by Quil Carter
Then the scene changed back, and he was standing again in the middle of the forest.
Sasha shook his head. “It’s really fucking cool being one of these.”
The smirk made Kheva’s left eye crease. “You’re standing atop the tip of the iceberg, nightcrawler,” he said, then the smirk disappeared and his face became serious. “Now, I am about to teach you something, a gift that comes with responsibility.”
“A gift?” Sasha said, not knowing whether to feel cautious or intrigued, so his brain decided on a mixture of both. “I’ve been good learning other things so far…”
“Yes, you have,” Kheva said. He placed a hand on Sasha’s neck, then gently traced his fingers until they were grasping the back of Sasha’s head. Those curled fingers remained still, then slowly they began to stroke Sasha’s hair. “But this is different, nightcrawler. This is a gift to both defend yourself with, and to punish those who deserve it.”
Sasha’s eyes shone at the prospect. He smiled at Kheva, the anxiety that had taken him earlier now a thing of the past. A way to protect himself?
But the only person he had to protect himself against was…
Suddenly the hand that had been gently playing with Sasha’s hair clenched, like his head had been caught in a clawed trap. Sasha gasped from the shock of it, and when he saw Kheva’s eyes narrow to small slits, he stared back in fear and shut off both his mouth, and his own inner thoughts.
“Do you know what will happen to you if you use this ability against me?” Kheva warned, his tone plunging to the earth’s core.
Sasha stared. Kheva looked even more intimidating with his eyes yellow, as if his demonic nature couldn’t be hidden inside of his own mind, unlike in reality. There was something so fundamentally disturbing about Kheva, and when he was standing in his own realm, beside things that he himself had created… that was never more obvious.
“You know I wouldn’t,” Sasha stammered. “I’ve already learned not to fuck with you. Why would I sign my own death warrant?”
Kheva’s shining eyes narrowed, then slowly they closed as he leaned into Sasha.
Their lips connected, and a wellspring of excitement bubbled eagerly. He’d come a long way from being shocked into a stupor from Kheva kissing him, now… he enjoyed it.
Not only that, he found himself craving it at times. It was insane, shameful even, but he couldn’t deny his attraction to the powerful nightcrawler. Who would be able to resist him? He was the most powerful man in the world.
And fuck, was he something… something intoxicating and incredible.
Kheva’s lips parted and Sasha’s did as well. He allowed Kheva to take him in deeper, surrounded by this beautiful forest of black and red, with an aroma of coffee and cinnamon on the air. Kheva’s scent.
When Kheva broke their kiss, Sasha’s eyes opened, a drunk look on his face. He stared back at the Master, his glowing amber eyes not breaking their gaze, and felt the hand still holding the back of his head tighten.
“I am not physically here, and you can sense the difference, can’t you?” Kheva said.
Sasha nodded. It was easy to tell the difference, even though Kheva looked like Kheva, Sasha was sensing him just as much as he was physically seeing Kheva in front of him. It was different here than it was in reality, you found them by your abilities, not by sight or sound.
“Good, you understand it,” Kheva said with a slight nod. “Remember when you first discovered what you could do? When I commanded you to calm Kel down after that idiot in the store upset him?”
Sasha nodded. That was the first time he’d truly been able to sense that beacon of light, that ball of energy. Kel’s had been a flare because of how upset he was, and Sasha had easily learned how to cloak him, how to calm him down.
“Explain how you did it,” Kheva said.
It took Sasha a moment to line up the words. He felt like a kid inside of a classroom right now, one that was called up to the front of the class and made to explain complicated instructions. Except it wasn’t the children laughing at him for messing up that he was afraid of, it’s the teacher who was mentally holding a Taser in his hand.
“It was like I was throwing calmness at it, like a blanket of calm,” Sasha said, hoping he was explaining it correctly. “He was like a ball of frantic static that I smothered.”
Kheva nodded in approval. “Yes, that is exactly what you did,” he said. Sasha beamed at this, though he tried not to outwardly show it. “This time, you’re not going to soothe…”
Kheva took a step back.
