The world was an evil place, dark and cruel. The only ones who could survive in it, really survive, were people who were dark and cruel also. In a den of murderers, only a murderer could survive. When faced with a fight, only someone who was willing to use every tool at their disposal would live to see tomorrow. Lying, cheating, stealing, that was the way of life in this world, it would seem.

“I said, tell me why you're here.”

The pale and stoic man tied in the chair did not answer her. His blue eyes looked away from hers, his defiance as plain as the horn on his face.

“Tell me,” she insisted, turning his chin toward her face. She could see her reflection in his eyes, her jet hair, her brow knit in anger.

Again he refused.

“Then you leave me no choice.” She needed no knives, nor soldering irons, nor electricity, nor fire, nor water, nor anything other than her own ability to hurt him. She could light every nerve in his body on fire, scorch his skin, roast his innards, break every bone to dust, rot his intestines, and make every alveoli in his lungs scream for air all at once without even touching him.

And she did.

Behind her stood a bald man, watching the proceedings. His only reaction was a hmph and a shake of his head.

The battles were over for them. The war might roll on for years, or it might end tomorrow. They wouldn't know until it happened. However, for the two of them, the future held no more battlefields; they were done with fighting forever.

I love you, she tried to think, but the words wouldn't form in her head. Nothing she wanted to think about ever did any more. She wore a band on her finger, but she no longer had the ability to promise to love him. She couldn't remember and promises when demons plagued her day in and out.

Reality was such an illusive thing. Some days she could almost feel it, as he held her fingers in his and they walked through the park. Other times she couldn't tell who was leading her through the nightmare landscape of horrors. When something crunched beneath her feet, she no longer looked down to see whether it was a stick or a bone, or both. She didn't want to know any more.

She woke in a bed. The pillows were pillows. The blankets were blankets. And the person sleeping next to her was Slate.

There were tears in her eyes. She knew this happy reality couldn't last very long. Maybe he would wake up and hold her until she felt better, but there was also a chance that when he opened his eyes it would not be loving blue shining there in his orbs, but something green and sinister that wanted to choke the life out of her slowly.

“I wish it would all just end. I just want it to end,” she confessed to the darkness and the unknown.

Seven students stood on the platform, waiting for their names to be read, waiting to receive their diplomas. They had had a tough senior year. Their senior project had failed, but they had still learned quite a lot from it. They had learned how to trust and to distrust, how to lead and to follow, how to help and to harm, how to hope and to despair, how to honor alliances and to betray comrades, how to live.

She watched them all through glazed eyes, only half seeing them as they walked across the stage. There was pride there, in each of their smiles as they accepted their certificates. Humans and mutants alike, they had make this journey together, for better and for worse.

Thomas stood shaking the hand of the nice unicorn man. They looked like such opposites juxtaposed up on the stage; the unicorn with his pale hair and his gentle smile and the sociopath student with his malicious grin and his dark hair falling in his vivid green eyes.

The water jug was heavy, but she had to carry it; this was a matter of great importance.

“Wait.” She did as she was asked. Zhang Xiao approached her, carrying a large copper vessel, “Use this instead.”

Katrina took it from him and the Chinese president took her jar and dragged it back into the mist.

The new vessel was empty. She turned back to the river to fill it.

“Stop,” called another voice. Chiang Sui glided over to her, a gigantic crown of gold encrusted with rubies held aloft. “Wear this,” he insisted, setting it on her head and letting his hands wander downward from her head to her shoulders and down her arms before letting go of her and disappearing again.

She shuddered remembering the feel of his hands on her skin, but stooped carefully beneath the crown to fill her vessel.

The copper vessel had a slow leak. If she walked quickly, there would still be enough water in it, she hoped. Quickly she started walking again, weighted down by the massive diadem.

“Wait, you need this” a friendlier voice stopped her this time. Sara hung a gigantic emerald pendant on a heavy silver chain around her neck.

“Take this as well,” Slate's voice added. He slid two jade bangles onto her wrists, one on each side.

“Finally, this,” Nigel Banks stepped out from the shadows. She hadn't even heard his approach. He fastened a bronze belt set with sapphires around her waist. He disappeared even more quietly that he had come, leaving her alone in the mist.

She dragged the copper urn, but she was now weighted down by all of the finery that had been laid upon her. The water leaked out slowly, but surely, and somehow the vessel grew heavier, rather than lighter as it emptied. She was certain she wouldn't make it in time, but she kept dragging it as fast as she possibly could.

A large form arose out of the mist; the serpentine coils of a dragon disappearing into the night. His scales were dull, his dry tongue lolled out of his mouth, his breath was raspy.

“I came as quickly as I could,” she told him as she knelt beside his enormous head. There was only a little water left, but she lifted the urn to dump it into his mouth. One drop splashed onto the great tongue, but it wasn't enough. The dragon gave one last gasp and stopped breathing altogether.

She cried, but all the tears in the world wouldn't add up to enough water to save him now.

The Italian and pushed on the handle, then pounded on door out of frustration, his priest's collar knocked askew in his efforts.

The rabbi tried another handle, with no luck more luck than his colleague. His tried not to let his panic show.

A Hindi girl pointed to the big stained glass windows, and the group of theological students and teachers rushed over to find something they could use to break the window.

Another girl pointed to the large cross at the alter as she coughed into her hijab. Perhaps they could use it to smash the window and make their escape.

The light flickered, reflecting off the monk's bald head as he helped to lift the heavy cross.

Outside the windows the flames burned higher, flashing brilliantly through the tinted glass windows and sending rainbows of light dancing through the thickening smoke in the sanctuary.

