RED

SOMETIMES EVEN THE WALLS BLEED. (SCOTT CENTRIC)

They found him on the 7th day. Symbolic, probably.
He was chained to a wall, his eyes puffy and red and wide open, with the usual too bright energy emitting from them. It made the gloomy room look even scarier, everything washing with scarlet. Everything. Can walls bleed?
For him, maybe they did.

Near him was a large window with the city stretched from sea to shore, beautiful and mighty with its life. Above him there was hanged a large oval lamp. Their reports claimed that this was the source of his gift- transforming light energy and making it as his own, emitting is as a gift of himself to the world, with every bit shortening his life. Till the next dosage of light came. He could survive 48 hours without light of any kind before his eyes begin to bleed. One red becoming another.
He couldn't survive 7 days without sunlight. Apparently he could. He waited with his eyes open. For them.

"We're here, Scott, to bring you home." Jean whispered to him from afar. Getting too close was dangerous, she knew. His intensity could kill. "Please. Close your eyes."

Maybe he didn't hear her. Maybe he couldn't do it. Maybe both. Who knew the extent of the damage that was done to him for 7 whole days, without them nearby to help him as they have done for longer than half of his life?
A man can't last4 days without water, how could he ever hope to last 7 without whatever made him tick?
Yet he did. For her. She was sure of that. He loved her, just like she loved him. In her own way. And even if he teased her every once in a while that she should have chosen him and not Logan, they both knew that it was an old argument. What was already done was done, and history should dwell where it belonged- unremembered.
But what a person left with when he had no past?

Logan once described it as being only part alive, a shell. And she . . . she believed that what the mind chose to remember were the only bits that matter. She loved Scott once and then they broke up. The ugly parts never happened. There wasn't a wall between them, not a bridge. There was simply not enough water left.

He stared at the same invisible spot in midair, his eyes sunken and there were black circles around them, as if he never slept. Red and black, like a bruise. And there was a bluish aura around him from the neon lights that were scattered around. That was what helped them to find him in the tunnels, running away from the guards when they suddenly saw a blue light. Blue and red.
Take that, Superman. Not all heroes were made of steel.

She took a step forward toward him. Hesitant and confused. To shake him, to set him free. Warmth licked her face; first kind and then burning. "My parents used to fight like that," he'd tell her after every time they fought. As if it was an excuse. For him, it probably was. For her- only in the beginning.
A person can't last4 days without water, how could she ever hope to last4 months with a lie?

But she loved him, once. So she took a step closer. She could hear her friends' shouts behind her to draw back, they'd find another way to save him. She wouldn't do any good. But louder than that, she could hear Logan's silence. Maybe he, too, believed that if God took a rest from his work at the 7th day, he could spare his wife a few minutes of foolishness.

Another step. This wasn't foolishness. Nor this was bravery. Suicide, maybe, but what did it matter to the body when the soul died?

And another. The heat was unbearable and the world swam with color. Almost beautiful, if it wasn't washed with blood. She wanted to turn her face to a cooler place, but couldn't. Wouldn't. This was her gift for him, him, who used to be her sun.

Another was met with resistance and she lowered her eyes to remove the barrier. But it was his hand, stretched to the side to stop her while his head never turned. The energy wave never withered.
She tried to push but he was decisive.

"Why?" she asked his hand and he kept staring at the wall.

Intrigued, she followed his eyes. There was a small box on the end of the wall, designed to contain the energy. With growing dread she followed the attached wires as they crawled around the corners, their hiss increased while she got closer to their source. And then, just like that, they disappeared underneath the floor.

She began tearing the floor tiles away with her bare hands. She was vaguely aware of hands that appeared beside her to help and the tools that were afterwards brought to do this better than she ever could. Barely aware yet so very grateful.
Yet so very alone.

The hole grew piece by piece and when it finally uncovered a small generator, she didn't know what to make of this.

