When Allegra took out her phone, Charlie gave her an ever so slightly exasperated look. Selfies were strange, vain things that she still hadn’t quite wrapped her head around. Photographs were incredible things that were supposed to be used for a purpose. As a well-studied photographer in all forms of the technology since its invention, Charlie considered herself to be a bit of an expert on such things. People were throwing away the privilege with the instantaneousness of it all.

Still, she was supposed to be in her twenties, so selfies were meant to be her area of expertise. In order to keep up the guise, she threw the hat on and tilted it to the side, her hand resting on the brim. She gave the camera one of her most sultry looks and posed with the girl.

They were on their way after that, and Charlie was glad to be out of Allen’s field of vision. She hated seeing people become everything they hated when they aged. It was so sad. Part of her wanted to just shake him or put him out of his misery.

She wasn’t opposed to letting Allegra think that he knew her family. That actually made more sense than anything that she was about to tell her. People could make excuses for anything that didn’t make sense in nature. ”That’s probably it. I think she travelled, or something.” That was definitely not it. Travelling at that time from England to America was not easy or cheap. It wasn’t something that she expected a teen to know about, though.

”I think he was just sad,” Charlie sighed. ”Sometimes it’s hard to come to terms with the fact that you didn’t become the person that you wanted to be.” One of the best parts of her powers was that she didn’t have to worry about that. She had the next eternity to be whatever she wanted.

Allegra had drawn her attention to someone standing on a stage. Standing. Just standing. He wasn’t doing anything else. Normally, that would be something that would be laughed or booed off stage, but the crowd actually seemed to be having a great time. It was a very strange thing to see indeed. Charlie wanted to see more of it.

”We’re definitely checking that out,” Charlie nodded, stepping forward as she eyed the scene curiously. It was like nothing that she’d ever seen before, and she’d seen a lot. Every thought of hunger or thirst had gone from her mind, and all she wanted to do was see what was going on.

“Looking sexy!” Allegra complemented Charlie as she snapped a picture and yet another. Allegra was glad to see that Charlie loved getting her picture taken. It was so awesome to find a selfie-BFF and Allegra planned on taking many to send to Kristii. Allegra’s frenemy was going to see how much fun they were having.

“So your grandma traveled the world, huh?” Allegra commented. “You must’ve gotten your adventurous spirit from her. I doubt she hooked up with that old guy back there, though.”

Allegra listened to Charlie’s assessment of the guy. “Wow. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to come to terms with the fact that you didn’t become the person that you wanted to be.’ That’s great. I’m gonna remember that. It’s so deep.” Charlie did seem so much older and wiser than she obviously was. “But he can’t be too upset, right? His daughter’s got lots of talent. I hope he’s proud of her. My dad doesn’t think anything of me so at least that guy back there’s got family.”

“Okay, let’s check it out then,” Allegra said. “I just hope it’s not one of those stupid performance art things. Bunch of pompous people dancing to nothing to make some kind of statement. Bor-ing!”

As they got closer to the stage, there were confronted by an impossibly 9 foot tall orange skinned mountain of a man.

“Stop right dere,” he commanded. “Yous gotta sign this here waiver before ya can go in. And get yer bags searched?”

“A waiver?” Allegra asked. “So we can dance to no music? Um….no.”

“Of course. Yous never heard’a TJ Psilocybin?”

“Can’t say I’ve ever heard of DJ Psycho or whatever,” Allegra said. “No.”

“Not DJ. TJ,” the ogre explained in the frustrated tone of someone speaking to a child. “TJ. Telepathic DJ. ‘Cept he don’t read minds. He give memories. He taps inta yer brain's memory cells so you remember yer favorite songs."

The ogre gestured over to the dancers. "Dey all silently 'hear' a different song in their minds. Their neurons replay all’a da experiences and emotions connected to dat song. He den heighten those feelings and his mental remixes take the brain to the highest level of euphoria."

“Of course, sometimes someone has a bad trip, ya know,” the ogre cautioned. “Memories is tricky things. Sometimes peoples go to dark places. Heck, dere are dose dat believe in reincarnation and dey remember stuff from past lives. Stuff dey wasn’t able to remember before.”  He glanced over at Charlie. “If you believe in dat kinda thing.” 