“You’re going to destroy.”
Destroy? Sasha gawked at him, both dark eyebrows raising over shocked eyes. “Like that horrible pain you can give us? You’re going to teach me that?”
When Kheva nodded, Sasha’s chest filled with cold shock, a shiver even went up his spine. “Holy shit,” he whispered, but then another thought occurred to him. “Wait… are we in danger?” His thoughts immediately went to Nik and Sterling. Did his discovery of Nik’s betrayal lead to some huge secret plot? Were they… enemies?
Kheva’s yellow eyes flashed. “I am the one who causes the danger, nightcrawler,” he snarled.
“Okay, okay.” Sasha held up both his hands. “I’m sorry, you know why I thought that; you can’t blame me…”
This drew a cooled look from Kheva. “I can blame you for not having faith in your master,” he said, and to Sasha’s surprise, the black and red forest suddenly dropped in temperature. “I protect what is mine.” The cold air made puffs of white vapor fall from Kheva’s mouth. “Remember that, nightcrawler, I will protect you and Keluva to the death.”
All Sasha could do was stare. “I understand,” he said. “I’m sorry, Master. I’m yours to teach anything to, and I won’t question why.”
Kheva gave a short nod. “You’re learning at least,” he said. “I was wondering if you would take advantage of this break in your mental development. Apparently, you are intelligent enough to be taught, and you don’t take advantage of kindness. Keluva fought me much longer.”
“He did?” For a brief, flickering moment, his mind went to Rob, wondering when Kheva had made Rob into Kel, but luckily Rob was quick to put the thought in the Dead Zone, Kheva didn’t even flinch, he hadn’t heard Sasha’s dangerous thought.
I need to watch myself. Fuck, but it’s impossible to monitor your own thoughts. That was the one fucking place we were free to think of the most random, or the most depraved shit out there.
“Yes,” Kheva replied, still no indication that he’d heard anything. “But with your personality, I knew it wouldn’t take long to break you. You are weak, in need of being built up; Keluva was…”
Strong, and in need of being broken?
But Kheva didn’t say that, his words halted and instead his attention turned back to Sasha. “What I am going to teach you, is a dangerous tool. It can be used to bring a man to his knees, and if used in a unique way, it can literally break one’s mind.”
Rob. That’s what happened to Rob.
“Wow,” Sasha said, trying to push these dangerous thoughts from his mind. It was like telling someone to not think about elephants. What do they do when you tell them that? They think about elephants. “I – I won’t disappoint you.”
“No, you won’t,” Kheva said. He was still a pace and a half away from Sasha, both hands now behind his back. “Now, I want you to concentrate on me. What do you see in my beacon that you didn’t see in Kel’s when he was in that state?”
That was easy. “You’re just a bright light,” Sasha explained. “You’re not staticky and chaotic, you’re not… radiating this unstable mad-”
“Unstable,” Kheva cut him off. “Remember that, remember how unstable he was. I want you to do that to me.”
Sasha stared. “You – you want me to hurt you?”
Kheva gave him a flat look, like he was looking at the slow kid in class that had failed to answer an easy question. “You think the most powerful man in
the world can be hurt by a beginner’s little pinprick?” he said. “You don’t have the abilities to even make my scalp tickle, nightcrawler. Do your worst.”
Well, I guess he’s right about that. Sasha licked his lips and stepped backwards, then, with his eyes fixed on Kheva, he tried to disrupt the smooth beacon of light that was Kheva’s presence.
“Well, that’s just pathetic,” Kheva said airily.
Sasha gave him a glowering look, then with his eyes narrowed and his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth, he pushed all of his energy forward and shoved it into Kheva.
But surprisingly, Kheva shoved back. Sasha stumbled backwards, but regained his balance.
“You’re not trying to push me away, nightcrawler, you’re trying to make me scream in pain,” Kheva called.
Sasha sighed. “Can you show me how a bit better?” he asked. “I have no idea how––” When he saw a bright yet nefarious look cross Kheva’s face, he realized what he’d just asked. “No! No, I didn’t mean––” Sasha screamed as a blinding pain ripped through his head, like Kheva had ripped off the top of his skull and was pouring molten metal onto his exposed brain.
