The Chronicles Of A Path Forsaken

‘It Begins…’

It began as it always does with a madman. Philip P. Scott, wealthy oil baron, influential senator with a direct line to the President of the free world. Somewhere along the line between the now fractious relationship between the mutant and human race, the former were perceived to be a threat to the latter.

A threat that could no longer be avoided, a threat that had to be contained, managed, and eventually eradicated.

It began as it always does with a set of laws, legislation overt at first, beginning with the mutant registration act, until almost two decades later hostilities were so open, so blatant, so ridiculously one-sided set against the mutant race that it ended with mass incarceration.

By then with a President as stupid enough to blurt the line, ‘you’re either with us or against us…’ those mutants who had initially signed the registration act, in a hope they would be spared something of the ensuing onslaught, found instead that their earlier cooperation led only to their being hunted all the more easier when it came to being interred.

Their journey to the camps was faster, their struggle less profound.

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It began for her when she was just six; the unwanted daughter of a pair of hopeless adoptive parents, Marie D’Ancanto wanting to fend off the attack of the school yard bully took hold of his hand tightly and concentrated.

The next thing she knew he was in a coma and she felt stronger and tougher than she’d felt in her short years. Her powers now apparent it was only a short time later she’d see them pull into the driveway, watch as they surrounded the house, as they came for her.

Her so-called parents had alerted the authorities, which by now had begun offering cash rewards for information leading to the capture of mutants. Mr D’Ancanto, having long been disappointed in the government handouts for parents who took on orphans, sought to find something to be glad for in the substantial payout he’d get for selling Marie.

Little Marie was not afraid, rather she was thankful for the circumstance, to her mind where she was going could be no worse than her current situation, and where she had been.

Sick and tired of a ‘mother’ long indifferent and a ‘father’ constantly in one of his numerous drunken hazes, who by now showed his affection by deliberately not aiming for her head when he threw his empty beer bottles at her.

She put up little resistance, she knew precious little, those years in Caldecott, Mississippi had shown her nothing but cruelty, cowardice and how to make sure the blows inflicted would not last, at least not in the mind. On her body she could not hide the bruises, the pain and neglect but mentally, emotionally she was made of steel.

Unbreakable, cold, clinical, harder and faster, in the mind perhaps, but Marie D’Ancanto was physically more brittle than a six year old girl should have to be.

She did not ever dream it could be worse, but she was wrong.