He handed clipboards to the two girls. “So ya sign da waiver or ya scram. As for searching yer bags, ya can’t be too careful. Lotsa people don’t like mootants and dey like mootants dat can get inta yer mind even less.”

Allegra looked over to Charlie. She was a little nervous about this, especially the ‘mootant’ part. She really didn’t trust mutants and she really didn’t want to invite one into her brain. But she was supposed to be spontaneous and fearless today so she’d follow Charlie’s lead.

Charlie froze in place as she stared up at the orange man. He was offering her… the chance to relive memories with no strings attached. Well, a few strings, but they had to be weighed against the pros of what she was considering.

If you lived long enough, you accumulated quite a few memories. Charlie had more than her share, but it was rare that she could access them all. Sometimes, she woke up in the basement of that old bar and could barely remember where she was. All she wanted sometimes was to be able to remember why exactly she was still fighting to live.

What she wanted in that life was to be able to remember her first life. Her first memories were fragmented after her last death, and she could hardly remember Elizabeth, her first love. There was a part of her that wanted to see if she would be able to find that again; to hold onto it.

She stared at him blankly for a moment, her eyes moving slowly between him and the waiver. There was a chance that she could relive something beautiful, but there was also a chance that she could go somewhere dark and lose it. She could lose it in the middle of that big field in front of a bunch of people and do something dangerous.

It was a good thing that she could care less about those people.

The corners of Charlie’s mouth tugged upward as she reached for a pen. She would either see something amazing or she would see something horrible; either way, it would be something new and interesting. She was there.

She paused. Allegra. She was supposed to be sticking with Allegra. Did she really want to risk losing it in front of her? She was probably the one person that she actually cared a little for, despite having just met her. Eh, f*** it. Allegra would get over it if something bad happened and move on with her life. It wasn’t as if she was making her do anything, either. She was… some age, and probably capable of making her own decisions. Charlie wasn’t her mom. If she wanted to ignore the risks and participate too, then it was her own choice.

”I’m doing it,” Charlie announced as she scratched out her name on the form. ”You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I won’t judge.” She gave the orange man some cash to cover the entrance fee and then looked at Allegra. She had just enough to cover her if she wanted to join.

”Good choice, lady. You’ll have yerself a good time. Pro’aly.”

Allegra was really nervous. She wanted to turn back but Charlie was intent on jumping into this freak show. What was Allegra going to do? Just stand
all by herself while Charlie had fun? Allegra wasn't about to go back to her own friends. And she knew she'd have no fun at this festival if she was all by herself. No, she'd have to prove she was ready to get out there and seize the day.

"I'm in too," Allegra said as her shaking hand signed the waiver.

"Here's yer cards to give back to me to get yer stuff back," the ogre said. Allegra looked longingly as her phone was locked away with her purse.

"And you'll need dese," he said handing the ladies glow sticks. "Wrap dem around yer necks when you want the music to start. He isn't gonna do anything wit'out yer permission. Take 'em off when you've had enough but I guarantee you'll wanna stay there forever."

"Yeah, sure," Allegra said. She looked up to Charlie as if to say 'are we really going to do this?' But of course, they were. Allegra wrapped the
glow stick around her neck and connected the two plastic ends and waited for...

Nothing.

Allegra was just standing there. Obviously this whole thing was a hoax. She  wondered if Charlie felt as stupid as she did. Allegra started walking to the entrance humming some song she couldn't get out of her head.

It was a lullaby her parents used to sing her when she was a baby. It was something about a rabbit but Allegra had been too young to know that.  She just remembered those two giant people staring down at her lovingly. The words were still nonsense through the filter of a child's mind as they filled Allegra's head louder and louder with a pulsing beat.

