Mind Games [A Wolverine/X-Men Fan Fiction] #Wattys2014

Chapter Four: Lucid Dreaming

|Chapter Four: Lucid Dreaming|

He felt cold, being in the cold water-like liquid. He felt he should be drowning, but he could easily breathe. A steady beeping and muffled voices could be heard through the tank. It felt peaceful to him somewhat, he wanted to fall asleep there and not be woken up.

Just as he was falling asleep, he heard the flick of switches and quick whirring. This made him alert, but he didn't open his eyes.

And then pain.

He thrashed around, screaming in the liquid as whirring needles pierced his skin and began oozing out a silver liquid. He was trying to get up, but the needles pushed him down. The pain was unbearable. Flashes of his past came into his head, a woman he loved with all his heart, but he couldn't seem to remember who she really was. His body began to shut down, not being able to escape the pain from the needles. The thrashings were soon slowed to a stop and soon after the needles were taken out and the silver liquid that had come out was bonded to his bones.

"Is he dead?" a voice asked.

"Yes, I'm afraid s-no, look! His BP is coming back. Sir, he- he's alive! He survived..." another said.

The voices were sounding muffled as his body started to bring itself back slowly. He was soon back to normal when one of the voices made it through the tank glass, "Erase his memory."That was a voice he recognized.

William Stryker.

* * *

Logan sat up in his bed, gasping for breath as if he could still feel the needles. When he was finally able to calm down, he looked to see that his claws had popped out while he was dreaming. He groaned as he saw he had practically destroyed the sheets he slept on. Even though he knew now he was safe, he still found it hard to relax and swallow.

He had had this dream before, many times, but it was strange this time. He had always remembered feeling the pain, but this time it felt amplified as if he were reliving it fresh again. He looked at his arms just to be sure that there weren't any punctures and there wasn't. He retracted his claws and got up to go to the bathroom to wash his face.

Logan hadn't dreamed about that for a long time now, and since he knew what it was now, he was hoping he would never again. He felt better as the cool water touched his face and he turned off the tap, letting the water sink in. With one sigh he opened his eyes, and his head quickly snapped around with a small grunt.

Nothing was there.

'No one is there...', he thought to himself. He sighed to himself, looking down. He could've sworn he saw Leila standing at his front door staring at him. He dismissed. Sometimes he did mix up his dreams with reality.

Logan turned off his bathroom light and made his way towards his bed, ready for another sleepless night. Just as he was going to put his foot under the shredded he stopped. He heard something-something like muffled shouts.

"It's just your imagination. Go back to sleep, Logan." He tried to convince himself. But as he tried to relax, the muffled shouts got more frantic and he could hear things falling down. It was no surprise that no one else could hear them, his hearing was heightened after all. Finally he couldn't take it anymore.

He kicked the covers off and opened his door as quietly as possible, trying not to draw any attention to himself. The hall was dark and no one had woken up. He could hear the shouts better now and started following them, turning corners and stepping over small obstacles.

The night felt somewhat familiar, like when Stryker had broken in. But it couldn't be Stryker. Stryker was dead.

"Oh God..." Logan groaned to himself as he saw where the noise was coming from. It was coming from the Professor's room. Even though he and Xavier weren't always happy with each other, he still cared about him. He had given him a place to stay and had offered to help him-heck he even helped him makes friends at the institute... kind of. Logan knew that he should have at least woken up the others, but he just wanted to act before anything really bad happened.

He rushed to the door and kicked it down, prepared to rush in, but found himself dangling on the door. A shout escaped him and he was surprised that no one had heard that.

There was no floor beneath him, only darkness, but something faintly glowed. He looked over his shoulder and saw the Professor being held by someone whose face was shadowed, but the structure of the body looked familiar.

"Professor!" Logan shouted. He wondered why he didn't use his powers. Xavier was a telepath and could almost easily assess the situation and get himself out of it.

"Logan!" he could make out the Professor shout. The shadowed figure laughed as Logan tried to pull himself up. The Professor and the shadowed figure stood on the only small floor there, but it was enough to hold them up.

"Get up, Logan," a less frantic Xavier could be heard. Panicking, Logan's head shot around, but could only see the other two.

"Help! Somebody help!" he shouted.

Getting annoyed with the constant laughing, his claws popped out and stuck into the door as he used them to climb up. When he got to the doorway, he looked up to find someone standing there.

"Leila?" he said. He was confused as to why she was the only one who showed up.

"Get up, Logan! Wake up." He could hear the Professor again, calm as if he weren't struggling right across from him. 'Wake up?', Logan thought to himself, rethinking Xavier's words. 'Does that mean I'm dreaming?' But it all felt so real to him, the panic especially.

"I want to wake up!" he shouted, making Leila jump back, slightly.

"Logan, what's wrong?! What's going on?!" said Leila, sounding frantic.

"Just stand back! Get help and stay in your room!" he shouted, trying to climb up. He looked back once more to see if he could find a way to save the dream Professor. He believed that if he could do that, he would be able to wake up from the horrible nightmare he was having. But he just felt cold shock. Xavier's body was slumped on the floor, lifeless.

He was dead.

The shadowed man stood over him, seeming triumphant and smiling at the shocked Logan.

"Xavier!" he shouted, just to be sure. When there was no reply he let out an angry growl, set on revenge. "I'll kill you." He growled, loud enough for him to hear.

The shadowed man chuckled and finally spoke, "I don't think so, Logan. I'll see you next time."

Logan looked up to Leila with an angry scowl. "Move!" he shouted.

"I'm sorry, Wolverine." She whispered. Logan was confused. Then, suddenly Leila's foot stretched out and pushed his claws out of the door.

"What are you doing? Stop!" but it was too late as he fell into the darkness towards the faint blue glow at the bottom. Then there was a splash.

The water, the whirring needles, the pain-it was all back and much worse than it had ever been...

•••

A/N: I don't know, I have this weird thing where I feel everything comes in dreams. Hehe, I'll try not to next time.