[center][img]http://boweryboyshistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Xavier-s_School_for_Gifted_Youngsters_01.jpg[/img][h3]|  T H E   U N C A N N Y   X - M E N  |[/h3][/center][hr]
SALEM CENTER, NY
20th March 2005, 8:15PM 

[i]In the school grounds the trees stand shaking, painting the paths with a cool wash of grey. The wind was blowing, the birds chirping, the bees were buzzing. A putrid day. But deep inside the bellowing beast of brick and steel girders, held a forescore strict of Mutant teachers, looking, over murders.

There came a point where--[/i]

[b]Ruth! What's that you've got there?"[/b] A boisterous voice yelled after the girl, scrawling on her pad, beneath the evening sky. Uninterrupted, she continued to recite, her pen moving about erratically, dragging down on the paper, almost as if they were not her own gestures. Her friend draws closer, sure that she must not have heard him. As he gets closer, he starts to hear the girl's own speech.

[b][i]--"and burning shroud enveloped as the titans march along, illuminated in a new found knowledge they had come upon, by ways of torture, scorn and villainy their anger had been justified."[/i][/b]

At that, he picks up, intrigued. [b]"What're you working on, Ruth, you seem awa--"[/b]

[b][i]"Blood and blood again, unending. A vicious killer stalks the nights. A hound of Hell, it prowls, rending flesh with bloody might.[/i][/b] 

[b]"Ruth, you're scaring me..."[/b] He mouths, a little noise coming out as he walks up to the girl, still writing but in refrain, mouth wide and head up as she struggled, to search for something, it seemed. He runs to her, closing their distance, steadfast. She was pale as anything, and motionless save for her strokes of the pen. Well, more wading than stroking. Like an oar cuts water. As abrupt as that image, he starts talking, trying to break what ever spell was transpiring against her own volition.

[b]"Ruth... Blindfold. I need to help you!"[/b] Shaking, he moves his hands to her shoulders, somehow not stemming her arm movements.

[b]"Ru--"[/b]

A blankness takes her face, and though expressionlessly masked by her eye-wraps, he could place her emotion. Peril. He adjusts her head to face his, erratic. 

[b]"Listen, I--I need you to listen to me. You're acting s--"[/b] His eyes are drawn to the etchings below sharply, barely getting a chance to process before his charge continues:

[i][b]Still, still, the chase persists, though't surely can't much longer, as the creature in the mist, undeniably stronger. Be this primal, violent instinct or the fruit of master plan, one question need not dare be answered. There stands the form of Caliban!"[/b][/i]

[h3][b][i]Aghhhh!...[/i][/b][/h3]

Cypher lands far, far back as Ruth pushes outwards, her body writhing outwards. She gasps, inhaling sharply, powerfully, her head facing the sky. In an instant, it's over, and she slumps against the floor, back straight. While unseeing, her face explores herself, her surroundings. Searching for answers. She spies the other, scrambled on the floor a way away, a graze on his lip, but otherwise unharmed.
 
[b]"Douglas, I--"[/b] Cypher ignores her for a moment, eyes vice-held by the page she had tempered to a striking detail. [b]"Doug?"[/b] She questions, as he clears the distance between them. His face scans the page, and to his shock, he sees the etchings formed a scene. A dreary night. A fallen man. And at the centre, the face of a [i]Demon.
[/i]

[center][color=gray]. . .[/color][/center]

[b]COMING SOON: Murderous Intent...[/b]