Categories > Cartoons > X-Men: Evolution > That Stupid School Project
I am suspended in the dark. I cannot see or feel anything. My hand could be in front of my face and I wouldn’t know it. I can’t see anything. It’s totally black here, blackness engulfing everything. I wonder, am I really seeing this horrible darkness, or am I the darkness. I am nothing. This is something other than the dark, but I don’t know what it is.
There is only the dark and that smell. Like someone was smoking in here. Was it I? No, Nothing cannot smoke. I am becoming nothing. Like this darkness. There is nothing down here but the darkness and me.
I can only smell the cigarette smoke. The smell makes me want to retch. I can remember the burns that cigarettes make when your skin is used as an ashtray. I can still feel them, even though they happened a few hours ago. Maybe it’s those burn that are making that smell.
God it’s so dark. I hunch down and curl up into a ball, but the pain of my bruises and these burns is just enough to keep me from sleeping. It’s too dark in here. Dark, dark, dark.
Hehehe. Maybe I can make up a song. Dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark…
John kicked his way out from under the sheets. He was breathing heavily and staring off into space. Finally after a long moment he regained his composure. It had been that horrible nightmare again. He didn’t know what he was going to do about it. He must have curled up and the sheet had dropped over him. That had probably triggered the nightmare. He hated darkness.
John rose from his bed and crossed to the desk where his first drafts of the chapter lay strewn out over everywhere. He grabbed a few sheets of the expendable copy and reached for the matches that he had taped to the back of the desk for emergencies.
There was the grating strike of a match head against the rough surface on the cover. Then there was that small puff of smoke and then the match exploded into glorious flame.
John watched the first one live and die with rapture on his face. There was nothing more beautiful than light and there wasn’t a more perfect light than fire. Fire was everything. It lit the crazed smile that played over his face. His blue eyes sparkled in the reflected glow.
He lit a second one when the first went out. This match he allowed to catch a hold of the papers in his hands. The fire consumed them rapidly, leaving nothing more than a stinging sensation where they burned the tips of his fingers. He almost went back to burn more papers, but the first thing he found that was flammable was his notebook, which was open to Rogue’s section.
The sight of a few inexpert sketches that he had made doused his burning spree like cold water. The only sketch of Rogue that didn’t contain a frown was a tiny drawing that resided in the bottom left hand corner. The other two were glowering at him with such venom that he dropped the book hastily.
John sat back down on the bed totally wired up and too excited for sleep. If truth be told, he was also still too scared to sleep as well. John’s shirt was soaked with sweat, and he noticed with disgust that his face was sticky with it, too.
Oh well, it was 2:00 in the morning, and while it was way past curfew, he doubted that anyone would be awake to be angry at him if he went raiding the laundry room for a clean shirt and washed his face.
He snuck out into the hall and tiptoed along the corridor to the bathroom. Not one of the various snores coming from the other boys’ rooms that lined the hall changed a single note.
The water that struck his face was cold, and he had to bite back a tiny yelp as it hit him. John quickly grabbed a towel to dry his face. He dropped it on the floor and was about to walk out of the bathroom, but thought better of it and picked up the towel and jammed it on the rack. This way no one ever need know that he had been up this late, er, early.
Getting to the laundry room and a new shirt would be more difficult. For one thing, the only way to get to the laundry room was to go through the girl’s wing. If he woke up anyone he would be killed for sure. Dr. McTaggart would undoubtedly have words with him.
But he made it to the laundry room without mishap.
It was coming back from the laundry room that proved to be his downfall.
There was a sobbing sound from one of the girl’s rooms and he stopped to listen. The door to the room where the sound was coming from was slightly ajar. John leaned in to see what was wrong. John was the kind of person who had heard that ‘curiosity had killed the cat’ quite a lot.
Jean Grey was bundled up under her covers shaking with suppressed sobs. Her eyes we closed tight shut and it was obvious that she was in the middle of a horrible dream. Suddenly she sat straight up in bed, her eyes wide open, and screamed.
“Amy, watch out!”
John jumped about three feet in the air. Jean saw him and leaped out of bed like a scalded cat. Her cheeks were red with rage and the look in her eyes was murder. John stared in disbelief as she towered over him in only her bra and a thong.
“What are you doing here?!” she yelled.