The force of the pain had him falling to the ground. He writhed and screamed with his hands clenching his head, the soles of his shoes digging into the rocky ground.
Then, with a sharp gasp, Sasha was pulled backwards. The silver moonlight over the starry galaxy disappeared, and Sasha found his eyes opening to bright blue sky.
Bright, yet his eyes were already used to it.
“Don’t move,” Kheva suddenly said. “Don’t even look anywhere else, stay absolutely frozen.”
Sasha’s heart jolted, the first instinct he had was to look from side to side and flail around. But he remained calm, and soon heard Kheva’s bootsteps come closer, until he was standing right over him.
Kheva kneeled down and put a hand on Sasha’s shoulder. “Slowly turn towards me,” he said.
Confused, Sasha rolled towards Kheva until he was flat on his stomach.
“Now get up.”
Sasha continued to obey, and rose to his feet. While returning to standing, Kheva grasped his shoulder and pulled Sasha towards him. The force of it was enough to make Sasha yelp and stumble forward.
He turned back towards Kheva, wondering what the fuck that was about… then his heart dropped.
Sasha was only a foot and a half away from the edge of the cliff.
“Oh fucking hell,” Sasha said breathlessly. “You made me almost fall!”
“You’re the idiot stumbling backwards as you tried to shove me like an angry child,” Kheva snapped. “Important rule, nightcrawler, stay still when you’re in Silent Ground. If you don’t pay attention, you’ll move in reality and you will eventually get hurt.”
“Wow,” Sasha said. He looked at the scenery he’d been admiring earlier, now seemingly not as impressive once he’d been inside of Kheva’s Silent Ground. “So, it’ll only happen if I’m not paying attention?”
“Yes,” Kheva said. “Now let’s go. You’re not ready for that ability yet, your mind can only go so far with positive reinforcement apparently.”
Sasha followed behind Kheva as the Master began walking back down the trail. At least he should be able to keep up now since it was all downhill. “If you just show me a bit more, I know I’ll get it,” Sasha protested. “Can you let me practice on Kel?” He’d like nothing more than to pay Kel back for the pain he’d caused over the last several weeks.
“Go right ahead, but your mind isn’t there yet, you’ll do nothing until you advance,” Kheva said.
“And how do I advance? I have been advancing.”
“That’s enough questions, nightcrawler,” Kheva said. “We will walk the rest of the way in silence so I can enjoy the tranquility before Keluva’s voice destroys it.”
Sasha sighed, but said nothing; he continued following Kheva’s footsteps as they walked back down to Ciel Lake.
That night, Sasha enjoyed a dinner of smoked ham with cabbage and mashed potatoes. He was still being fed by Kheva, but he was so used it now he didn’t even bat an eye towards the strange custom of control. What was better, was that he was getting enough food to fill himself up, and by the time dessert was done, he was usually stuffed and looking forward to lounging on the couch for several hours before bed.
Evening was the most peaceful time of the day. Before coming here, the evenings, the afternoons, and the mornings (if Sasha even saw morning since he tended to get up late) were all the same. It didn’t matter if the sun was up or down, he was inside where the weather and the temperature was the same, the only difference was that there was no light framing his white blinds.
But here, if Sasha wasn’t helping Kel prepare breakfast, he woke up at nine o’clock, showered and dressed for breakfast at nine-thirty. Then once that was completed and the dishes were loaded into the dishwasher, he fed Jye by hiding the chunks of meat around the property, fed the chickens and collected the eggs, then reported to Kheva with whatever his next task was. Sometimes it was gardening, other times he did maintenance on the small buildings scattered around the field (and since he’d never done building maintenance he was quite proud of what he’d learned), hell, sometimes Kheva pointed towards the lake shed and told Sasha and Kel to go fishing for a few hours for dinner. It varied every day.
Then it was lunch, practicing his nightcrawler abilities for a few hours, or reading or watching an hour of television, and it was back to work until dinner.