The lullaby flowed seamlessly into a jumbled medley of her favorite childhood cartoon themes. Cartoon character voices repeated becoming part of the beat as guitar riffs entered the mix and boomed through Allegra's head. Allegra remembered the rock song even if she couldn't remember who sang it. She hadn't liked it at first but it was David Mitchell's favorite song and Allegra loved anything associated with her first crush. He loved her too but both were too shy to admit how they felt about each other and they drifted apart. But as this song now whirled around her head and mixed with some of Charlie's courage and in her remixed memories, Allegra was able to tell David how she felt. That was so easy. Why didn't she do it in real life? But, lost in this song, she didn't need to. She was now replaying their happiest memories together even though they never happened.

The tempo then increased and the pulsing beats echoed with random snippets from her favorite song
( www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwB9EMpW8eY. ) 
It was one that she and her best friends listened to together and considered their theme song. Allegra closed her eyes and she was with them again. In her head, she never became a mutant and never had to go to Xavier's. She and her squad would be forever. And now Allegra had a forever boyfriend and parents that loved her. A life she desperately wished could have been magically existed on the dance floor. Allegra spun, danced and whirled as she relived the perfect version of her life over and over again. She never wanted it to stop.

But it was interrupted. One of the dancers hurled himself at Allegra and slammed into her as he bolted away from the crowds. Screaming, he ran face first into the stage and banged his head over and over against the concrete.

With unbelievable speed, the orange giant ran over and grabbed him before he could give himself a concussion (though he'd probably suffer irreparable mental damage.)

"Nuttin' to see here. Just a bad trip. Enjoy yous'selves," he said as he carried the man screaming and crying over his shoulder.

Allegra was horrified at first but the music and the visions were just too hard to resist. So she closed her eyes and tried to put this sight out of
her mind and go back to her fantasy world.

And she would have, except she thought about Charlie. Allegra didn't want her new friend to end up like that. So reluctantly she pulled the glow necklace off herself. The music and the ecstasy that went with them ended like a car crash.

The tears flowed down her face but Allegra barely noticed. It would be so easy to go back to the musical fantasy but she couldn't return. She pushed her way through the zombie like crowd. "Charlie! Charlie! Where are you?"

”Here’s to living a little,” Charlie said as she raised her glow stick to Allegra as if she was toasting her. She then nodded to the orange man, who had taken her bag, and trudged off into the field with little care or regard for the girl that she was supposed to be sticking with. She was interested in what the man had to offer, and she wasn’t used to having a tail. Allegra was old and smart enough to keep up, she figured.

With a swift motion, she cracked her glow stick and clipped it around her neck, signalling that she was ready to start whenever. While she waited for something, anything to happen, she flipped her hair out of the little ring and spread her legs in a spot on the grass, eyeing the swaying participants around her. Allegra had joined her nearby, so all that needed to happen was-

Violins. She was back in England as her eyes slid closed. It was one of her earliest memories that she often forgot. She was sitting on her father’s knee, probably at about six or seven, listening to a group of live performers at some sort of event. She remembered it being one of the most beautiful things she had ever heard or seen, with the way that they swayed and became one with the music. Before the blonde knew it, she was swaying and dancing just like the rest of the idiots in that field.

Memories swirled around her, most of them from peaceful moments involving music. Billie Holiday on the radio. That Elvis concert. Led Zeppelin. Moments that she’d either forgotten or that hadn’t come to mind in years. It was wonderful and peaceful, and everything around her had melted.

She only came out of her trance when there was a rush of air beside her and she was pushed aside by someone running toward the stage. Annoyedly, she forced her eyes open as she watched a man attempt to bash his own head in. What an *sshat. Couldn’t even deal with whatever memories the man had dredged up. It wasn’t even like she’d seen anything bad, and she’d had plenty of terrible memories to choose from.

It was almost as if she’d jinxed it. As soon as she thought about the excellent track record she was building, the memory that she was seeing shifted. It was later on at that Led Zeppelin concert, and someone had taken something bad. There was commotion all around her, and then, suddenly, there were hands on her. Too many hands to fend off at once. There were missing pieces from that particular memory, but the scenes flashed in and out, leaving her at the end. Just like the man on the stage, her head was being smashed forceable against the pavement. The memory of the pain had stayed in tact.

The blonde gasped for air and took a step back, not thinking to unclasp the light around her neck. The pain was overwhelming, and the memories just kept coming. More deaths when music was playing. There was no shortage of them.

