𝑭𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒏 𝑨𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒍𝒔 𝑫𝒐𝒏❜𝒕 𝑷𝒓𝒂𝒚 |An Avenger/X-Men Crossover|ON HOLD

VIII - Monster

Normal P.O.V (NOVA)

I didn't sleep much that night. Neither did Jean, since she spent the night comforting me instead of just making me go to sleep with her powers. Hank arrived with some pills for anxiety and P.T.S.D attacks, but I refused to take them. I was tired of relying on pills to make me feel better, which was why I threw my pain pills away too. When I did fall asleep, my mind was instantly filled with horrendous nightmares.

A young man, somewhere in his 20s, stood in front of me. He had bright red curly hair, and freckles of the same colour littering his face. He didn't look good, understandably, considering the many bruises and cuts that were visible all over his frail body. His eyes, a light green that reminded one of clovers, held fear, confusion and pain, but most of all, they held hope as their gaze found mine. He thought I would help him.

He was terribly wrong.

I didn't have to turn to see the guard approaching me with a gun. He handed it to me, and by the weight, I could tell it contained a single bullet. It was all I needed.

I didn't have to know why this man had to die, my job was just to execute him. My handlers have their reasons. 

I kept my expression carefully blank as I pointed the device towards the unlucky man. I had to, because even if his death didn't bother me at all, if my handlers thought they saw the slightest bit of emotion in me, I would be punished. I didn't want that.

Tears sprung out of his desperate eyes, and his begs were muffled by the tape on his mouth. I could make out the words wife, baby and of course, please.

I pulled the trigger and blood quickly poured out of the perfectly centered hole in his forehead. His body fell limp to the floor, the loud clang of his chains the last thing I noticed before exiting the cell.

"NOOOO!!" I cried out as I jolted awake. Jean sat beside me, trying to calm me down with words I couldn't hear over the man's muffled cries still sounding in my ears.

She lifted her hand to put it on my shoulder, leaving it hovering in mid-air. When I showed no objection, she gently placed it on my shoulder, giving it a slight squeeze. I couldn't hear her words, but I could read her lips, telling me to calm down, that I was safe, everyone was safe, it was just a nightmare... But it wasn't. It was real, it was a memory, and no one was safe.

I began to have trouble breathing, a thick, heavy lump formed in my dry throat and my vision became blurry. The man's cries mixed with a hundred more, I saw blood, I saw bodies, I saw my handlers, I saw my father, I saw the chair, I saw my entire past in a quick moment, and it kept playing over and over and over and...

"MAKE IT STOP, PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!" I screamed as I curled my body up into a ball and covered my ears with my hands, not that it helped. My nails dug into the skin on the side of my head, and Jean had to forcefully tear them off to stop me from hurting myself further.

"Please," I sobbed, tears running down my face for the second time in 24 hours. I hadn't cried since my initiation in the Red Room, and here I was wailing like a baby. The voices mocked me, pitied me, begged me, blamed me, they cried and they screamed at me. "Please help me Jean," I begged. Begged.

But in a way I deserved this. All the people I killed, they begged and I showed no mercy anyway. I deserved this. I wanted it to end, everything, me, but I also deserved to die slowly and painfully, like they did. A hundred years of punishment could go by and I still wouldn't find it enough.

I was horrible. I was cruel.

I deserved this.

I was a monster.