Hello, Darkness, My Old Friend

Posted on Sun Jan 26th, 2025 @ 11:32pm by Nathaniel Essex & Aurora Summers

2,837 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 6: X-Fernus Agenda
Location: Mutant Research Center | Muir Island
Timeline: December 3rd, 1990

As Aurora settled into the solitude of her room, the storm intensified outside, rattling the windows with fierce gusts and driving rain. The wind howled with a low, mournful pitch that seemed to seep into every corner of the building. Just when she had put herself to bed, the lights flickered, casting eerie shadows that leapt across the walls. Then, with a final shudder, the power cut out entirely, plunging the room into absolute darkness.

Aurora gasped then cursed herself for being afraid. “Heavens, it’s just a power outage get a grip!” She muttered to herself as she sat down on the bed waiting to see if the power was going to come back on.

But then, as if carried on the breath of the storm itself, a deep, mocking voice spoke from the shadows.

"Ah... how fitting, dear Aurora, that you find yourself alone in this darkness—where shadows thrive and secrets fester." His syllables were drawn out to nearly a lisp, as if he were serpentine in his musings.

Her blood ran cold. That voice—smooth and ominous, laced with a chilling amusement that pricked every nerve—could only belong to one person.

From the corner of the room, faintly illuminated by the occasional flash of lightning through the window, a Sinister figure emerged. Tall and imposing, his stark white face bore an expression of unsettling calm, framed by his deep red diamond insignia that glinted as if alive in the darkness. His presence was both regal and malevolent, like a twisted priest of forbidden knowledge. He appeared to savor her shock, his lips curling into a cold, mocking smile that was devoid of warmth or mercy.

"I've come to see you, my dear," he continued, his tone smooth and his enunciation laced with dark intent. "For what better time to discuss matters of fate than in the heart of a tempest?"

In the intermittent flashes of lightning, she could see his eyes—cold and penetrating, like two dark red abysses. Sinister seemed to drink in her fear, savoring it as if it were a delicacy. Slowly, he crossed the room, his footsteps eerily silent, his presence feeling less corporeal, as if he were some spectral force inhabiting her space.

Aurora knew this voice, but she hadn’t seen the person behind it before. She would have backed away to keep her space, but the bed prevented that. Instead she threw up a telekinetic barrier to protect herself. “That’s...far enough!” She stood up next to the bed. “Just who in the hell are you? You come to me in my dreams, you made my mother run for her life because she feared you so much, so just what do you want from me!?”

He chuckled, a low sound that seemed to resonate through the walls, mingling with the storm outside. "Want? No, no, my dear, it's not what I want—it's what you will come to want." He paused, letting the words settle like an icy weight on her chest. "Power. Freedom. But, above all... release."

For as terrifying as he was, his words took on a brand of allure that turned fear into wonder. Just what could be possible? What was he offering?

“Imagine,” he whispered, his voice wrapping around her like a vice, “a life unbound by frail human morality. A life where every secret in the universe is laid bare for you to master. A life where nobody can steal away your heart's desire. But it requires... letting go.”

Having crossed half the room, Sinister paused and extended his hand toward the window. His hand flowed in the dark like an orchestra conductor. At the next flash of lightning, the window illuminated with an etching which cast an 8 foot rune on the opposing wall. Just the sight of it induced a migraine. But with the migraine came a rush of memories.

"Remember..." Sinister intoned.

The old dream of her mother's face reappeared in Aurora's mind. Her voice was garbled, the words lost. It was as if the image was a double exposure with too much light blurring the visual as wells as the audio.

"Who did your mother truly warn you of?" His black, oily voice took on a velvety lilt. He was enjoying this revelation.

That terrible face in her mind that matched the one before her shifted and transformed into a far more familiar one. It was the Professor.

"Xavier is the greatest hunter of mutants," Sinister bellowed with a mixture of contempt and respect. "Like a spider in a web, he draws the best and the strongest to himself and entangles them in deceit and flattery, never letting them choose while all the while convincing them it was all their choice." The image replaced with the tears of Aurora's mother. "Make no mistake, my dear Aurora, that he hunted your mother to the ends of the Earth and beyond. He wanted you, and now he has you, doesn't he? Soon he will have you... you and your baby." He lips split in a cruel smile. "And he will use them to part you from the little one. You know their minds. I speak truly."

Aurora knew just who it was that Sinister was referring to. The nightmare she’d seen before, and the very same nursery as was in her nightmare. “Scott and Jean...” her words trailed off as her fears of losing her son to what they had to offer filled her mind. Her hands went to her stomach protection her son. “What about my friends? Connor, Bobby, and the others at the Mansion? If the Professor is as bad as you say why would they trust him? They’re not fools!”