Charlie pushed blindly through the hoards of people, the pain numbing her senses and dulling her thoughts. She just had to keep going. Maybe that would make it stop.

“Charlie! Charlie!” Allegra shouted. In the silence of the concert, her voice boomed but hardly anyone heard her. Everyone else was lost in their private fantasies.

She finally saw her friend crashing wildly through the zombie crowd. “Charlie!” Allegra shouted. She grabbed the (much) older woman’s arm and suddenly Allegra was somewhere else.

Allegra heard violins playing and the crowd was gone. Instead, everyone was dressed like they were in some Kiera Knightley period movie. Everyone seemed fascinated by some classical band that was already putting Allegra to sleep. All classical songs sounded exactly the same.

Suddenly one she knew filtered through her consciousness. It was 'Here Comes The Bride' and Allegra gasped for air. The wedding dress she was now wearing was gorgeous but the corset was practically cutting off her circulation. How did people wear these things? Allegra understood suffering for fashion, but this was extreme.

“I do I do I do I do” the words looped repeatedly while a wild electronic symphony played in the background. When Allegra turned to look at her ‘husband,’ she was now staring down the barrel of a gun.

“James no!” Allegra shouted in a voice that wasn’t her own. She felt her chest explode as her screams that weren’t her screams mixed in with a wild array of songs both famous and obscure. She tried pushing off an infinite swarm of hands while ‘Misty Mountain Hop’ thundered in her ears. Even though the song sounded familiar she didn’t know who sang it. It was just another one of those old bands with screaming guitar songs that went on way too long. Jimmy Page’s guitar solo ended abruptly as Allegra’s head exploded and she felt herself slammed against the same cold concrete floor.

The cold darkness only lasted for an eternal second and then bright lights flooded Allegra’s eyes. Some big band song assaulted her ears. ‘Mack the Knife’ she thought it was and then she felt something sharp and then the pain and the darkness returned.

Allegra woke up again to the sounds of chanting then a hundred more songs mixed together so quickly she couldn’t identify them. Faster and faster they played only to be silenced by pain, darkness and the same musty basement smell. Before Allegra could get her bearings, the cycle started again, looping faster and faster.

“STOP!” Allegra shouted and it did. Everything went silent. Allegra was now lying in a pool of blood in some dark basement. She wanted to scream but realized that was a bad idea. Whoever put her down here (is that was happened?) would hear her and shoot her again (wait, had she been shot??)

“Someone please help me,” Allegra cried. Her hands slid on the cold wet floor looking for….?. She wasn’t sure but she found it. A thin plastic tube. She grasped it and …….

…...unclasped the glow necklace around Charlie’s neck. Allegra was back to reality again, thank god! “Charlie! Are you okay?”

Allegra hugged her friend still not knowing what she had just experienced. Were those Charlie’s memories? No that couldn’t be. Just some bad mental mojo.

Gently Allegra pushed her friend away from the dancers. “It’s all gonna be okay,” Allegra said. “The freakshow is over. It’s over.”

Allegra looked around for someplace they could just sit down and get their bearings. That’s when she saw the body. She couldn’t see it when she looked at it straight on but when she glanced out of her peripheral vision, she saw the bloody remains of a pretty girl lying there.

“Oh my god!” Allegra shouted.  “It’s Iris. She’s been shot!”

Her breath had left her briefly as she tried to get a grasp on her spiralling memories. Somewhere in the distance, maybe in another life, she felt a hand on her arm, but it wasn’t coming through clear enough to bring her out of any sort of trance. Instead, she continued to sway blindly, oblivious to the fact that her new mentee was experiencing the same mental f*** cycle that she was. At that point, she was lost to the world.

Only when Allegra unclasped her necklace was Charlie able to blink out of her daze. The memory sequence had been intense and exact; the mutant at the front knew only to stop once the necklace was off. Surely it was a taxing duty for him, but he was good at what he did.

