Sure. Fine. Whatever. A Dana Scully Origin Story

Tonight, She Would Become a Legend

It was Thursday morning and Dana did not want to go to school. She saw no point in going, anyway. She was Valedictorian after all, and besides, Joyana was dead. It would just be another unsettling day of mourning, surrounded by people she hated but felt compelled to cry with.

The morning was gray. Clouds plastered the sky like a white canopy covering all of creation. It was the kind of day that you would stay in bed all morning long, reading a book and daydreaming. Dana wanted so badly to crawl back in bed and sleep away the pain of yesterday. She took a seat on her freshly made bed and stared at the blank white wall as if there were hidden words within its paint strokes and scratches. She knew that something was happening and she knew that Sam, her pen pal, was right. She was involved. But how? And if she was involved, who would she go to for help? She had no friends. How could she solve a mystery, let alone on her own?

Tieing her titian hair into a messy ponytail behind her head, Dana sat at her desk and began to write her valedictorian speech. She scanned books and her past journal entries for inspiration. She desperately wanted to make an impact on the crowd, but then again, nobody even knew her name. What was the use of trying to create one for herself out of thin air?

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She was running. Down sandy hills, through noxious seagrass and golden brush, Dana was stumbling along the treacherous seashore. Why was she running?  Why did her heart feel like it was going to explode? Her mind was in shock. She was lost. She was being chased. By whom, she did not know.

Searching for relief, a place to stop and catch her shallow breath, Dana's eyes scanned the moonlit shore. Anywhere. Anyplace to hide, she did not care. She needed to find refuge and she needed to find it fast. The suspenseful feeling of someone following her was filling her gut. The knots twisted and turned inside of her. Anxiety shot through her veins like a drug. Her tired eyes blazed in and out of focus. The silvery moon shone above her like a searchlight from a helicopter. Being found, she thought, was much worse than being as lost as she was.

Darting across the chilling sand, she found a dark, dismantled shack. Looking behind her shoulder, she felt confident that she had lost him; the person that was following her. She reached the decrepit building. Wiggling the doorknob with force, she could not open it. It was locked. She banged helplessly on the door, "Help me! Please, someone, help me!" No answer. Nothing. She continued to kick and punch the door. Above her eyes view, she saw the numbers 617 attached to the little house. Digging in her pockets, she anxiously fumbled for the key. "God," She screamed at the milky clouds, "please help me." Her adrenaline was pumping through her like gasoline. She felt the icy touch of the key's metal on her fingertips. She raised the key to the knob, her hands trembling. Twisting the handle, entering into her hideaway, two hands forcefully grabbed her shoulders.

Dana's eyes shot open. The scream of her alarm clock brought her back to earth. All night, Dana tossed and turned in her linen sheets. Sweating profusely, she wiped the chill away from her face. "I was a dream," She whispered, her body trembling. "Thank God, it was just a dream."

Mixed emotions of the anxiety of graduation and the death of Joyana and Pauline tugged at every corner of her mind. So many strange and unexplainable things had happened to her in the past few days. She was only 18 and it felt like the world around her was crumbling in her ivory hands. Reluctantly sitting up, she rubbed the sleepiness from her eyes and yawned, stretching her lower back. The sky was drizzly and gray; matching her sulking and anxious mood.

She tiptoed to the bathroom and began to run a hot shower. The white-tiled room began to fill with steam as thick as the clouds outside. As she removed her pajama top, she examined herself in the mirror. She was so skinny and flat. Her body was square. Just like her personality. She turned around, counting the freckles along her arms and shoulders. Her back was broad like her brothers. Never, she thought, would she ever have the feminity of Melissa or her mother. She was always so behind everyone else. Her body, her life, her interests, and hobbies were always two, sometimes three steps behind everyone else she knew.