((Continued from Looking to the Future))

If there was anything Shane had regrets about in his life, it was leaving his mother on a sour note. He’d been in his early teenage years when he’d left the house, only a few months into his new life as a mutant. He was an angsty kid; he had no illusions about that. He couldn’t even remember exactly when it was he’d run, but he was pretty sure he was around the 8th grade.

It was right around the time his father had died.

It had never been confirmed (at the time he didn’t want to hear it, and by the time he did, he had no one to hear it from), but based on what he’d learned about mutants in the last several months he was certain this tragedy was what triggered his X-Gene, as the others called it. Within the first week after the incident he had started noticing little changes in his body. His mutation was a slow change, though. There was nothing dramatic or overnight. No scaring the neighbors. No self-inflicted injury. Just small changes. It was like puberty kicking in again.

At first he’d tried to ignore it. Pretend it wasn’t happening to him. Maybe it would just go away. He tried to shield his mind from these two life-changing events by committing himself full time to football. He was never really any good at it, and it was just his school’s team he played on, but at that time, all he wanted to do was hit something, and the sport was a perfect outlet.

Eventually even that wouldn’t cut it. There were only so many hits a person could take before the decreasing solidity of their body was noticed. He left school for several weeks after that; he didn’t realize at the time he wouldn’t be going back. He locked himself in his room as the last stages of his mutation started to take over. By that point, there was nothing but anger in him. He wanted to get away.

His mother didn’t feel that was the best idea. She was able to look past his new appearance; all she saw was her son. A son that needed to go back to school. The two of them would scream at each other for hours about Shane’s ‘need’ to go back to school. He remained convinced he’d never go back.

Eventually the arguments became more then he could handle, and he snapped, packing a bag and disappearing into the night. He never looked back, at least not until he was long gone. And that’s where he left his relationship with his mother. He hadn’t spoken to her since then. Hadn’t seen her, tried to make contact, anything. Until today.
His visit to the young prophet had revealed a tombstone with his mother’s name next to it. She wasn’t dead yet, and he wasn’t going to let anything happen to her if he could stop it. It took a little investigative work, but he’d managed to track down the house she was living in now.

He stood on the doorstep, paralyzed with fear, trying to build up the courage to knock. It was late. At least midnight, but he’d only just found the place, and he didn’t want to put it off any longer then he needed to.

A light switched on in the house somewhere, it’s faint glow reaching through to the small window on the door. At least someone was awake. He found his arm reaching up, making a faint knocking sound. After a few moments the door hesitantly popped open a crack and a woman’s voice came through at little more then a whisper.

“Can I help you?”

Shane was trembling, but he managed to get one word out. “Mom?”

The door cracked open a little bit more. He could see the slight glimmer of light off of the woman’s eyes, but couldn’t make out her features. He knew it was her though.

“…Shane?” There was disbelief in her voice. He moved more into the light, took off his hat and lifted his head high so she could see his face. There could be no mistaking him once she saw his physical appearance. “It’s me.” He answered her.

The door opened up, not fully, but enough that the porch light was now able to illuminate her face. Despite the signs of aging; a tinge of grey in her hair, the wrinkles under her eyes, this was most definitely his mother. She hesitated for a moment in the doorway, and the two stood in silence, examining each other, making sure this wasn’t some kind of trick. She caved first. Tears in her eyes, she slowly moved towards him with her arms wide. She wrapped them around his waist, and said nothing. He did the same.

The two of them stood like that for what felt like hours until finally the cold started to get the best of them. Reluctantly his mother let him go, backing up and staring at him with a large smile. She had tears running down her face, which she made no effort to hide.

“Let’s go inside,” she finally said. Shane nodded and the two of them walked into the house. It was much smaller then the one he’d grown up in, but it has most of the same furniture he remembered. There were framed pictures that he could recognize from the old house. Pictures of his father. Pictures of his mother. And of course, pictures of himself, or at least pictures from before his mutation kicked in; he’d never let anyone take a picture of him in this form at that age, and even now it would be unlikely. There were also pictures of other people he’d never seen before, and there were almost as many of those as the ones of his family.