Charlie sunk to her knees and worked hard to force air into her lungs. She was fine. She was fine. Shewasfine, shewasfine, shewasfine. Her hands travelled up toward her throat as she did her best to choke in a breath that would actually do more than the little sips that she seemed to be taking. Luckily for Charlie, she was good at bouncing back. Within a few seconds of good, deep breaths, she was no longer shaking, and she was starting to feel like herself again. Charlie got to her feet and took in one final breath to settle herself before moving on. She wanted to get out of there.

The day, apparently, had other plans. Charlie had followed Allegra a few steps forward, but as she scanned the area ahead, her stomach sank. There was a dead body up ahead, and although she couldn't see the features, she could tell that it hadn't been a pretty end for the girl. The body looked almost familiar, though... she was probably just loosing her mind.

”Aw, f***,” Charlie cursed quietly. She’d only just gotten back her bearings, and already they were being bombarded with this. ”You know her?” The name had to have been a coincidence. There was no way that she was seeing the same recognizable features that she was. Maybe it was a distant ancestor or something. Iris was a pretty common name, wasn't it?

Allegra held tight to Charlie to steady herself as much as support her friend. Her brain was still zipping back and forth between reality and what-might-have-been. It was hard to stand steady let alone think.

“This concert totally sucks,” Allegra said. She was trying to make a joke but she was breathing as heavily as Charlie.

“Are you okay?" she asked Charlie. The poor girl looked like she had seen a ghost or two. "This is why mutants cannot be trusted!" Allegra shouted pointing at the DJ.  "What the hell just happened?” Allegra didn't like to make controversial statements but she was so tired of being a mutant and having to hold her tongue when she just wanted to say how dangerous they could be. And this DJ was dangerous.

Allegra looked back at the dancers as they slowly stumbled away. They all looked like zombies. Allegra could not believe she let herself be roped into this. Yes, she wanted to be fearless and adventurous but maybe she should have just stayed in today and watched TV.

Then there was the dead body. Everyone else was walking around like it didn’t even exist. Allegra thought she even saw someone walk THROUGH it. But if Charlie saw it too, then it couldn’t be a hallucination.

“Yes, I know her. I kind of more than just know her,” Allegra said hesitantly. Allegra wasn't into girls but the memories that wandered into her brain said otherwise. “Her name was Iris. My husband, James, was off fighting so I had the chance to do what a wanted and see who I wanted.  I’d meet Iris in the basement of the furniture shop her husband owned and we’d…..well, you know. But James found us and he shot us.”

Allegra turned to look at ‘Iris’ again but the body was gone. And now Charlie’s memories that had wormed their way into Allegra’s head while they were dancing quickly faded like a bad dream as well.

“What?” Allegra asked. She had a lingering image of a dark basement but even that was slowly starting to fade.

“I don’t know what I was talking about,” she said. “It had to have been one of those things the mutie DJ put in in my head. But, you saw the dead body too, right? I’m not crazy, am I?”

”Watch your tongue,” Charlie warned. She hated generalizations, even if, in this particular case, they did happen to be dealing with a dangerous mutant. ”You can’t possibly put every single mutant into the same category. They’re just as complex as humans. Do you trust me?”

The question was cut off by the dead body that was splayed out on the ground in front of them. Charlie had sworn, thinking that their troubles had ended when the necklaces had clicked off of their necks. But no, she was going to be haunted by the body of her ex-lover.

Only, there was no way that the body on the ground could be Iris. An Iris, maybe, but not her Iris. Her Iris that had died over two-hundred years ago. There was absolutely no way. It had to be some sort of weird coincidence that one of Allegra’s friends looked similar and shared the same name as the beauty that she remembered.

Still, as the image clicked into her brain, she realized that there was no way that the body could be anyone else. Even the way that she seemed to have crumpled in on herself after the gunshot was the same as it was in her memories. It had to be some sort of hallucination. It had to be. That was the only explanation.

But then why was Allegra seeing her too?

Not only was she seeing her, but the younger blonde seemed to be recounting tales from Charlie’s dark memory bank. A sour taste consumed her mouth as she was forced to relive her first life through the words of a fifteen-year-old girl that she’d met just a few hours earlier.

