X-Men Evolution: Rogue Evolution

The Mountain 6.3

Anna didn't remember hitting the pock-marked surface of the cave floor, but the pain in her right side and shoulder told her enough to know she hit it hard. When she breathed, it felt like the cold air was rubbing shards of glass on the inside of her lungs and throat. She clutched her fingers and tried to stretch her legs, and found her whole right side and the better part of her back was swallowed by freezing cold silty water. A pins and needles sensation pulled at her muscles as she rolled to her to left, onto her stomach, and out of the icy puddle. There she lay. The rock below her slowly sucked the little heat out from under her, as she tried to gather her strength and listen.

An anonymous babble of water was the only thing that broke an otherwise utter silence. Its location was impossible to tell from the ambient echo of the cavern and its impenetrable darkness. When she finally gathered the strength to push up from the rock, a searing pain slashed across her abdomen. Her eyes watered and she felt something like a wimpier creak from her parted lips. Still, she levered he knees below her and sat up.

She probed her face with the tips of her fingers, and when her skin felt the cold leather of the glove, she ripped it off and touched the part of her lip where she tasted wet iron. Even without the glove, her fingers were like ice against the delicate flesh of her face. She reached for her wrist and tried toggling the light on her watch. After the second attempt to turn it on - her surroundings were suddenly illuminated by a bolt of stark white light.

Now with the light of day on her wrist, she could see her bright green sweater was torn to ribbons with lengths covered in blood. What was left of the fabric and the shirt beneath was heavy with brown freezing water. At a glance at least, it looked like her legs had faired better. Her jeans had taken a few scrapes and a couple of tears but were otherwise intact. Her dense hiking boots, aside from the mud and water stains, look as if they were still off the rack. She felt by and large like a giant bruise, but nothing, as far as she could tell, was broken.

She played her flashlight off the walls and the cave ceiling. It seems like she had found herself in some sort of smaller outcropping to a larger corridor that looked just tall enough to stand in. Slowly, she pushed herself to her feet. Her knees buckled and her thighs burned taking her weight, but after taking time to flex and massage the muscles with her hands, they were willing to start working again. She was about to wiggle her way out of the outcropping when she spotted her backpack resting on the floor of the longer cavern.

Like her boots, the high-class hiking backpack Ororo had bought for her from the 'outdoor adventures' store still looked like it could have still had the price tag attached. She hoisted the pack up by the handle, her side screaming as she did, and pulled it into the outcropping with her. When she unzipped the top, she found everything inside looked a little jostled but otherwise completely fine. She tried to shoulder the pack, but her right arm screamed with pain to the point she was forced to drop the bag and it rolled back into the puddle she awoke in. She clapped her hand to her mouth and fought through the tears. Taking the pack by the hook handle, she drug the thing behind her till she was out of the outcropping and securely in the corridor.

Anna dug in the pack's many pouches till she found her phone. Still dry as a bone, she keyed in her password and checked for any signal. She shook her head, "I don't know what I expected. There was no service on the way here. Why would there be in a fucking mountain?" A raspy cough rattled her bones and she realized how much she was beginning to shiver. She tucked her hands under her armpits. "Fuck!"

She shoved the phone back in the pocket of the pack and opened up one of the larger zippers to find her packed clothes. She selected her only other sweater, a bright pink one Kitty insisted on giving her for luck, as well as a new set of shirt, and jeans. Swapping out her clothes was like changing in a deep freeze locker where they stored slaughtered pigs. It was difficult to thread on her pants and shirt from how hard she was beginning to shake. She made to change her socks, but when she kicked off her boots, she found they were still dry inside. If only her whole body could have been made out of those freaking boots.