Disclaimer: This is a work of fan-fiction. The herefore used characters belong rightfully to Marvel and I just borrowed them. The only profit I hope to achieve with this is the pure pleasure of the reader, so no copyright infringement intended. Please do not sue me, I don’t have money and won’t be getting some from this story.

Author’s notes: This story was my very first fanfic ever. It refers to an event that went into the X-Men’s comic-book history as the Morlock-Massacre. It contains graphic descriptions of violent scenes but not the scenes themselves. It is just a glimpse into the soul of one of the participants, his guilt and how he manages to live on with it. A little character study of a person who has everything to loose, should his whole past be laid open some day.

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Living with the lie

by Belladonna

What is it like, to live with the knowledge, that you did, what you’ve done?

I didn’t know, what he planned, but I could’ve guessed it easily, should’ve recognized it. ‘cause what he asked me to do could’ve been for that one purpose only. Maybe I’ve suspected it and didn’t want it to see, ‘cause I’ve already sold my soul to the devil and what I’ve needed the most was something only he could give me.

Sometimes I wonder, if it was worth it, wasn’t there another solution, another possibility, but for that it’s already too late. To late for repentance, too late for everything I could possibly do now to change it. When I close my eyes, I see them right in front of me, see them how they lie there, dying, covered with their own blood, their bodies ripped apart and torn open. I hear their screams, how they plead for their lives, their screaming in fear and terror as they see this horror with their eyes, their screams right before they breathe their last breath and die. Then there is silence and it is much worse than the screams, ‘cause it is the silence of death that lies over this place. It means, that all life here has ended. The screams are no less cruel, but only living persons are able to scream and these people are all dead or will be soon. All that the dead have left are their accusing looks and all of them are locked on me, I feel them and the cold shudder that crawls so slowly over my back, the terror, that holds my chest in its clutches and squeezes shut. I am helpless, not capable of doing anything besides staring at this slaughter. And although I know exactly that they don’t speak to me, I feel the question, hanging on their dead lips:

Why?

Why did I betray them?

Why have I assembled their murderers?

Why did I lead them here right to them?

Why am I allowing this massacre to happen?

Why am I standing there, simply staring and doing nothing to prevent it?

I don’t know.

This is maybe the most honest thing I’ve said for a long time even if it is only half true.

I do know quite well, why I hired these murderers and for whom, why I led them to them into the tunnels under the City, tunnels that are known only to few people besides them. My life depended up onto it, to receive what was my payment for this dirty job. My life in exchange for so many innocents, my lousy worthless life.

I can only watch this scene, ‘cause I’m helpless, frozen in terror, can’t turn my eyes away from what I’m seeing, it is too horrible but it grips my attention. I feel, how my stomach knots, I feel sick but am still not capable of moving away, my fear is paralysing. I’m afraid of what they’ll do to me if I’d try to stop them. I’m too much a coward than to defy them, even now, that I see with my own eyes, for what assignment I’ve hired them. I can’t stop them even with the sure evidence for the injustice that is happening right in front of me, I simply can’t.

For all my power and the only thing I do is watching in silence how they fall one after one, how they’re being slaughtered. Mon dieu, there is so much blood, their blood on the walls, the floor, they’re falling into huge pools of blood, that keep spreading. They’re trying to delay the inevitable, but it is just a matter of time, ‘til they’re going to die. Nobody’s gonna come out here alive. They’re trying desperately to hold the gaping wounds in their chests and abdomens, but I can see the inner organs, more than I’ve ever wanted to see from anybody. They drown in their own blood, men women and…oh my god… children. I feel sick thinking of the many children that died that night.

I see their murderers, they revel in that bloodshed and their work of destruction and butchery. My stomach clenches tighter and I feel sicker than ever before as I watch one of the killers pull a man up at his throat. He shakes him like a doll, then cuts him open with his long claws, he throws him away, not caring if he’s still alive or not. Very satisfied with his work he licks the blood of that man off his fingers, one more, he’d killed with his bare hands. I vomit on the floor, watching in silent horror that scene but I still do nothing.

I’m too much a coward than anything else. My petty life too worthy for me than to help. But what chance did they get, were their lives worth nothing?

