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Hey!
Just wanted to drop a content warning for self-harm by knife. At no point in the story is anyone actively harming themselves or encouraging anyone to hurt themselves, but while editing, I could see how it may be interpreted that way.
If this is a trigger, no worries, I'll include a summary at the end.
Thanks!
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Anna's leg just wouldn't relax under the sheets. She tried shifting and changing positions, she tried drinking water, she even tried just flat out resisting the urge to have it move, but the fucking thing just wouldn't leave her alone. She heard it called 'restless leg syndrome' or something, but whatever it was called she was getting ready to punch a fucking hole through her wall.
Admitting defeat, she finally sat up and flipped the light on. The place was just as she left it when she flipped the light off, empty. Well, it wasn't any emptier than normal. There was still furniture and everything else that was typically there, but there wasn't a Kitty where there typically was. When Anna first heard the plan, she thought she'd love having the room to herself for a while.
It was great for the first couple of nights. After that, she found that the house started to creak more, and the urge to lock her bedroom door at night. She didn't know why; nothing was different from before. And if there was some ghost that haunted the house, she'd know about it by now… right?
"This is stupid," Anna said to no one in particular, then found her jacket and boots. "Finally get some fucking alone time and I can't even enjoy it." She didn't bother zipping up the coat before heading out of her bedroom door. "I finally get some fucking peace and quiet," Anna is only a couple of steps before heading out the front door when she relizes her boots are untied. She props her foot up on the window's ledge and fastens one boot after another in turn. "And my leg gets all weird and I can't fucking fall asleep," She unlocks and throws open the door. A wall of cold brings life back to the numbness in her skin.
"Stupid," Anna said a few feet down the path from the front door. Her coat was zipped all the way to her throat, and her hands were stuffed in her pockets. "It's not like I even really miss her, it's probably just because I'm used to having her around." Nothing replies to her accusations aside from the crunch of fallen snow beneath her. She found herself checking her phone every other minute, but there was nothing ever on it to check.
"It's, like, whatever, right?" She said, stepping over a log. "You know, Kurt has Evan, Scott, and Jean are buddies…" Breathing became a little more difficult as she continued her trek through the woods. She activated the flashlight on her watch to make sure she didn't wipe out on a tree. "But, you know, I've always been a loner. I don't actually, like, need anyone. Some people are just built different."
The terrain became more difficult to navigate than she remembered, but she felt an echo of relief originate from her stomach when she found the well-trodden foot path. "And the only guy I know who'd get that is the meat man himself. Yeah, me and him, we're both loner types that don't need no-body. Nope." The cold started to settle into her ragged body. She hugged herself tighter.
"Couple of alpha male types," She said after a while. "He'll understand when I, uh, tell him how much I don't care…" Her brain fog was getting worse, but when the hill crested and she could see the top of Logan's camp, she felt a spark in her chest. "I just hope my fellow alpha wolf has some hot coffee or something…" When she finally reached the camp, though, she found no fire or lights in any of the tents.
"Hey!" She called into the darkness, "Big dog!" She actually heard herself bark a couple of times, "You there?" Either he didn't want to dignify any of that with a response, or he really wasn't. Anna found his cabin with the help of her light and knocked, but there was no answer. "Logan?" She peered in the windows, but there was no sign of life inside. "Big dog?" She said in a much smaller voice and without barking this time.
She tried the door and found the door opened easily. The inside was as tidy as Logan got. As in, the bed had sheets on it and his collection of mud scuffed boots were by the door. Plates were neatly put away next to a hand made sink with the wash towel hung out on a rack. She touched the towel and found it bone dry.
She spotted a pot belly stove and found it stone cold. "I don't know i-if," She hugged herself tightly as she found it increasingly more difficult to breathe, "I should try to go back to the mansion like this." Getting on all fours, she opened the pot belly stove and found some nearby wood. "T-This can't be too hard to figure out… r-right?"
It took a tries between a few different lighting methods. The one involving soaking a log in lighter fluid was ambitious and a little too effective. However, when she found the much smaller lighter he kept near the stove as opposed to the flame thrower outside near the grill, and joining that with the newspaper kindling, a whole lot more made sense. Soon, she was sitting in front of a roaring, but most importantly, contained fire. Once the ice melted in her blood, she found a hurricane lantern a lit it. Then the whole room was alight in soft dancing yellows and reds.
She watched the flames move and flick inside their little house. For a moment, she felt like she was back on one of the campouts she had with her parents as a kid. The camping phase was brief, but she enjoyed it. Well, she enjoyed the s'mores and playing with the ladybugs.
