A Nightmare on Graymalkin Lane

Posted on Thu Sep 5th, 2024 @ 12:17am by Charles Xavier & Aurora Summers

Mission: Episode 5: Days of Fortune Past
Location: X-Mansion | Aurora’s Room
Timeline: October 30th, 1990

No sooner had Aurora’s head hit the pillow she was out like a light, the sheer amount of exertion her sped up pregnancy was putting on her body helping her to sleep. For a while she slept peacefully before the dream started...

“Aurora...Aurora!...Aurora!!” Her mother’s voice once again filled her mind.

“Mum? Mum where are you!?” Aurora walked in the dreamscape in her mind. It was all too familiar to her now.

“He’ll find you...he always does...” Her mother’s voice was fading fast. “You have to go...run Aurora!...run as far away as you can...before it’s too late!”

The dreamscape shifted from the undefined shadow world between asleep and awake into a lucid park. Sunshine bore down on Aurora's face, cooled by a soft breeze that wafted up from a winding creek that lazily flowed through the scene. The sound of children laughing carried to her ears, though no one was immediately visible.

On a walking path in the idyllic scene was an old-fashioned baby stroller with a high-set wooden frame. A soft, mewling coo rose up from within.

The sound of the children’s laughter had already caught Aurora’s attention, tugging at her growing motherly instincts. The sight of the baby stroller, and the sound of a cooing baby drew her to it straight away. Walking over to it she smiled as she looked inside, “Well aren’t you just adorable” she looked around. “What is this place? I don’t recognise it so how can it be in my dream?”

"Ma... ma..." The baby's cooing called to Aurora with tiny little outstretched hands.

~Take him~

It was a faintest whisper. Had it been the breeze? Surely there hadn't been a voice.

Aurora’s instincts kicked in as she reached into the stroller and picked up the baby. Was this her mind’s interpretation of her son? Was she truly in a dream, or was this something else? She smiled as she looked into the baby’s eyes her motherly instincts to care and protect.

"Save me," the baby said despite the lack of teeth and formed palate. "Save me, Momma."

“What!?...” Aurora was still trying to figure out what her dreamscape was all about, now the baby was talking?? “Save you? From what?”

"He's coming..." The baby's voice filled with fear. From out of the ground, a home popped into being. The pastel toned living room was sophisticated and chic in its décor. Blonde wood and quirky southwestern inspired patterns filled the space, both were incredibly on trend. "He's coming!" the baby cried

From down the hallway, a dark and shadowy silhouette took shape. Red eyes glowed in the otherwise obscured face.

"There he is!" The baby was almost shrieking now. "He wants to steal me forever! Don't let him take me away, Momma!"

Aurora glared at the red eyed silhouette whilst protecting the baby in her embrace. “Who are you!? What do you want!? I won’t let you take my son!!”

"You know me, Aurora..." The voice sounded distorted, like he was talking through a fan under water with a microphone that had too much reverb. It was nearly unintelligible. "Don't run from me. I have been looking for you... for so long."

The silhouette began to move toward her, the red eyes igniting into red hot coals that pierced her soul. Somehow the light of the room failed to illuminate the man. Light bent around him to avoid being swallowed up into the void of his shape.

"You know me." He was almost upon her now. Why couldn't she move? Aurora was frozen in place until the shadowy silhouette was upon her. "Say my name."

One moment, it was a dark shadow. Aurora blinked, and the next moment, it was the father of her child.

"Don't you recognize me?" Scott asked. He wasn't wearing a visor or glasses. His eyes blazed with red energy that looked on Aurora without hurting her. It was far more penetrating than when she had looked him in the eye during their first night together. "I was so worried, Aurora."

Now that he was upon her, Scott reached over the baby cradled in her arms and clutched Aurora on either cheek. He leaned in and kissed her, tenderly at first as though after a long time apart. "I'm glad you're home." The kiss turned more passionate, his lips pressing against hers in firm undulations with growing desire. "We're a family again," he whispered between kisses. "Won't you hold me?"