It is almost like dreaming only it is a nightmare and from this one there is no awakening. Not for them and not for me. Their murderers are with an unnatural satisfaction at their work, it is so unreal. Deep in my soul I still wish that all being anything but reality, the hand that keeps clutching to my ankle tells me otherwise and pulls me back into the harsh truth of the tunnels. Even in death that woman had her hand reach out for help, help she didn’t get from me. She is dead already, her pleading look on her eyes rests on me, haunts me still in my dreams like the many others from that night in the tunnels. Disgusted I shake that hand off, but myself sickens me more than that hand around my ankle.

One of the killers sees my, sees the shock over my face while the others seem simply having forgotten about me and keep wrecking havoc through the tunnels. But he hasn’t forgotten about me, his cold eyes blazing deadly, his body bloodstained but nothing of the amount of blood is even his. It came from the many that he had already killed and a lot more blood will join the blood-soaked clothing he wears. His lips are curled back in a diabolical feral grin, it pleasures him to kill. I fight the urge to throw up again and desperately hope, he forgets about me fast. But his grip comes to rest on a little girl, he holds her throat so that I can see her. She is not older than four and he’s going to kill her just like he did with uncountable others before and he wants me to watch. I know he can smell my fear and that gives him more pleasure in killing that girl. The girl is afraid, too, she had tried to hide herself, maybe under the bodies of her parents? I don’t know, there are so many corpses lying on the floor. But from the fine nose of that born predator nobody’s able to hide . Under her blood-crusted red hair and the many bones that sprout from her face and body her eyes find me. They’re blue like his but hers are pleading. She pleads silently for her life, she has no more the strength to cry, her eyes glued on me.

I don’t know why, but I cannot allow him to get her, cannot allow her to be killed. I have to save her, but my own fear holds me paralysed. The murderer sees that and he laughs, a dangerous laugh, more a low deep growl like that of a wild animal. His claws are prepared to rip the girl open, how many others did he kill that way? He won’t get her, I cannot allow that to happen. She is silent, she doesn’t even fight, it is as if she knew, she’s going to die and has no chance of escape. It seems as if she’s prepared to die. I pull myself out of my motionless state and the girl out of his grip. It is too dangerous to use my powers, I could hurt the girl and that would be the last thing I would’ve wanted. He didn’t expect me to do that and he’s dumbfounded for a moment, enough time to clutch the girl tight and put her out of danger. He realizes what has happened and I’ve only time to push the girl away from me and him before he strikes. He hits me with his claws, they rip my stomach open. I don’t feel anything, must be the shock, but I feel the warm blood on my hands while trying to stop the bleeding, my blood. The girl is gone and that’s good. At least she will be safe from him, but what does that matter now compared to the many that he’s killed. I sink to my knees, the pain is not so horrible than one would think, I’m dazed from the terror I had to watch. The murderer is angry, mad from rage, I stole his victim right from under his nose away. He screams at me but I cannot hear him. He wants to kill me, I know it and I’m not afraid.

I want to die, I don’t deserve to live anymore. Not after what I’ve done to the inhabitants of these tunnels. Around myself there are so many bodies, the walls are full of blood. The screams are fading slowly but the beast within the killer in front of me is far from satisfied. He lets me live, for the moment, lying on the floor. I know how that as much as he longs for killing me right at the moment so much pleasures him to know that I’ve to watch the bloodbath further before death relieves me from that horror. He wants to spare me until the last one died and then kill me. He lets me lie there in the pool of my own blood, which mingles with theirs. I’m going to die, die fast or so I hope, although I know I don’t deserve such an easy death. I would kill myself, but I don’t have the strength to use my powers against me.

He won’t get the girl, he kills others but I know that she is safe from him. When I die, I will know that she won’t be under the many others, whose death I’ve caused, that are going to greet me in hell, ‘cause that is where I know I’m going. At least I was able to save one. I feel my conscious self slip away fast, feel my arms and legs go numb. I loose blood rapidly. I hope to die soon, it is all my fault, but I don’t deserve that for all that I’ve done. From the corner of one eye I see a movement. The girl with the bones is standing in the shadows of the tunnel and stares at the massacre. He would get her after all and then I’m going to die for nothing. It is selfish to think so, but if I fail to save her as I’ve failed to save the others, I am dying for nothing. I don’t want her to die. With my last strength I push myself up and stumble towards her. I take her in my arms, lift her up and hold her tight as I run away. He didn’t see us, caught up in the rage and fury of murder, otherwise I wouldn’t have stood  a chance of escaping. She trembles with fear, me too. The screams fade as we’re going further away from that horrible place, but they are burnt into my memories forever, hers maybe too. I run, stumble forwards into the darkness of the tunnels. It doesn’t matter, ‘cause I can see perfectly in the darkness. Luckily nobody’s following us. I run forward, too afraid to stop until we finally leave the tunnels behind us. Finally I let the girl down and fall to my knees. The effort of escaping and saving that one little girl was too much for me, the blood-loss is great and I’m weakened by my injuries.