She led him to the kitchen where she put on a kettle to make some tea. Shane stood by the doorway, not quite ready to sit down just yet and his mother leaned against the counter. She was staring at him intensely, but with pure joy on her face. No one had ever looked at him like that before, and it was a little overwhelming for him.

“I never thought I’d see you again.” She said, finally breaking the silence. Shane didn’t know what to say, but a feeling of guilt started to wash over him. His mother could see that, and tried to lighten the mood again.

“It’s good to have you back.” She smiled, and Shane smiled back. “So talk. Where have you been for the last 12 years?”

He should have been ready for a question like that, but for some reason he hadn’t expected to be talking about his life away from home. He jumped right into the story, picking up right where she’d first been out of the picture. He told her about arriving in the park up north, where he’d lived on his own for all these years. He talked about building his small hut, and hunting, and everything. His mother listened, focused on every word.

The kettle started whistling loudly. Shane’s mother poured the tea into mugs for the two of them as Shane finished his summary of his last few years. He took the drink from her, but set it down on the table immediately to let it cool. He always burned himself with fresh tea.

“So how long have you been back in the city then?” She took a sip from her cup.

He was about to answer when a strange man appeared in the adjacent doorway to the hallway. He was a fairly large, but older man. He was staring right at Shane with a mixture of fear and anger, and he was wielding a gun, pointed at Shane’s chest.

Today Shane learned that the size of a gun had very little effect on how it felt to be looking down its barrel. The shaking man was wielding a very small handgun, but it seemed every bit as threatening and terrifying as any other weapon he could have been faced with. Shane didn’t understand who this man was or how he’d managed to get in to the house without him noticing. All that mattered to Shane at the moment though was protecting his mother. It was fortunate, then, that the man seemed extremely focused on the large mutant in the room instead.

The room was extremely quiet for what was probably only a few seconds, but felt like hours. The only sound Shane could hear was the rattling of the gun in the man’s hand, and the only thing he was looking at was its barrel. Then his mother cut the silence.

“Wait!” She shouted. Reflex kicked in for both of the men in quite different ways. The stranger in the doorway turned his attention towards his mother, his hold on the gun loosening and angling slightly down. Shane on the other hand snapped into hunt mode, diving for the man.

He shifted a large chunk of his mass into his arm, making a very large club out of the limb. Between the speed of the lunge and the force from his new weapon, Shane delivered a blow to the invader that surely cracked a few ribs. The strike was accented with the crack of the gun in his hand being fired. He didn’t feel as though he’d been hit, but it wasn’t impossible with the adrenaline that was running through his body.

The invader was sent flying head first into the wall of the hallway. He appeared to be unconscious, and there were some traces of red matting his hair. The man wasn’t going to be getting up any time soon. Then he started hearing the sounds of pain coming from the kitchen.

His mother was leaning against the cabinets on the floor, clutching at a bullet wound in her chest.

She was trying to say something but couldn’t form the words. She managed to outstretch one arm towards the shooter. At first she seemed to be pointing to him, but her had seemed more like she was reaching out instead. The name “Paul” managed to escape her lips. Her eyes remained locked on this ‘Paul’ until it became clear that there wasn’t any life left behind them. Shane sat on the kitchen floor with her in his arms in complete silence.

Several minutes past, and Shane slowly started becoming aware of where he was again, remembering the man in the hall. This ‘Paul.’ He approached the still unconscious, possibly dead man. He could see his face a little more clearly now, and he could take note of the details. He was dressed pretty lightly for the cold weather outside. The lack of shoes was a bit unusual as well. The most troubling part was that the man’s face looked familiar. He was quite sure he’d never met this man before, but he’d seen him before.

He walked out into the hallway and grabbed at a few of the photos on the table. They were all there: a young Shane, his mother, and this man. At least half the photos were of Paul, many of them featuring him with his mother, large smiles in them all. This was Paul’s home. He’d probably been asleep upstairs, woken up by their conversation.

Shane stood quietly, trembling slightly. He was the monster tonight, and he couldn’t deal with that. Eventually the faint sounds sirens in the air snapped him out of his haze. He walked over to his mother, kissing her on the forehead.

“I’m so sorry.” He whispered before disappearing into the night. He’d never be able to live with himself ever again.

Continued in Avenging