Aurora was tempted, her heart was still Scott’s but she knew this wasn’t real. Scott loved Jean, not her. “We’re not a family! We’re never going to be!” She held her son close to her chest and backed away. “You’re not Scott! He doesn’t love me! WHO ARE YOU!?”

"What are you saying?" The blazing red eyes blurred as tears began to stream down his cheeks. "I'm your husband. Don't you love me? I know you do. Please show me." Rather than kiss her mouth again, Scott wrapped his arms around them both and pecked her earlobe before trailing down her jawline. Aurora could feel his tears streak across her neck. "Please don't go, Aurora. Don't leave me with her. You're the one that I want. She just got in the way. Make me yours again. Make us a family."

Aurora closed her eyes trying to ignore how much she wanted this, she tried to pull herself free protecting the child that was in her embrace. “I don’t believe you...you’re not Scott, he wouldn’t betray Jean! Not now!” She forced him back breaking free of the embrace.

"Okay..." The glowing red light faded from Scott's eyes, leaving behind empty sockets that were black as the new moon. "I understand. I deserve it. All of it."

From there, Scott turned away from Aurora. His shoulders slumped before taking a deep breath. He leaned forward into a sprint and dashed straight toward the window. With a shoulder forward, Scott dove through the glass and went plummeting toward the street hundreds of feet below.

Aurora ran to the window, uncertain what she’d see if she looked down below. She knew this wasn’t real but somehow it felt very real. She was still cradling the child, even though she knew he was just a representation of her own fears. “This isn’t real...it isn’t...” she looked around trying to figure out how to leave this nightmare.

“Bitch…” A familiar but unwanted voice hissed from the shadows. “Heartless, irresponsible whore.”
The coiled body of a snake moved in the darkness, the slow slither of its powerful tail encircling Aurora and the baby.

“He trusted you. He loved you. He begged you for help. And what did you do with him? You broke him! You ruined him!”
A figure emerged from the shadows, from the waist down the creature was serpent in form but the upper half was feminine in nature. Brilliant red snakes made up its hair that hissed and entwined across its neck and shoulders. The monster approaching Aurora was something from mythology itself, a dreadful and vile creature with the unmistakable face of Jean.

“Do you feel bad about what you’ve done? Do you regret any of it? I see no tears in your eyes, no remorse for the damage you’ve done. Cruel, careless bitch.”

“I am not! It wasn’t real, this isn’t real, this is my dream and I control it!” Aurora closed her eyes, focussed on trying to change the dream, then opened them again hoping to find a changed scene. What she saw was the same. “No! This isn’t...it’s not....”

Aurora focused hard she needed help to get out of this nightmare. “Professor! Professor! HELP ME!”

“You expect Charles to save you? To fix this? He was not the one who crawled into my bed.” The gorgon boomed at Aurora. “He told you to stop, he told you not to do this. So now, you stupid girl, you face this alone.”

Telekinetic hands brought the broken body of Scott back into the room. His limbs were contorted and snapped. Scott was merely broken flesh and bone before them, his now brown eyes lifeless.

“Look at what you did to him!” The gorgon began to weep as she reached out and touched the body. Aurora saw Jean’s heartbreaking agony and pain in its face. “He was beautiful. He was perfect. And you destroyed him.”

The monster looked up at Aurora, the pain leaving its face as disgust and rage took over. “You don’t deserve what you’ve been given. The gift that belongs to me.”

Aurora felt a hard yank to her hands and the baby she held was ripped from her. The now silent infant, carefully floated to the gorgon’s arms where she lovingly cradled the baby to her breast. With loving eyes still fixed on the child, she muttered hate filled words to Aurora. “If only you were stronger. If only you had more power. Then maybe you could have stopped all of this from happening.”

"Ma-ma! Ma-ma!" The baby's cries for the hideous picture of Jean instead of for Aurora resounded over and over like a death knell.

Aurora couldn’t help but feel enraged. The nightmare digging at the very core of her fears, that Jean would take her son from her. Her emotions focused her fears, “Let go of my son!!” She held out her hands ripping her son from the hideous gorgon and gentle bringing him back to her embrace. “You will NEVER be my son’s mother! He’s mine! I won’t let you take him!!” She focused everything she had tearing at the gorgon, gouging at its flesh, enjoying the feeling more than she should.