From across the street, a shadow watched the scene unfold, the only thing standing still amidst a sea of chaos.

With a liquid silver voice, the shadow mused to himself, “Why debate about the afterlife when you can find out for yourself?”

He smiled.

The land of shadows was a simple place where the inhabitants lived, died, and were reborn at the mercy of the quotidian rising and setting of the sun. A rainbow of greys danced across the landscape. Shadows as pale as laughter flitted between rich brooding shapes. Light sparkled between shivering shadow leaves, the only evidence that somewhere a gentle breeze blew. A gently colorless silhouette of a stag grazed beneath a tree, his form rippled across the uneven surface of the grass as he melted into the dark, solid trunk on one side and out of it on the other. A bird, its edges nearly indistinct, flew across the plane and the stag momentarily glanced up at its passing before something else caught its attention.

Something was coming.

It loomed at the edge of his perception, a large shape indistinct in shape at first then gradually gaining definition as it neared. The group was silent, but if they could have made noise they would have been talking and laughing as they walked. The people flowed in and out of each other; a kaleidoscope of grey. Everywhere two shapes overlapped a new shade was created, no two exactly alike.

The shadow stag whirled and dashed away before the group got too close.

A pale girl skipped through the shadowy group as they advanced, as if trying to walk with everyone all at the same time. Happy and carefree she slid past and through her comrades to lead the way. And came to a sudden halt.

A black shadow, darker than any other she had come across before lay across their path. The others didn't seem to notice the strange shape that blocked their path. The girl tried to yell, to warn them to stop, but there was no such thing as sound in the land of shadows. There was nothing she could do as one by one they slipped into the darkness.

No one reappeared on the other side.

The sinister shape turned, shifting its gaze towards the little girl. Its eyes glowed impossibly green in a colorless world.

The little girl's mouth opened in a silent scream.

In the teacher's lounge chairs waited patiently in a circle for the Pax Academy teachers. Today's meeting would cover a variety of topics, mostly centered on the institution's goals for the coming school year. The headmaster sat at one end of the long table. He mentally reviewed the afternoon's topics. His fingers steepled in front of his lips were as white as...

...snow covered the mountains from base to summit. Heavy coats of white clung to the branches of the sparse trees that braved the conditions in the almost barren land. Across the floor of the valley, walking across the top of the frozen stream, a dark line of people...

...filed into the room. A red haired woman, practically glowing, walked in hand in hand with her curly haired priest husband. A young blonde who looked like she was barely old enough to even have a teaching degree took her seat next to them. The next seat was filled by a stoic looking young man wearing a grey scarf. Next entered a teacher who (today) wore the face of a Hispanic woman with curly brown hair, then a light haired woman with violet eyes followed by her Thai husband whose skin swirled with tattoos, a woman with a puma's features, and finally a young plant manipulator who was green from hear to toe. The members of the group smiled easily and laughed among themselves as they seated themselves. Anticipation, enthusiasm, and hope showed in slightly varied mixtures on their...

...faces ringed the cave, lit up orange and red by the firelight. The shadows deepened the wrinkles brought out by the stress they had experienced the past decade but also highlighted the the new lines drawn around their mouths and eyes by relieved and hopeful smiles. For the first time in years, they could talk freely. Finally there was something to laugh and sing about. In a few short days they would cross the border out of the middle kingdom and into a land where they could live their lives the way they wanted to live them. Thus far it was all going according to...

...the plan was fairly simple. Pulling it off was the complex part. The group had connections. They tried to utilize them to the best of their ability to gain as much information as they could. With information as a tool, they could help guide decisions of leaders to make the world a better place. In short, spying. The difficult part came in deciding what to do with the information they had gained. The puma woman spoke, “New information for you all, from the depths of NYPD's files. I can't believe how easy it was to get this from...”

“...right under their noses!” crowed one of the students, as he regaled the group of young refugees with the story of how that days supplies had been acquired. His young teacher smiled from across that evening's cave, proud of how well her students were interacting with the Chinese refugees. It wasn't just nameless, faceless people that they were helping. The refugees and the students had become like a family as they had traveled through the Himalayas on their own version of the underground railroad. Though it had been a risky plan, it felt like coming here had been the right...

...decision time; everyone weighed in on what they thought should be done based on the new information. There was no clear right and wrong choice in this case, which meant they'd have to do what they always did; choose the lightest shade of...

...grey fog hung heavily over the mountains and swirled between trees. The spirit of the refugees, just hours away from liberty, was not dampened by the moist air. Yet, they remained quiet as they walked. They were not about to give themselves away by being too loud now. It didn't matter. The soldiers waiting in the trees already knew exactly where they would be. Someone had betrayed their...

“...trust me. We'll practically be able to run things from...”

...the shadows between the trees were not dark enough to hide them from the night vision goggles of...

...the soldiers of harmony finally agreed on a course of action they could all support, certain it would eventually lead to world...

...peace was shattered by gunshots. Dark spots stained the snow beneath the heads of the refugees who were finally...

...free for the rest of the afternoon, the teachers vacated the lounge. As the room emptied the young blonde teacher smiled at her serious minded coworker as he adjusted his scarf. To think, the two of them had started this little group so long ago. Who ever would have expected that it would have grown into something that could truly change...

...the world was thrown into chaos. The massacre of the refugees was the first domino in a long chain that plunged the planet into its third world war. Once the events had begun there was no going back. You can't unstart something...

...once it had been started the little group had gained a life of its own. Surely they would someday bring about the peace they all dreamed of.