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ELECTIC LIMBO-LAND Part 1 written by Amygdala
I can’t quite remember what I was doing when the news came in that one of us had to die. The only thing I can clearly recall is that Emma, her perfect, porcelain features softened by tears, never looked as beautiful as she did that morning. Watching the Ice Maiden crack like that made me realise it wasn’t some sick joke - one of us really wouldn’t see out the day.
Our two teachers gathered us all together and tried to explain as rationally as they could the logic behind the decision. I don’t think any of us could focus on anything but the ‘noble sacrifice’ bullshit. How could they have let things get this bad? I asked myself. Couldn’t they have done something before it came to this?
Emma and Sean asked each of us to deliver a speech detailing what we had to offer the team. The final decision would be based on the one person we could most function without. Sounds kinda fair, huh? Perhaps a lot fairer than scissors-cuts-paper but still a shit way of fingering the victim. What can I say? We were all of us packin’ it. Well, all of us except Jubilee. I mean, out of all of us she was the least likely to get topped and she bloody well knew it, which is probably why she volunteered to go first.
"It’s like this," she began, all smug and poppin’ gum. I ain’t kiddin’ when I say watching her strut and gloat her way through her speech registered almost as high on the barfometer as watching an Oscar acceptance speech. "I’m not just a part of the team, I am the team. Kill me and you’ve ripped out this outfit’s heart and soul."
There was more but it ain’t worth repeatin’ here. She’s a good kid, Jubilee, but she don’t half get on yer tits at times. Next up was Angelo. He’s my best mate, so I was praying he’d sell himself a bit harder than he usually did. I shouldn’t have worried ... .
"I was one loco hombre at the beginning, eh? All bad mouth and bad attitude. Now look at me - barrio boy done good. Hell, I don’ even smoke no more! But, my past is still murky an’ you never know when some cholo from the ‘hood’ll show up ... . I’m a sorta Mexican Gambit without the malo accent, no?"
"Ahem!" Monet, sitting at the back of the room idly filing her talons, cleared her throat and waited until she was the centre of attention. "I cannot die because I am Monet."
"Her crime and her punishment," Jubilee sniggered.
"I possess the ‘Cordelia Factor’," the gorgeous sort continued, totally ignoring her enemy. "I am the girl everyone loves to hate. Egocentric, catty, perfect to the point of Godhead ... and always there for my team-mates when the excrement hits the fan."
She would’ve bought anyone with that argument and I could tell by the expression on Cassidy’s face that he was convinced of her necessity. Emma, who had an almost pathological distrust of Monet, glowered menacingly at the girl and asked Everett to take the stand.
If modesty had a name it would be Everett Thomas. He’s a well likeable geezer - handsome, smart, confident ... need I go on? Yet, if you were to listen to him, all humble and self - effacing, you’d think he was a complete loser.
"You know, I’m not sure I do deserve to live," he opened, shrugging his shoulders. "Maybe I should volunteer to die and save us all."
Well, that secured him a place on this mortal coil, didn’t it? He’s a canny lad, that Synch. So, there was just me, Penny and Paige left now.
"As Penance can’t speak ... yet ... I shall defend her," Frost declared. "Out of all of you, she’s had it the worst and now she’s getting a chance of finding her own identity, I think it’d be a travesty if she was to die."
None of us could argue with that reasoning. The spotlight then shifted from Penny to me. I’m not the most optimistic of people at the best of times but let me tell you, I was sure they were gonna off me. I think my speech reflected my defeatism:
<You can’t beat fate, I suppose, so if I’m gonna die, I ain’t gonna lose no sleep over it, know what I mean? Everyone knows I’m an obsessive, possessive, oppressive, miserable bastard but I can play ‘Paranoid’ almost as well as Tony Iommi and far better than anyone else in this room can. And my history’s nearly as enigmatic as Wolverine’s. Ahh, do what ya want - I don’t care anymore ... .>
God, was I shaking when I sat down! Cassidy and Frost looked well unimpressed as they indicated for Paige to stand up.
"I can offer intelligence and leadership!" she started, beaming her sweetest oh-Christ-I-need-Insulin smile.
"So can Everett," Frost countered coolly.
The smile became a rictus grin. "Well, I’m very pretty."
"But not nearly as much as me," Monet cooed, her pouting lips primed and loaded.
"I’m involved in a convoluted and never-ending love triangle ... "
"B.O.R.I.N.G!" Jubilee yawned. "That is so passé. Anyway, it’s nowhere near as hot as the me-Ev-M love triangle thang."
Paige swallowed hard. When I was at school, I used to work as a cleaner in a nursing home. One day, I went into this room where an old boy was dying of cancer, or somethin’. I stared into his eyes and I saw death captured in his morphine-dilated pupils, smelt mortality on his laborious breath. He knew he was gonna snuff it and there was nothin’ he could do about it - his whole expression said so. That same look of resigned hopelessness started to spread itself across her face as she recognised her teachers’ intent.
<No way!> I shouted as Paige slowly, gracefully sat back down. The others closed their eyes and pretended not to hear my protests. <Not her! Please, not her!>
Frost tried to adopt a sympathetic expression. "I’m sorry, Jonothon, really I am. I know how you feel about her but she’s got nothing unique to offer the team. She’s a nice, well-adjusted, studious girl, strong family background, keen, loyal ... but just too bland for our new direction. Now, if she could morph into acid or make her arms turn into really big guns ... "
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. They were willing to sacrifice Paige just because she was as wholesome as apple pie! As my eyes glutted on the pitiable image of Paige - my Paige - trying to prepare herself for her demise, I stood up to argue the toss, my whole body trembling with anger and frustration:
<I’m beggin’ you, Emma ... . Look, take me instead! Or-or - yeah! Take Artie or Leech! No one would notice if they died!>
"Don’t be so ridiculous, son," Cassidy snapped scornfully. "Blessed Saints, they’re children! We can’t expect them to die. Besides, there’d be an outcry if we started killin’ off kids."