And then all of a sudden, she did. The stamp Electroditis was hard to miss, how could she miss the connection while this was their power plant?

"They started working a week ago when the coal ran out." She heard someone behind her saying. He didn't need to say anymore. The meaning was plain. Within the last 7 days Electroditis came to control the market with its unique solar transforming equipment. They were the only ones prepared, the only ones still functioning when the last coal mines exploded. By now they lit every house, every refrigerator, supplied every power to every factory in the country. Including the nuclear facilities of which generators ran out in the acclimating days.
No, not them. Scott did.

"It will take us a few more months to master the technology." She heard steps behind her. And a gentle voice. But how could such a voice fit a heartless man?

"Leave him alone!" she leaped on him, her fists a mess of fury and despair. Left, right, left, harder. She hit him with all her heart, wanting to rip his useless heart open with her telekinesis but restrained herself just in time. He was a regular man. And as such a part of the majority. He had power over her.
But more than that, he was so achingly vulnerable against her.

"Jean, relax." She felt a hand on her shoulder and even though she wanted to shrug it away, she knew Storm was right. It wouldn't do any good. She couldn't save Scott. Not anymore. Maybe she never could in the first place.

"Please don't kill me." the man begged for his life. It was always more difficult to call a man heartless after he begged for his life. But after all, she only needed to remind herself, even animals have survival instincts.

"Why?" she growled.

"Because you need me." And the hardest part was that he was right. In order to save the day, again, she had to leave him. She only needed to walk away and to never look back, save a millions of lives, maybe. Save a planet. And years from now it wouldn't matter when she'd get a humanitarian price for perfecting the new electricity technology. It wouldn't matter, because she would forget, as she always did with harsh realities. Because what she chose to forget never actually mattered, did it?

"Release him."

"You know I can't. Not unless you want the whole city to collapse into a nuclear catastrophe."

"Then find another way."

"I told you, this will take time. This was the only way. Or did you think I enjoy doing this?"

"I didn't know that a man like you is capable to feel."

"You call me heartless. It's ok. But let me save the world. Just a few more months, and he could be released."

"He can't survive few months, it's killing him."

"Then he'd die, and take this country with him."

"He knows." She whispered and didn't know what she was more afraid of, that he did know and would therefore sacrifice everything for the rest of them, or that he didn't.

"Yes."

"You son of a bitch! It's not humanly possible to do it!"

"But he's not human, is he?" and when he saw the look on her face he hurried to say, "No, I didn't mean it that way. It's his mutation that would enable him to last as long as we need him to. I know it."

"You're wrong. He can't survive that long. No one can."

"Then help him."

"What do you think I'm trying to do?" she cried out, enraged.

"No, you can't save him. But you can help him. Help me to develop the solar technology in capacities that would be enough to maintain a city. Just one city, it would be enough. Then it would be safe to release him."

"You truly are heartless."

"I'm not the devil, Lady. I'm only trying to save the world."

"By killing a man!"

"A mutant."

"A man!"

"He's a sacrifice I'm willing to pay. The question is, won't you?"

And there was suddenly silence as if there were just the two of them in the world and she looked at the horror- stricken faces of her friends, and then to Scott's painful gift, when she understood that she couldn't do it. She couldn't make the world burn.

"I'm sorry." She whispered desperately to Scott, wishing him to understand. She could see his back bent as he seated Hercules on his shoulder, his hand quivered and fingers crossed. Their good- luck charm. His way of letting her know that she made the right call.
A person can't survive longer than4 days without water, but he hopes that he can for the ones he loves. And they wish that he can as well.

The rest of this day became hazy, maybe a dream. But then she sat on her bed, her head buried in her hands, and sent a silent prayer for him. She closed her eyes for a moment and then with determination got up and hurried with sure steps to the room on her left. Cold hands touching warm skin, she kissed her son's brow for goodnight and opened the red lava lamp beside him.

She didn't know it but as the boy would grow, just like his father; he would shoot fire from his eyes.