”Shut up. Shut the f*** up,” she hissed, taking a step back from the girl that she’d clearly underestimated. She lifted her hands and ran them through her hair, loosening the braids that were scattered throughout her mane. Her eyes looked down at the ground as she shook her head in disbelief. Was she yet another telepath? ”Where do you get off? Is this some sort of joke to you? Is reliving my memories some sort of twisted pleasure?”

Her knuckled retracted in anguish as she watched Iris’s body fade back into oblivion, where it belonged. It seemed that Allegra was done with her bulls*** in that format for the time being.

Allegra wasn't expecting another mutant lecture. Charlie seemed so normal. There was no way she could be a mutant, could she?

"I didn't mean that," Allegra insisted. "I don't have anything against mutants. In fact, I'm a muta....... I mean, I have good friends that are mutants." She wasn't quite sure she wanted to admit that just yet. Things were crazy enough already.

"Of course I trust you," Allegra said. "I was just a little freaked. I'm still a little freaked."

Then Charlie shouted at her and Allegra became ultimately completely freaked.

”Shut up. Shut the f*** up, you f****** pervert, Is this some sort of joke to you? Is reliving my memories some sort of twisted pleasure?”

"What?" Allegra cried. "I don't know what you're talking about. First, they can't be your memories. The things I saw happened a long time ago. Like a real long time ago. Like the Dark Ages or something." Allegra didn't care much for history but she figured any time period where everyone dressed in top hats and corsets while actually enjoying classical music had to be the Dark Ages.

"Second, I have no idea what just happened," she insisted. "It had to have been that damned mutie..... I mean DJ. He made me think and see things that I thought were completely real. He probably did the same to you. Take a deep breath and think about it for a second. We were like on some freaky acid trip and hallucinating. But it's not real. The body of.....Iris is gone," Allegra said struggling to remember Iris' name. Even that was fading like a bad dream.

"I just know I'm really scared and I want to get out of here and I need you with me. Please, let's go someplace more quiet and sort this out. Somewhere far away from that DJ freak."

It took quite a bit to rattle Charlotte Sinclair. She’d seen a lot in her time; dead bodies, evil factions, essentially the worst of what humanity and mutants could throw at her. It was for that reason that most things tended to roll off of her with a headshake and a strong drink.

As she looked between where the body of her once lover and the girl that had been tagging along with her for most of the day, though, Charlie felt her knees nearly buckle. Actual tears were coming from her eyes as she sucked in air. Either Allegra was an excellent actress, or she really believed what she was saying. She had already proven to be a young bigot with a weak mind, so the idea that she could be swayed with something like that wasn’t completely out of left field, but she still had to wrap her head around it.

Iris hadn’t really been there. It had just been in their heads, a strange, shared memory from her bank. Charlie winced as Allegra continued; it really did sound like she didn’t have a clue what was going on. She was just a scared little girl, not meaning any harm. Charlie very nearly felt bad for exploding on her like that.

Her head was still swimming with information, and her limbs were restless. She wanted to go run somewhere or punch something, but Allegra was asking her to leave with her; to get away from the DJ and his weird koolaid. Maybe that wasn’t the worst idea in the world.

Charlie’s eyes blinked closed and her fists loosened into open hands. With a turn of her heel, she started to walk away from the area where the rest of the crowd was still in a daze. The blonde walked straight toward a group of trees away from the scene, not bothering to look to see if Allegra was following her.

”Those were my memories you were seeing,” she reiterated once they’d reached a stop. Her eyes were fixed out on the treeline. ”I’m not as young as I look. Not by a longshot.”

Allegra was frightened. This was just too bizarre for her. Unlike Charlie, Allegra’s life was pretty sheltered and mutants that could yank memories out of your mind were not part of her game plan. She had come to dance and have a good time. Not witness dead bodies.

If Charlie hadn't been with her, Allegra would have probably started screaming a long time ago. Even after the older woman’s outburst, Allegra still wanted to help her. She saw the tears rolling down Charlie’s cheeks and Allegra knew the poor girl was really hurting. She obviously didn't witnessed a brutal murder of someone close to her but she thought she did. This psycho DJ could make things hurt like they were the real thing and Allegra couldn't stand to see anyone in pain like that.