John just stared at her. Jean’s cheeks blushed to a shade of red that perfectly complimented her hair. She wrapped a blanket around herself and shouted, “Dr. McTaggart!”
There is only the dark and that smell. Like someone was smoking in here. Was it I? No, Nothing cannot smoke. I am becoming nothing. Like this darkness. There is nothing down here but the darkness and me.
I can only smell the cigarette smoke. The smell makes me want to retch. I can remember the burns that cigarettes make when your skin is used as an ashtray. I can still feel them, even though they happened a few hours ago. Maybe it’s those burn that are making that smell.
God it’s so dark. I hunch down and curl up into a ball, but the pain of my bruises and these burns is just enough to keep me from sleeping. It’s too dark in here. Dark, dark, dark.
Hehehe. Maybe I can make up a song. Dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark, dark…
John kicked his way out from under the sheets. He was breathing heavily and staring off into space. Finally after a long moment he regained his composure. It had been that horrible nightmare again. He didn’t know what he was going to do about it. He must have curled up and the sheet had dropped over him. That had probably triggered the nightmare. He hated darkness.
John rose from his bed and crossed to the desk where his first drafts of the chapter lay strewn out over everywhere. He grabbed a few sheets of the expendable copy and reached for the matches that he had taped to the back of the desk for emergencies.
There was the grating strike of a match head against the rough surface on the cover. Then there was that small puff of smoke and then the match exploded into glorious flame.
John watched the first one live and die with rapture on his face. There was nothing more beautiful than light and there wasn’t a more perfect light than fire. Fire was everything. It lit the crazed smile that played over his face. His blue eyes sparkled in the reflected glow.
He lit a second one when the first went out. This match he allowed to catch a hold of the papers in his hands. The fire consumed them rapidly, leaving nothing more than a stinging sensation where they burned the tips of his fingers. He almost went back to burn more papers, but the first thing he found that was flammable was his notebook, which was open to Rogue’s section.
The sight of a few inexpert sketches that he had made doused his burning spree like cold water. The only sketch of Rogue that didn’t contain a frown was a tiny drawing that resided in the bottom left hand corner. The other two were glowering at him with such venom that he dropped the book hastily.
John sat back down on the bed totally wired up and too excited for sleep. If truth be told, he was also still too scared to sleep as well. John’s shirt was soaked with sweat, and he noticed with disgust that his face was sticky with it, too.
Oh well, it was 2:00 in the morning, and while it was way past curfew, he doubted that anyone would be awake to be angry at him if he went raiding the laundry room for a clean shirt and washed his face.
He snuck out into the hall and tiptoed along the corridor to the bathroom. Not one of the various snores coming from the other boys’ rooms that lined the hall changed a single note.
The water that struck his face was cold, and he had to bite back a tiny yelp as it hit him. John quickly grabbed a towel to dry his face. He dropped it on the floor and was about to walk out of the bathroom, but thought better of it and picked up the towel and jammed it on the rack. This way no one ever need know that he had been up this late, er, early.
Getting to the laundry room and a new shirt would be more difficult. For one thing, the only way to get to the laundry room was to go through the girl’s wing. If he woke up anyone he would be killed for sure. Dr. McTaggart would undoubtedly have words with him.
But he made it to the laundry room without mishap.
It was coming back from the laundry room that proved to be his downfall.
There was a sobbing sound from one of the girl’s rooms and he stopped to listen. The door to the room where the sound was coming from was slightly ajar. John leaned in to see what was wrong. John was the kind of person who had heard that ‘curiosity had killed the cat’ quite a lot.
Jean Grey was bundled up under her covers shaking with suppressed sobs. Her eyes we closed tight shut and it was obvious that she was in the middle of a horrible dream. Suddenly she sat straight up in bed, her eyes wide open, and screamed.
“Amy, watch out!”
John jumped about three feet in the air. Jean saw him and leaped out of bed like a scalded cat. Her cheeks were red with rage and the look in her eyes was murder. John stared in disbelief as she towered over him in only her bra and a thong.
“What are you doing here?!” she yelled.
John just stared at her. Jean’s cheeks blushed to a shade of red that perfectly complimented her hair. She wrapped a blanket around herself and shouted, “Dr. McTaggart!”
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