Sinister’s eyes gleamed, the crimson depths reflecting lightning outside as his smile grew sharper. He tilted his head, a gesture of mock contemplation that added to the weight of his mere presence.

"Ah, trust," he began, his voice a low, resonant hum that seemed to echo in the very bones of the room. "Such a fragile, pliable thing. They trust Xavier, you say? They should—for how could they not trust the one who lives within their very minds?"

He stepped closer, his hands suspended in the air as if holding a precious invisible object, his movements unnervingly graceful. "Did you think Charles Xavier’s gift was a passive one? A door opened only when invited? No, child, it is far more insidious. He plumbs the depths of thought, drifts into your dreams, stirs your hopes and fears, and preys upon them. Tell me, Aurora: has he not been there? Walking the corridors of your mind, touching the most secret parts of you, all in the name of a fictional virtue? Did he make you think you had asked for such invasive intervention?"

Sinister's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, silken and cruel. "And yet he does this with a smile, all the while convincing you it is for your own good. What a quaint little tyrant he is."

He gestured toward the window, and the rune etched there glowed faintly, pulsating with an ancient, alluring power. "But you..." His tone softened, though it lost none of its menace. "You are not merely some random pawn in his game. No, you are so much more."

Sinister’s expression shifted, his smile taking on a strange, reverent quality as he locked his piercing gaze on her. "You are a Grey by blood, yes, but that is not the whole of it. You are also an Essex—descendant of myself and the Lady Jessica Grey, my beloved wife, whose brilliance and beauty could rival even the stars themselves. She was taken from me over a century ago, yet her legacy endures in you, my dear Aurora. Through you, she lives on."

His voice grew heavier, deeper, almost hypnotic as he stepped closer, looming over her. "Do you understand what that means? You are not Charles Xavier’s legacy. You are my mine. My blood. My responsibility. And I offer you something Xavier never will: honesty. I do not pretend to be your savior or some selfless martyr. I am power incarnate, and I will protect what is mine. Your child, your future—it is yours to shape, not Xavier’s to steal."

Sinister extended a pale, gloved hand, his crimson diamond gleaming faintly in the dim light. "Accept my guidance," he urged, his voice now a velvet purr, "and I shall reveal to you power beyond any limitation, knowledge that transcends life itself. You will become not a follower in another’s dream but a ruler in your own." He looked at her, eyes gleaming with dark promises. "With your child, safe in your arms, both of you shielded from those who would use and betray you. All you need do is… suffer me now."

The telekinetic shield Aurora had been projecting dropped as she gave Sinister a long, somewhat teary eyed, look. “You...you’re family?” She was so confused that everything Sinister had said was starting to make a strange kind of sense, Xavier had been in her mind several times, he’d shown her just what she’d needed to know, but nothing more. “You’ll help me protect my son?” The images of the nursery at Scott & Jean’s home filled her mind again, her fears of losing her son turning her more towards Sinister’s path. She stood for a moment before slowly reaching out her hand. “Forgive me, Connor...” With that she took hold of Sinister’s hand.

The sinister glee on the man's ashen face lived up to his moniker. All trust Aurora had invested in Charles Xavier, the man who had admitted he had failed her with Scott but promised not to fail her again, was dissolved, as were her links to that wretched school. Charles, Scott, Jean, even Bobby, all were mere vestiges of a past life that with this action she had divorced. With Connor being her sole lingering regret, a new life awaited her.

"Ita! Fiat!" Sinister bellowed in a howling crescendo. "Esto!"

As Aurora’s trembling fingers closed around Sinister’s cold, gloved hand, the air in the room seemed to shift, a tangible ripple of power cascading outward. A thunderclap boomed, though the skies outside were eerily silent. The lightning etched into the window flared with blinding intensity, casting sharp, jagged shadows across the walls. Then, as if seared by a branding iron, the rune etched there began to glow a malevolent crimson before blackening into a permanent scar upon the surface of the glass.

Sinister’s lips curled into a cruel, triumphant smile as he drew Aurora closer, his towering form casting her in shadow. The faint, acrid scent of ozone filled the room, mingling with something far older and primordial. Around them, the very fabric of reality seemed to distort—a low, guttural hum resonated in the walls, and the lightbulbs burst, plunging the room into a dim, otherworldly glow illuminated only by the window rune’s burning radiance.

“Ah…” Sinister whispered, his voice low and reverent, resonating like a dirge. “So it begins. The birthright denied to you by lesser men… claimed at last. The transformation of a lost child into a sovereign queen. They would have you believe you were weak, Aurora, but the truth was always within you—written into your blood, entwined with your soul. You are mine, and through me, you will become far more than their petty dreams dared to imagine.”