That’s why Allegra followed her towards the trees. She felt responsible for Charlie somehow after having just relived her memories as well. She didn't want to barge in on Charlie's space so she let the older girl speak first.

”Those were my memories you were seeing,” I’m not as young as I look. Not by a longshot.”

Allegra stood at a distance from Charlie. She wanted to hug the girl but something about her did not seem like the hugging type.

“Charlie, none of this was real,” Allegra said. “There’s no way you could have lived those memories. Not unless you’re a vampire.”

Or a mutant.

“Oh,” Allegra said as the truth finally hit her. She could be a bit slow on the uptake but seeing the expression on Charlie’s face told Allegra that the reason Charlie believed everything was because it was all true.

“Hey, it was a long time ago and it’s over now,” Allegra said softly. “I’m sorry you had to go through that once. I can’t even imagine that, let alone having to go through it again. But it’s over. Were outside in the sunshine in 2017 at a dance festival. None of that can come back to hurt you.”

Before Charlie had a chance to speak, the large orange ogre mutant lumbered over to the pair.

“Just a reminder that you wants ta get yer belongings before you leave,” he said. “Also ya signed a waiver dat means any injuries either physical or psychological is our fault so ya can’t sue us.”

Allegra was now past the boiling point. She had just gone through possibly the worst experience of her life and she had to watch a friend go through it as well. It was bad enough that this kind of thing was allowed to exist, but the way that this creep didn't seem to care was beyond belief.

"My friend just went through hell because of that creepy mindtrip and all you can care about is if we're going to sue you?"

"Well, yeah," he answered.

"I don't care what I signed. You mutie freaks are not going to get away with this!" Allegra shrieked. She was now glowing bright green and a dull red glow surrounded the ogre. Allegra obviously had no idea what she was doing or what was going on. She was too wrapped up in her anger.

All the signs were likely pointing to some sort of mutant tampering for the young girl, Charlie figured. There was no way that one person could be alive for that long. She would be right, technically. Charlie hadn’t been alive for that long. Consecutively. If they were going to get really technical, she was only a few weeks old that time around.

She raised her eyebrows at the young girl as she was clearly attempting to piece something together. A vampire? No. The second time around, it seemed to click. Silently, Charlie nodded at her realization, as if to tell her that she was likely right in what she was assuming. The blonde then wiped her eyes and took in a deep breath. She needed to get a hold of herself. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had actually cried like that. Of course, with her memory, that wasn’t saying much, but she still didn’t want to start making a habit of it.

”I know it’s-” Charlie had started to snap out a response when the orange ogre came back, cutting her off.

Waivers were waivers. They’d known what they were getting into when they’d signed up for the experience. That was the stupid thing about places like that; they were upfront about what they did, and yet people still believed that they wouldn’t be the one that it would happen to. Charlie narrowed her eyes, but she had every intention of pushing past him to get her things. There was no one to blame there except her own f***ed up mind.

Allegra, on the other hand, clearly had other ideas. The young girl began to shout things at the man about how he didn’t care that they’d just been through hell. She was too young. She just didn’t understand that in the end, there wouldn’t be anyone to actually give a damn whether you were alright or not. Anyone who believed otherwise was setting themselves up for pain.

”Allegra, it’s his job not to care. We signed the waivers; we knew what we were getting into. Come on…” she trailed off when she the dull glow around both of the people in front of her. That was… well, it was a little worrying. The ogre didn’t seem to know what was going on, so either he had a secondary mutation that he didn’t know about, or Allegra had some explaining to do.

Charlie shook her head and grabbed at Allegra’s arm. Why was she even hanging out with this girl? She could have just left and been done with the whole situation. Something inside her felt bad just leaving her, though. She had to at least stick around for the rest of that encounter. Stick around and try to fix whatever the hell was happening. ”Are you doing that? You need to calm the f*** down. Right. Now.”

"We did NOT know what we were getting into!" Allegra shot back. "If we did, then we wouldn't have gotten into it. This guy cannot legal talk to us like that. My mom knows plenty of lawyers." The last part was more of a threat to the orange ogre than a reply to Charlie. Unlike the older woman, Allegra expected people to treat each other with respect and concern.

