headache spoke of a few too many late nights.
She’d come in here for something, but she couldn’t say what. The Baron wanted more from her every day and always there was the threat of what he’d do to Hope and her if she didn’t comply.
She’d long since given up on her friends coming, or such things as ethics or right and wrong. There was simply what she did to survive, and if that made her a monster, than so be it.
With a sigh, she pushed open the door to the operating theatre and walked over to the washstand to clean her hands. The patient, a young mutant already strapped to the table appeared already sedated.
They’d given her a staff once she started cooperating. Better to remove the organs and keep them as undamaged and fresh as possible. Of course, there were also the experiments.
She couldn’t help the scientific curiosity of genetic manipulation and forced cross breeding. As vile as the methods were, they certainly produced results she couldn’t argue with. There was always so much they wanted her to do, and so little time in which to do it.
Best to get on with it, she supposed.
*** "...see what's going on."
Alison could feel the change in the air the moment it happened. It wasn't that the lights all cut in a single, perfect moment, or the blast of cold air that hit her in the same moment. No, those were pretty common tricks. What wasn't common was how the air was suddenly heavy and clammy, clinging to Alison's skin the way that damp air in dark places tend to do. It was cold, wet, perfectly black, and eerily silent.
Alison didn't like it. Only, when she went to do as Kyle asked and light the place up, she couldn't. "Gonna need one of you to make some noise if you want some light, guys." It was a limitation of her power that came up so infrequently, Alison wasn't terribly surprised that the others had forgotten it.
"...guys?" she called out, with much less confidence than before. "Hello? ...okay, very funny. Yes, you got me. You must be so proud of yourselves." Nothing. "I swear to god I am going to get you all back for this, you know that, rig--"
Off in the distance, a single note sounded. Somehow both high and low pitched at once, Alison couldn't put her finger on exactly how she knew it. Whichever of the others thought they were being funny was about to get a piece of her mind. Still, it was enough to get her powers running again and---
Out of the darkness floated a ghastly visage. The black melted to green, murky and swimming as if deep ocean currents were swirling around her. Her light only reached a few feet before being swallowed by the blackness. As the note ended and the light began to fade, the pressure began to set in. Like a weight from god itself it settled on her shoulders, across her chest, chaining down her arms and shackling her legs. She gasped in a breath and stepped backwards, tripping over something in the darkness and falling on her rear. Something echoed a rattle in the dark.
From the other direction, another low and mourneful note sounded, and this time Alison recognized it. Whale song. Shaking from both the effort and her nerves, Alison raised a hand and let the light return.
And found herself face to face with a wooden carving, noses inches away from touching. The ocean swallowed her shriek of terror even as it clawed at her limbs, slowing her as she scrambled backwards into the darkness. The light, without her effort to sustain it, vanished abruptly, leaving her cast into Darkness again.
It was years before the next whale song echoed from somewhere far above her. She was trembling, arms hugging herself tightly as she spun in place. She didn't know where to turn, lost in the ink as she was. She couldn't move, couldn't run for fear of finding something, or having something find her, but she couldn't stay either. There was mud on her hands, and her arms, and everywhere she'd touched when she fell to the ground.
A deep, full-body shudder ran through her, starting between her shoulders and traveling all the way to her feet with such violence she feared for a moment she'd hurt herself. She let the next song pass, paralyzed by indecision. What was worse: the dark, or what lay hidden within it?
At the fourth whale song, she slowly let the light creep out again. The carving, a wooden figurehead of a rotten and derelict old ship, rose out of the mud ahead of her, far enough away now that she could only make out the general shape through the murky water. Alison flinched, slamming her eyes shut and jerking her head to the side.
When she turned back to look, it was gone. Alison stared, wide eyed at the spot, until the whale song ended and the area plunged back into darkness.
With her pulse pounding away in her ears, Alison didn't even hear the next whale song until she'd already begun to light up the area again. No ship, no fish... just a bubble of murky water. She stepped forward and out of her shoes as the mud swallowed them, leaving her toes to squish in the damp seabed. She turned, sweeping her hair out of her eyes where it'd begun to rise off her neck and float as if she were truly under water, shining a brilliant orange-red against the black and green of the world around her.
She took one more step backwards and bounced against something that hadn't been there before. She shrieked, bouncing away and twisting. Her momentum carried her back as her feet carved grooves into the soft floor.
What she'd backed into was clearly a large stone cross. Celtic, some distant part of her recognized, about chest high and heavily eroded by time and water. It was leaning heavily to one side, kept up only by the silty ground and a prayer, and against an otherwise empty landscape it looked very much out of place.
It was a tombstone. Again, Alison shuddered hard enough to wake the dead, and again the cry ended and the light fled. When both returned, they brought with them an unwelcome sight; where once stood a celtic cross, now stood three.
A small part of Alison's mind realized that at some point she'd begun to hyperventilate. She was tensioned tighter than a coiled spring, but the weight of the ocean around her kept her bound in place. Every time she turned, or the lights went away, the world around her changed in the darkness. Three graves became five, then six, then ten all around her.
Then a hand of bone burst from the silt at her feet and clamped onto her ankle. Alison shrieked, reflexively blasting the hand with a red laser. The attack moved sluggishly through the water, but still packed enough force to blow the hand into a dozen tiny bones in an instant. She continued to scream as more hands rose from the ground. They latched onto her ankles and lower legs, pulling her down to her knees.
A hand grasped her from behind, wrapping around her head and pulling her back as her legs sank into the earth. Then another, then another, until there were dozens across every inch of her body. She thrashed. She struggled. She screamed until the mud covered her face.
The whale song ended. The light went out.
Neither returned.
***
The Blackbird hanger was an immense empty space. No aircraft, no team, no activity. Nica stopped, confused. Where was everyone?
There was a gust of hot air and the rumbling of the hanger doors above. Nica moved away from the landing pad and waited for the 'Bird to touch down. When the ramp let down, it revealed Cyclops, grim-faced, beaten and bruised. Blood was seeping from a wound in his gut, oozing out past the fingers that tried to hold it in.
"Where were you?" his voice was flat.
"I came as soon as I could," she faltered. "What happened?"
"You were too late. We needed you. And because you weren't there, the team..." Cyclops' face crumbled, then resumed its stony facade. "They're dead. All of them."
"...what?" Nica tried to breathe, but all the air seemed to have left the room. "how...?"
"Does it matter? It's your fault. You told me I could rely on you and I did. And this is what I got in return." He gestured and Nica saw the bodies of her team mates being rolled out of the 'Bird on stretchers, white sheets over the top of them but blood seeping through, the smell of burnt flesh, a purple hand hanging down where it had slipped out underneath. "You failed."
"But I..." Nica wanted to deny it, but the proof was there in front of her. Her team, dead, because she hadn't been there. "I tried my best..."
"Then your best wasn't good enough. And our blood is on your hands." The words were harsh, brutal, and Nica couldn't stand it any more. She ghosted, running blindly away through walls, doors, vehicles, whatever was in her path. It didn't matter where she went, only that she got away. When at last she reached her limits and turned solid again, she was standing outside a door, marked "Operating Room".
With a sense of futility - what else could she do? - Nica paused, staring dully at the door and waiting for something to happen.
***