As the power settled into Aurora’s trembling frame, she gasped, clutching her stomach instinctively as an overwhelming heat coursed through her veins. The child within her stirred, a faint but undeniable kick of life, as if recognizing the shift. Her teary eyes met Sinister’s unblinking crimson gaze, and for a fleeting moment, she felt… clarity.

“I see it now...” her voice changed from the nervous frightened young woman she was to a more confident, stronger woman. “The lies, the denial of who I was, but no more. I’m ready now...father.”

The walls creaked ominously as Sinister pulled her forward, his voice cutting through the charged air. “Come, my dear. The time for hiding is over. We shall strip away their lies, their betrayals, their hubris. Your past, your chains, all are as nothing now. Walk with me, and together we shall unmake the bindings they sought to place upon you.”

He led her by the hand, his long strides commanding as the door to her room creaked open before him, bidden only by his will. The storm outside seemed to part as they stepped into the hallway, an unnatural stillness descending, as if the world itself was holding its breath. Shadows danced along the walls, forming unnatural shapes as they moved, and Aurora could swear she heard faint whispers trailing behind them, incomprehensible and yet beckoning.

When they reached the administrative center a few corridors down from the residential wing of the main lodge, Sinister did not pause. With a flick of his wrist, the door burst open, the lock snapping as though disintegrated by sheer will. He gestured for Aurora to follow him inside, the faint smell of scorched metal and burned paper lingering as they entered.

The dim glow of a terminal illuminated the space, its light flickering as Sinister approached. He tapped the keys with a surgeon’s precision, his gloved hands moving with mechanical grace as he navigated through the database.

“Behold…” he murmured, his voice smooth and dangerous, “the chains of bureaucracy—the pathetic mechanisms by which they sought to bind you. Your name. Your DNA. Your essence, reduced to data, held captive in the hands of those who would dissect you like a common rat.”

His crimson eyes glowed brighter as he accessed Aurora’s files. “These records are unworthy of you. Your genome is sacred, a masterpiece refined over decades of vision and toil. Xavier… MacTaggert… they are children playing in a sandbox of divinity. I will not have their crude understanding polluting what I have wrought.”

With an exaggerated flourish, Sinister pressed a key, and the files began to vanish. Lines of code cascaded across the screen as Aurora’s medical records, her genetic profile, and even her birth data were purged, leaving only blank, empty directories.

As the screen went dark, Sinister turned to her, his voice carrying the weight of inevitability. “You are free of their prying eyes, my dear Aurora. Your bloodline—our bloodline—shall remain untainted by their mediocrity. It is perfection, the culmination of centuries of refinement, bound now only to your will. Do you see it now? The power they sought to hide from you. The power they feared.”

“I see it.” Aurora nodded. “They fear what they don’t understand, and that is what makes Professor Xavier so powerful. He teaches us to fear losing control...” she closed her eyes focussing on her new sense of self, and the power it was unleashing. Her body burst into flame, at the same time a telekinetic bubble generated to protect Sinister from her flames, her flames glowed a brilliant blue instead of the usual fiery orange as she reached the hottest scale of fire she’d ever reached. “I don’t fear my power any longer!”

Aurora’s body ignited in an explosive burst of blue flames, the fire consuming the dimly lit administration center. The walls, lined with files, data terminals, and plaques, warped and blackened under the searing heat. Sinister stood untouched within a telekinetic bubble of his own creation, his crimson eyes glowing with satisfaction as the chaos unfolded around him.

The energy of her transformation surged outward, sending a shockwave through the room. Desks overturned, terminals sparked and shattered, and a massive steel plaque commemorating the center’s founder, Charles Xavier, tore loose from the wall. It crashed to the floor with a deafening clang before being hurled into the blaze. The metal softened and warped, Xavier’s name rendered illegible as it melted under the intensity of Aurora’s flames.

Sinister gestured through the smoldering hole in the wall toward the blown-out entryway, where the winds of the storm outside howled, pulling the flames into its swirling chaos. The storm’s gale carried fragments of scorched paper and debris into the night as Sinister guided Aurora forward. "Come, let us leave this cage of mediocrity. The storm calls for you, and so does destiny."

The blue flames died out as Aurora walked with Sinister, for now her only care was for her son, her fears of losing him to Scott and Jean pushing her to take the path of destiny that Sinister was laying before her. “Teach me how to protect my son, and I’ll follow you wherever you lead.”

Loud, gloating laughter filled the air in lieu of a response as they disappeared together through a living void.

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