So, that was that. The decision had been made. We filed out of the courtroom one by one, avoiding all eye contact with the suddenly small, suddenly tragic figure sitting stiffly in her chair. All of us, that is, except me. Come on now, I loved that girl. I couldn’t walk away and leave it as it was, now, could I?
Poor Paige was in a profound state of shock, so I’m not sure how much of what I said she actually absorbed. The only time she even acknowledged my presence was when I went to hug her goodbye. She flinched away and lifted her moist eyes up towards mine, tacitly pleading with me to leave her be. I ran from that room before I totally broke down in front of her. So brave, so resolved ... I wasn’t sure I could’ve been that calm if our positions were reversed.
Three hours later, she was dead.
That moment I stumbled across her body - broken, eviscerated, cooling in the subtle breeze that sifted through the lush, sun-stained undergrowth - shall stay with me forever. Nausea and horror seared my eyes, evaporating any tears I should have shed for her as I gathered up her sorry remains and held her close to me. Fading rays of crimson sunlight pierced the green canopy above and gently brushed the tangled gold of her hair. I stroked her face and tried to staunch the flow of blood from her multiple wounds and told her I loved her and wished I had a mouth to kiss her goodbye. As the sun slipped down past the horizon, I finally began to cry.
Somehow, I made it back to the school carrying her body. Angelo, mate that he is, took me to one side and tried to convince me that everything was gonna be all right - that we’d rise Phoenix-like from the ashes of her death. It seemed a bit of a Pyrrhic victory to me. So we were alive - so what? Without her, life was a chore, a nightmare.
We buried her almost before her body had grown cold. Huddled around that gaping, yawning hole, our tears mingling with droplets of rain, we listened as Paige’s brother Sam delivered a moving but faintly insincere eulogy. For each handful of dirt thrown on top of her coffin were a dozen vows of vengeance - as hollow and hypocritical in their own way as Guthrie’s empty speech. They didn’t care about her the way I did; watching them move away into Proudstar Hall for the wake, I doubted they’d even remember her in a month’s time. Call me cynical if you want but I’ve seen it happen with the other X-teams. Someone dies or gets dumped in a plot anomaly and within a coupla weeks, it’s as if they never existed. Nature may abhor a vacuum but nowhere near as much as us X-men do ... .
I avoided the funeral party and its insincerity, opting instead to retreat to the miserable blackness of my room. For two hours I drowned my sorrows in a non-stop Goth-a-thon of Nine Inch Nails, Type O Negative and the good old Sisters of Mercy - the ‘slash-yer-wrists-to-this’ selection I keep reserved for my darkest days. It didn’t make me feel any better about Paige (not that I expected it to), especially when I dragged out a bundle of photographs I’d taken of her. She was so beautiful, a vivacious, effervescent explosion of blonde hair and naive innocence that had managed to soften a heart as callused and as bitter as mine. She was the yang to my yin, my Nirvana, my Avalon. Without her, there was only grim, unyielding darkness.
How I got onto the roof I don’t know. One moment I was sitting in the moribund comfort of my room, the next I was perched on the eaves listening to the wind shriek in my ears. The wild, distraught grey skies encapsulated the sense of empty desolation deep within my heart. I had to be with her and if that meant dyin’, I was more than prepared to kill myself.
Down below, the funeral party was drawing to a close. Through misted cataracts of tears, I could just about make out Angelo shambling, half-cut, out of the hall. Something - call it a sixth sense if you want to - impelled ‘im to look up at me.
"Jono! Amigo!" he yelled, shock and horror scratching at his normally laid-back tones. "What the fuck you doin’ up there, man?"
<What’s it look like, mate? I can’t live without her.>
He sprinted back into the hall, shouting for the others. I shuffled closer to the edge and gazed down at the welcoming ground, my head reeling from vertigo’s frenzied assault. At the bottom lay either oblivion or an eternity of Paige; right at that moment, I didn’t care which one.
"Jonothon!" Frost had arrived on the scene, her mind reaching out for mine. I felt her cold thoughts slime into my brain, frantically searching for a way to impose her will onto my movements. "This isn’t supposed to happen! They’ve got some great things lined up for you."
I could feel her psyche superimpose itself on mine, petrifying my determination within freezing muscles. Out of the corner of my eye, I was aware of Cassidy and M taking to the air, one either side in a classic pincer movement. With a titanic effort, I inched myself right to the edge and threw a defiant psychic grin at my telepathic opponent.
<Don’t you get it, you stupid tart?> I sneered, pushing my head over my knees. <Without her, I’m nothing. Nothing!>
Gravity seized me in a loving embrace and started to drag me off of the roof. Closing my eyes, I slowly peeled my fingers from the masonry ... .
<You wanted a ratings booster? Well, here’s mud in yer eye, ya wankers!>
I read somewhere that your whole life flashes in front of you as you’re plunging to your doom. Or maybe that’s drowning, which might explain why all I saw was the ground licking its lips in anticipation, its slavering mouth opening wide to receive me. There was no time for regrets or even to hope for a last-minute rescue; it seemed that the moment I leapt, I hit the floor with a sickening, bone-crushing squelch.
Horribly enough I was still alive, all too aware of an indescribable, crucifying agony pounding through my shattered body. Bones had penetrated tenderised flesh, releasing psionic energy where a normal man would bleed. For a terrible second, I thought I couldn’t die but then wonderful, numbing darkness clambered up through me, anaesthetising the pain and smothering me in the isolation of death. As my senses faded, I could hear Jubilee screaming hysterically. Then, there was nothing.
