Lost in the Dark

“Do you think he’s dead?”

I turned to Ororo. At first I had no idea what she was talking about. The teleporter we were tracking? Why would he be dead? Charles said he was alive, and he’d tell us if that changed.

“Who?”

“Mort.”

I stared at her. Why would Mort be dead? Did something happen to him? I guess I didn’t remember that he was at Liberty Island with Magneto, Mystique, and Sabretooth. Aftel, tl, they were the only ones I’d been concerned with. They were some of the most powerful mutants in the world, blessed with intelligence, physical strength, and dexterity in addition to their powers. “Why would – ”

I fell into her mind without meaning to. It was like slipping on a patch of ice and landing in a vat of molasses.

"Do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning?”

I saw Ororo floating midair in full uniform. Liberty Island. It was like I was there all over again, but I was seeing it from her perspective. She pushed the wind out away from her and flexed her fingertips, making lightning spiral across the sky. Mort stumbled back, the wind knocking him over like a fist. He toppled over the guardrail, lashing out at it with his tongue in an attempt to hold onto it. He stared up at her, his eyes wide. Glass whizzed by him, flying past him like crystal bees. Pieces sank into him, slicing his face and hands.

“You know what happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightning?” asked Ororo, grinning, “well let's find out!"

She hurled a lightning bolt at the guardrail, and it slithered up through his tongue and into his body in less than a second. He screamed. It was a high, smothered sound that was partially blocked by his tongue and nearly drowned out by the thunder that popped overhead. His body jerked and flailed, twitching like it was having a seizure. The smell hit just before he managed to let go of the guardrail. It was a thick, burnt smell, like burning meat. It was like leaving a burger on the grill too long, or having it accidentally fall onto the coals, but stronger. It struck me, reaching through my nose and into the back of my throat. I coughed and wheezed, trying to get it out of my system.

Ororo wrinkled her nose as she lowered herself to the ground, still glaring at the guardrail. She approached it, looking over in time to see Mort’s head slip below the surface. She turned on her heel and walked into the statue, her cape swirling behind her.

I pulled myself out of her thoughts. “Probably,” I whispered. “That amount of lightning would kill anyone.”

She only nodded. “We made fun of him behind his back,” she said after a while. “You think he knew?”

I shook my head. I hated lying to her like that. It made me feel like a bad person, like a bad friend. But at the same time, it was something she needed to believe. I can’t even begin to describe how bad she felt about what happened at Liberty Island. She hadn’t intended to kill him. She wanted to disable him, to remove him as a threat. I guess tying him up or knocking him unconscious would’ve done that, but I sensed that she wanted to put him in his place.

Ororo was the kind of girl who secretly thought she was better than everyone else, but would never admit it to anyone. She wasn’t that much of an elitist, though; she never treated Scott or me differently. She saw us as friends; I guess we were all equals to her. She didn’t consider Mort to be her equal. Mort was sullen and withdrawn in addition to being physically deformed. He resented her as much as she resented him; he could see that she thought she was better than him, and he didn’t bother disguising his hate for her. She saw herself as a Goddess and he saw her as a controlling bitch.

“We’ll finish this faster if we each do a different part of it,” said Scott, looking over the requirements for our group project on World War II.

“That’s a good idea,” said Mort.

“We could each study what impacts the war had on different countries,” said Ororo. “Jean, what if you take America, Scott, take Poland, I’ll take Japan, and Mort can have England.”

“How come I have to have England?” asked Mort, arching an eyebrow. I rolled my eyes. He was just trying to get under her skin, to be difficult.

Ororo pursed her lips. “Aren’t you from there?”

“Doesn’t mean I know anything about it,” he said. “Shouldn’t we talk about Germany some?”

“Didn’t you read the instructions?” asked Scott, “it asks for how other countries were affected by the war, not Germany.”

“Can I have Russia?”

“What’s wrong with England?” asked Ororo.

“Nothing,” snapped Mort, “there’s not a whole lot that happened.”

“There’s the blitzkrieg,” I said.

“Well if you know so fucking much, why don’t you do England?”

“You really shouldn’t talk like that.”

“Why Scott, do I offend you?”

“Yes.”

Mort shrugged. “I’m sorry then.”

“All right, you get Russia and England,” said Ororo, putting her hands on her hips.

“How come I have to do two?” asked Mort, glaring up at her. “That’s not fair.”

“I feel bad about it,” said Ororo suddenly, pulling me out of my own head. “I mean, if we hadn’t been so mean to him, he’d still be on our side.” I could tell that she didn’t really want him on our side, but I kept my mouth . S. She hated him, probably because he was constantly questioning her self-proclaimed authority and her ideals. They had never gotten along.

Sometimes you think that two adolescents who are always at each other’s throats secretly like each other, but this wasn’t the case. Charles probably thought it was like this for a while; after all, he never read their minds. I did. It always happened by accident; I’d fall into someone’s head by mistake or hear someone’s thoughts by accident.

I thought Mort was gross before, but this really takes the cake! How can he give a book report on ‘Silence of the Lambs’? How do you read a book about someone who eats people and sleep at night? That’s so disgusting! Ugh! He actually enjoyed it! That’s so wrong!

No one’s paying any attention to me, they never do. I could just get up here and tell them that I want Scott to suck my cock and they wouldn’t notice. Well, they’d probably notice that…they’d probably kill me too. Shit, what was I talking about? OK, Hannibal…Clarice…the lamb…moths? Yes, that’s it, Buffalo Bill and his moths. All right, here we go -

I swallowed, finally able to pull myself out of Mort’s head. I forced myself to look at him as he stood there, giving his book report. I didn’t really pay attention to what he was saying, something about how moths were lodged in the throats of all the victims so that meant…something. I stared at him, unable to get over the fact that he was gay, and that he wanted Scott. I suppressed a shudder and glanced over at Scott, who was leaning forward like he was paying attention but was actually asleep behind his ruby quartz glasses.

I can’t let him get Scott, I thought. Scott’s straight. He’s not into guys, and even if he was, he wouldn’t be into Mort. But he isn’t gay. He’s my boyfriend! Mort, you fucking bastard, how dare you even think about my boyfriend like that. Pervert.

“We’re almost there,” she said candidly.

I nodded. “OK.”

“You really think he’s dead?”

I nodded again. “Probably.”