Her eyes wandered from one end of the cabin to the other. What struck most was how barren it was. The cozy cabin aesthetic was nice and all, but surely this guy would have to go crazy after a while staring at blank walls. Walking the small space, she could feel her body return to life after its deep freeze. Eventually, she came to rest on Logan's bed and was surprised by how much the thing sagged. It was funny, the frame looked to be made of solid steel bars but yet there was a bow in the middle. The old man must be dense as hell. She spotted something else under the bed, resting near the end where his head would lie.
She pulled it into the light and found it was a little strong box. It was certainly nothing that would pass the Xavier standards of security, that was for sure. Anna took off her glove and ran her hand across the lid's dented metal surface. At the corners, the metal plating was pealing and revealed a worn wooden and leather interior. There was a handle on the top, but one of the original hinges looked as if it had broken long ago. In its place was a wound piece of metal wire.
She placed the box back where she found it, or at least as close as she could. When she pulled her arm back, she dislodged something long and shiny. She pulled it out and found a short sword the length of her forearm. The blade was curved, and the grip was wrapped in thick leather.
Just holding the thing felt like a workout out it was so heavy. When she turned it over in her hand, a charm at the end flopped against her wrist. The charm, what looked like some sort of Kanji symbol, attached to the hilt by a short length of braided leather strip. She held it aloft like a samurai in an old action movie.
"God damn," She lowered the thing back into her lap. "I bet this thing could take a head off." She caught her reflection in the blade. Curling and uncurling her ungloved hand, she could feel the dry skin stretch at the back of her wrist. Palm open, she exposed her unprotected flesh inches from the blade. Slowly, she lowered the sword's edge till it came into contact with her. Even more slowly, she allowed the thing to drag across her hand.
She felt something there, but it was difficult to imagine what it was in her mind's eye what it was without looking. Drawing the blade back, she looked at her hand. Her hand looked untouched. Again, she flexed her hand a few times, thinking that the blood would take a moment to start flowing from such a clean cut. Still, nothing happened.
So she tried again, but this time pressing into her hand with the edge. Again, she could feel the sword, but she didn't feel the heat of a cut or even the need to pull away. When she drew back the blade a second time, her skin was still completely unharmed.
"What the hell…" For the next several minutes, she tried different techniques of slashing, cutting, and even once stabbing her hand with various degrees of strength, but still nothing happened. She at one point hit her hand so hard with the sword that the small table she had propped her hand up on had cracked.
The sword dropped to the bed as she stared at her hand. Then she looked at the stove. Getting on all fours, she tried to see how long she could rest her bare hand on the hot metal surface. The heat bit into her skin and she had to screw her eyes shut to edure it. Finally, when she took her hand back, she saw it was red, but there was nothing to indicate any burns were forming. If anything, her hand felt completely back to normal as soon as she took it off the stove surface.
"What… is happening to me?"
The answers didn't come in her sleep when she finally managed to doze off in Logan's bed. There were only dreams of a hospital… but it wasn't a hospital. Someplace with medical equipment, but few people were wearing anything to indicate they were doctors. It all finally ended when the morning sun peeked through the window and into her eyes.
The way back to the mansion was easier to navigate under the early morning light. She was more than eager to climb up the stairs and turn into the girls' bathroom for a long shower. She turned the heat up as hot as it could to rinse out the last of the night's frigid weather. Her body, which was beginning to feel like it had been put through the spin cycle of a washing machine a few too many times, thanked her for it. After she toweled off and cleared the fog from the bathroom mirror, however, it wasn't her reflection looking back at her. It was a man's. Not only was it a man's, but it was Juggernaut's beady eyes into her own.
"Jesus - god!" She leaped back and hit the wall. White clouds of drywall fell on her bare shoulders. She inched closer to the mirror again, but this time saw only her own reflection staring back at her. She put her hand on the mirror. "What the hell is happening to me?"
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Summary:
Anna has a hard time sleeping and walks out to Logan's cabin in the hope of finding him there to talk to. She doesn't find him there and instead finds the camp empty. To fight off the cold, she starts a fire in the stove and decides to spend the night in the abandoned cabin.
In the cabin, she finds a sword. Fascinated by the fact that a knife broke attacking her at school, she tried to see if the sword could even hurt her and found it didn't.
The next morning, she returns to the house for a shower. However, in the bathroom mirror, instead of her reflection, she saw Juggernaut's image staring back at her.
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