“You don’t listen very well, do you?” The gorgon began to laugh at Aurora’s attempts to retrieve the baby. It’s serpent body raising to its full height and out of her reach. “Feeble orphan who ran away to the sewers, you can’t even lift a car without getting a nosebleed. You’re nothing compared to me, I’m Charles Xavier’s protégé. Your power is a joke compared to mine.”

The gorgon raised a hand and the broken body of Scott lifted from off the ground.
“Thankfully, I can fix all of this.”

The dark room and its broken window melted away and swirling color and light moved around them until a different setting took shape.

A bedroom that was painted a cheerful pale yellow where a crib and rocking chair were set by the window along with a bookshelf and changing table. An infant bathtub overflowing with baby supplies all wrapped in cellophane took up the top of the changing table, a generous present for the soon-to-be parents. The room was warm and inviting, a perfect nursery for a baby.

The gorgon’s serpent body and snake hair dissolved and the figure turned into one that was unmistakably Jean. The once battered body of Scott had been restored, brought back to life and now smiling while wearing his ruby glasses. The two both fawned over the baby in Jean’s arms. Scott kissed her on the cheek before wrapping an arm around her.

They were this beautiful, happy couple in their home in the city with a baby in their arms. They were a family. The exact life that Aurora had dreamed of for herself.

Aurora was now banished to the roll of a specter. Now merely a ghost that was no longer audible or tangible to Scott and Jean, she was powerless to do anything but watch as they cuddled her baby together.

~Take him~ The same phantom voice had returned and whispered to her once more. ~You know what you need to do to get him back… to get them both back~

Scott kissed Jean with a fervor of devotion that Aurora had never experienced. The three of them stepped out of the nursery together, leaving the apparition of Aurora standing all alone.

~Trust in me and I will give you the power to change all of this~

Aurora stood her emotions bubbling over with hurt, anger, and rage at the visions that she had just witnessed.

“What...” she paused for a moment doubting herself before finishing the sentence. “...do I have to do?”

Wicked, sinister laughter echoed throughout the dreamscape as it all faded to gray. Swirling, formless mists overtook Aurora then as well as the sense of weightlessness. After an unknown bit of time, boundaries began to give dimension and form to the otherwise shapeless space.

A familiar face emerged through the void. It was Professor Xavier, though just his face. His body was missing. "Aurora! I have been trying to penetrate your mind for some time. What's happened?"

“Professor?” Aurora looked around before giving Xavier a teary eyed look. “I had the most...disturbing nightmare!!! He was coming for my baby! I won’t let him take my son!!”

"It's all right, Aurora," the Professor said calmly, though his thoughts emanated with alert concern for whatever had just transpired. "You are safe inside your own mind as your child is safe inside your womb. No harm will come to either of you. Your serenity is your greatest strength. Take hold of it in spite of the fear that's engulfed you. Wrap yourself in it as a warm blanket to chase the chill away."

As Xavier spoke to her, his gigantic disembodied head split into multiple mirror forms that began hovering to and fro like aerial drones in a clear search pattern grid. If something remained behind, he would know it.

Aurora did just that concentrating on the warm glow of the life essence of her son inside her, it helped to calm her down. “He said to trust him.” She looked towards Xavier. “The other voice that was in my mind, he said all I had to do was trust him and he’d help me.”

The latent terror that Aurora had experienced was not lost on Xavier. Whatever the insidious offer to help, it certainly was not worthy of trust. "Well, whoever it was appears to be gone now. Do you wish me to remain with you while you return to subconscious sleep?"

Aurora nodded. “Please, Professor, I’ve had enough of nightmares for one night.” She offered a smile mulling over the offer that had been made to her, and exactly what it would mean now she’d accepted it.

"Very well," Xavier said. It would not be his first sleepless vigil over a student. "Take your rest. Nothing will disturb you tonight."

“Thank you, Professor.” Aurora offered a respectful nod of her head before returning to a peaceful night's sleep.