By the time evening came, when the kitchen was clean, the dishwasher humming, and dinner put away, Sasha was exhausted, but it was a good exhausted. When he’d been living in his old home, every day was the same, there were no rewards, no challenges, no exhausting work. Sasha would watch TV, play video games, hang out with Jobe or Lex, or be bed-ridden from his headaches. There was no challenge.
And that was why evening was his favourite time of the day. Because Sasha’s hands and feet ached, he was physically exhausted which made being able to relax all the more meaningful. What was better, was that if he hadn’t earned his dinner that day, Kheva would show it by not feeding him enough. So, when he entered into the last stretch of the night with a full stomach, he knew he’d done good.
It was an amazing feeling.
Since giving in… since deciding he was no longer going to fight against Kheva’s teachings, no matter how degrading, no matter how bizarre––life had been good. He’d really been enjoying his time here the past week.
And even more so… he’d been really enjoying being around Kheva.
That man was just amazing. Something about him made Sasha’s heart feel funny, no matter how fucked up that sounded.
Perhaps he was putting those own growing feelings in the Dead Zone himself, since he knew they would infuriated Rob.
“Sasha, maybe later would you like to play Scrabble with me?” Kel asked. He was sitting on the bear rug with his legs crossed. There was a notebook full of thick art paper on his lap and an assortment of drawing pencils scattered around him. Apparently four months ago, before Sasha had arrived, he’d decided to take up drawing. His subject was Jye, who was stretched out like a cheetah in the African sun, his spotted stomach pointing towards the fireplace.
Soon, it would be warm enough to not have the fireplace on at night, but the last several days had been overcast during daylight and cool at night, which made a fire needed at night. Kheva had baseboard heating throughout the house, but it was less fuel for the generator to burn wood.
“Sure,” Sasha said. He was lying similar to Jye, on his back stretched out on the couch. He was watching The X-Files on television, Kheva beside him on his black stuffed chair writing in that leather-bound notebook.
“I’m pretty good with words,” Kel said smiling. “Even if you lose, you’ll win, because I’ll teach you new words, words like… imperative, and supercilious.”
“You won’t be able to play your word game tonight, Kel,” Kheva said, his
eyes flickering up at the clock. Sasha looked too but saw that it was only ten o’clock. There was plenty of time for a board game, right?
As Sasha contemplated this, a frown now chasing away Kel’s smile, Kheva rose to his feet. “Could I perhaps play it tomorrow?” Kel asked sadly, his eyes following Kheva as the Master walked across the living room and into the kitchen.
“Tomorrow won’t be a good time,” Kheva said. “Sasha and I will be leaving on an errand.” He walked back into the living room, a strange little black device in his hand.
Oh, it was a timer. Sasha had seen it resting on top of the kitchen stove, Kel used it all the time since he was so easily distracted.
Why did he have a timer with him?
Kel didn’t reply to Kheva; he himself was staring at Kheva and the timer with partial interest and partial suspicion. But when Kheva sat back down, the timer in his hand, Kel’s eyes widened.
“Do you remember the game we used to play, Keluva?” Kheva said. His green and yellow eyes lifted from the black timer, and fixed on the nightcrawler as he slowly began to wind the dial.
The living room fell to silence, all but the scrrrt scrrrt scrrrt of Kheva winding the dial.
Sasha’s eyes went from Kheva’s face to Kel’s, apprehension now growing. What had begun as a nice calm evening, had been snatched away by a single action. All of a sudden, with stunning speed, Sasha was ripped away from the relaxing homeyness of the living room around him, and plunged headfirst into the dark waters of anxiety and the home-grown feeling of just not knowing what the fuck was going on.
With Sasha’s eyes on him, Kheva put the timer on the coffee table.
And he looked directly at Sasha.
“You have a ten-minute head start,” he said, and Sasha’s eyes widened. “I’d start hiding now.”
“W-what?” Sasha stammered. He stared at Kheva, his mouth open, but the real anxiety came when he saw the grin suddenly appear on Kel’s face. “A head start against what?”
