***
I opened my eyes.
Overhead, the dull wings of a retreating plane darted through the morning cloud cover. Palm denying the sun from my eyes, I lifted my chin to watch it depart. An American flag decal shone along the wingtips and near the windows of the cockpit. I mulled over the implications of that sighting in my head for only a second when the world as I knew it blended into chaos.
It was so seamless, as though a baker had folded eggs into a plate of rice, so natural and right. The shield of my hand upon my face was torn away, limb from limb, skin from sinew, muscle from bone. Screaming stole through the city, from thousands of incinerating lungs. A cloud rose into the morning air, rolling up into the atmosphere in the shape of a shiitake.
Lips trembling, I released another devastating cry and awaited the rolling beast of fallout. Death’s grip wrapped around my throat, lifting me above the earth and then tossing me like a coin into the hands of a merchant. Limbs crumbled to dust beneath me, homes flattened against the road. Words in English, in French, in Japanese spilled from my lips. Help. God help us.
Still, the bomb billowed into the sky, blotting out the shine of the sun, encompassing the city in darkness. Bone squealed against mutilated cartilage as I craned my neck, looking for survivors. In this madness, even I was useless. Rot and smoke clogged my nostrils, fire and brimstone stung my eyes, and intense ringing stunned my ears. Radioactive dust swept into my regenerating lungs, groping my cells infectiously.
Voices danced in my brain, words that I could not recognize or comprehend. Pupils burning, I looked down at my fingers, watching new muscle encase new bone. A voice gathered in my throat, and the screams I had silenced rose anew. I don’t want to live through this. I don’t want to come out unscathed.
“Rogue!” His voice lingered in my head long before I recognized the urgency of his voice, the sound of his desperation. The corrupted world faded and in its place, the darkened bedroom within the walls of the mansion. Sanctuary.
“Rogue,” he breathed as he stroked my face with large hands, patches of dark curly hair soft on his knuckles. I parted my lips to speak and found my voice raw.
“Nightmare,” I rasped, pushing myself up against the headboard. Pinpricks lingered in my flesh, a hundred thousand needles.
“I could hear you screaming all the way down the hall, kid.” He frowned, sitting on the edge of the bed and placing his arm around my hunched shoulders. “You’re cold.”
The response rolled over my neurons, questioning whether or not to ask about the bomb. You never told me you were at Nagasaki. I shuddered to imagine his reply, his shaking lips, his lack of strength. Tough hands wrapped me in a silent embrace.
“Yeah, freezing.”
***
End.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000