I try to comfort, to calm her, I tell her, that she’s save now and that nobody’s gonna hurt her, but nothing I can say to her can undo the things that happened here. It’s nothing more than hollow words. She was perfectly safe before I led their murderers into the tunnels. I tell her to run and to never come back here, the killers know now the tunnels and could always come back and finish their job by killing her. She runs away, looking a last time up to me. In her eyes lies the terror of the things she was forced to watch tonight but also a grateful glare. She speaks not a single word, but she thanks me for saving her. Thanks me, even though it was because of me she had to watch her parents and the others die. She runs away, tears running down her face. I watch her as she flees this place, feel something warm running over my cheeks, something salty. I cry too, mourn for the innocents that had to die because of me. I killed them too, even I didn’t touch a single one of them, I didn’t even know them. But I killed them nonetheless, it is my fault. I could only save that little girl and she was so grateful for it, I’ve never seen her again. I hope that she can forgive me one day when she finds out that it was my cowardice that killed her people, ‘cause I cannot.

I kneel down in the tunnels under the city and light the candle, which I’ve placed down here. Right before myself I see the graves of the many people who died in that night, I see their faces as I close my eyes. The tunnels are now uninhabited, nobody would ever live here again, they’re all dead, killed because of me. I’m now returning to the mansion, knowing that not the Marauders but in truth I am responsible for the deaths of the Morlocks. I will return to my room, a room within there’s no mirror. I cannot stand watching myself in the mirror, I hate myself for that, what I’ve done and especially for what I’ve not done, helping.

I live with the knowledge of what I’ve caused, with the guilt of the many deaths that are on my soul and conscience.  I live with the lie. I deny to myself what I’ve done, because only by doing that I can live on. I deny in front of my friends what I’ve done, ‘cause they’d hate me for what I’ve done. But they could never hate me more than I do it myself.

I go back to my home knowing that the killed lost theirs through me and their life. I still have mine, but a part from me died in these tunnels that night.

I no longer have mirrors in my room, I broke them, crushed them myself. I couldn’t bear my reflection longer, still cannot, because what I see makes me sick. The man I see in the mirror makes me sick. He reminds me of what I’ve done, what I’ve unleashed and that is something I would rather forget. But more than that I want to undo these things, but that is impossible. The Morlocks are dead, innocent men, women and children, killed because of me, slaughtered through my fear and they won’t live again, no matter how hard I wished for that.

I live, but part of my soul died with them.

I live, go forwards every day with the knowledge of the dead and my participation in killing them, what I would so desperately forget, undo, but nothing I ever do will be enough.

I live every day with the façade I’ve built before my friends and myself and every day of my life could that house of cards, the charade, that makes my life, break apart and fall down.

I live with the guilt and the fear of what will be, when that house of cards comes down and of what will be after that. I know they won’t forgive me. Why should they, I cannot do that myself. And I hate myself for that, for what I’ve done, my cowardice sickens me. They would reject me and I know, I deserve nothing better. I’m scum, dregs, worse than that. I can never atone for what I’ve done, for what I’ve done is inexcusable. I seek forgiveness, but those who can forgive me are all dead. I’m doing everything to make amends, but deep within my soul I know that for penance and forgiveness it is way too late. So I live everyday on, seeking penance and peace I know I’ll never find although the others don’t know for what and I try desperately to prevent them finding that out, the reason to my search for that peace and forgiveness. I pray they’ll never find that out. I try so hard to live a better life, not to repeat the sins of my past and though I know that I don’t deserve their friendship, it is the only thing that keeps me going on.

I live every day with the lie that is my life.

~fin~

(inspired by X-Men #58, pages 1-8)