”Are you doing that? You need to calm the f*** down. Right. Now.”

"Am I doing what?" Allegra demanded. It was like when someone tells you to calm down when you're upset. It usually just makes you angrier. Allegra didn't notice what she was doing until it was too late.

The red glow covered the ogre and then he transformed into what looked close to a cartoon of himself.. His large eyes looked almost like fried eggs with a his black pupils as the yolk. His flat mouth moved but without a moving tongue it was impossible to understand what he was saying.

Worst of all, he was completely flat and almost two dimensional. He looked like he had been been drawn and cut out on a large piece of paper. His fingers fluttered in the breeze like paper fans. He tried to stand but his two dimensional feet were not enough to keep him balanced. The wind blew threatening to carry him away. He wrapped his arm around Charlie's to keep from being whisked up to the sky. In doing so, he suffered a rip on the crease of his right elbow. Blood red pieces of confetti flew out of the tear.

The DJ noticed this and turned his full attention to Allegra and Charlie. In doing so, he stopped his hypnotic concert. It would be fair to say it was like a puppeteer cutting his puppets' strings though only a few of the dancers actually fell down. Most just had looks of complete shock and they ambled silently like zombies trying to reclaim an experience that was now quickly fading from their minds.

Allegra's brain was now assaulted by a barrage of painful memories. Her sister's death. Her parents divorce. The memory of her uncle attempting to rape her that she had suppressed. And all the heartaches and pains both great and small that naturally come as part of life. These memories were all magnified and intensified until they literally screamed to bash their way out of Allegra's head.

Allegra fell crying to the ground and curled up in a fetal position. She wished she could be dead just like Iris. Anything but this.  

It seemed like they just couldn’t catch a break. Allegra was too caught up in her own bulls*** to see what she was doing, and things were only getting worse. The auras around the two of them disappeared as the ogre’s body changed. Instead of the looming appearance he usually sported, he looked like a cartoon version of himself. Everything was distorted, and he was even two-dimensional.

”What the-” Charlie shouted as she tried to move her arm out of the way when the ogre tried to grab it. As he reached out to her, his arm actually ripped open and started the spout blood. It was like something out of a twister horror movie. The arm ripped off entirely and the ogre began to float up to the sky, clearly attempting to scream all the while. Charlie let out a noise herself, reacting instantly by trying to shake the paper arm off of her own. It fell to the ground, still spouting the confetti blood, until it was picked up by the wind and whisked away like the rest of the man.

Was that Allegra’s power? Making people into cartoon versions of themselves? If so, that was a pretty sick thing to do. Charlie had seen some really twisted things, too. Hell, she could remember doing some twisted things and that still made her stomach churn.

All around them, the dancers had fallen to the ground as their background accompaniment ceased. Charlie looked up and made eye-contact with the DJ for just a minute before she let out a scream. Even worse than before, her memories flooded back. There were far too many of them for her to even see well. Too many for one brain, anyway. They rushed past, displaying her best and worst moments on the earth. There were things that she remembered like they had happened yesterday and things that she hadn’t remembered for many lifetimes.

Eventually, one memory stuck. It was one that she had often cited as being her most painful death. She couldn’t remember many of the details, but she could remember that there had been lots of dismemberment, and she had been awake for most of it. It had lasted hours. In that moment, it was playing at ten times the speed that it had happened at on repeat, as if she was reliving it over and over ten times as fast. The pain was just as real as it had been when it had happened.

The blonde sunk to her knees and screamed, curling herself into the fetal position as she waited for it to end. Why couldn’t it just end? To her left, she could see that something was happening to Allegra too, but she didn’t know what. She hoped that it wouldn’t be something horrible. She looked as if she’d led a pretty sheltered life, at least.

After another few minutes, the DJ seemed to think that they’d gotten the idea. Charlie sucked in air as the memory faded out and stopped altogether. She scrambled to her knees and shot a dangerous look at the DJ, who shot one back. She didn’t need to experience that again, so she grabbed Allegra’s arm, trying to shake her up. ”Come on, we’re leaving. Now.”