feathers ↣ w. worthington iii

(18) Curly Hair Sticking Out of a Beanie is Just *chef's kiss*

"To feel nothing so as not to feel anything— what a waste!" Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman

Lilli was floored.

Not literally— she hadn't fallen. No. Metaphorically, she was floored.

The hallway she was walking through didn't lead to just one or two rooms like she had assumed. Oh no. No, no, no. Lilli had been dead wrong.

Every few feet there was a door on either side of the hallway. Some led to rooms, some led down other hallways. Lilli couldn't help herself; her curiosity forced her to look into every room they passed. None of the rooms were what she'd expected, and they all were completely different from one another.

A few of the rooms were bedrooms. But those bedrooms varied completely in style and glamour, ranging from a small, cell-like bedroom with nothing but a cot all the way to a suite with a four poster bed, elegant decorations, and a shag carpet. Other than bedrooms, Lilli found living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, storage rooms, conference rooms, greenhouses, classrooms, gyms, even a few mini movie theaters. Every room was drastically different than the last, and they kept getting more and more absurd. Lilli felt flabbergasted, astonished, stunned, gobsmacked, bewildered, and every other word that meant completely and absolutely speechless.

Her companions were not as speechless.

"What the hell is this place?" Warren asked, pulling his head out of a natatorium with an Olympic-sized pool. He looked as dumbfounded as Lilli felt.

"Yeah, you still haven't really answered that," Scott agreed. Apparently Professor X hadn't yet disclosed what this whole underground bunker was to anyone.

"We're almost there," Professor said, ignoring Warren and Scott.

"Where?" Ororo asked. "I thought we were going to the meeting room we were in first."

"No," Professor X said, shaking his shiny bald head. "That was too small."

"It seemed adequate to me," Ororo said offhandedly, but didn't say anything else. A moment later, Professor X stopped.

"It's this one," he said. He reached up and opened the door, going inside. Lilli was towards the back of the group and impatiently waited to go in. What could be so special about this conference room that they had to go through this labyrinth of an underground bunker to be able to get to it?

As soon as Lilli stepped inside the room, her confusion washed away as quickly as her jaw dropped. The room was a relatively normal sized conference room and it had a normal conference table with normal office chairs and a few fake potted plants. The cold metal floor of the hallway changed into a nice, clean gray rug.

But that was where the normalcy stopped. Against the far wall stood stacks and stacks of monitors, covering the entire wall. The monitors showed live videos of many different rooms in the mansion, including the hallways and common areas. Lilli stepped closer and watched in awe as she saw Kezing agents roaming through the halls and rooms of the Institute. She'd never noticed the cameras and it felt surreal to be seeing the mansion when she wasn't actually in it.

What was this place?

Scott let out a low whistle. "Now that is creepy," he said, staring up at the monitors. "What the hell is this?"

"There are security cameras installed throughout the school. You can see the whole school just by sitting in this one room," Professor explained. "Now, please, let's all sit. I've got a lot of explaining to do, it seems."

The other X-Men started sitting down. Lilli could barely tear her eyes away from the screens. It was so interesting to see the mansion like this, in a way she never thought possible. She was so interested she almost started to forget the fact that she was watching an invasion happen. Almost.