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For Sledge he rarely saw all his family together. His Mum and Da worked every day, except for Christmas. When he first could remember meeting Charlie, his older brother had already been married and moved out of the small house. It didn’t strike him at odd at all that Seyta wasn’t big on the family get togethers. In any case they were both adults and as such, independent from their parents. With six in her family, two thirds of which she had told him about, it left siblings. Well, he never told her about Charlie, so why should he expect her to talk about her own family.

Sledge considered dragging out the ruse longer. Claiming that he had gotten turned around with the darkness was entirely possible. Seyta didn’t need to know how easily he found his way around the city. It was very difficult for him to stay lost for long. “Wouldn’t call myself a thief. More of an entrepreneur .” There was no denying that he was doing something that was illegal. Instead he was putting a spin on it, a justification for his actions.

As much as he was going to enjoy some company with his merchandising, Sledge hesitated to hand over any of his bags. Having toys wasn’t going to be impressive. Even if he knew that he could get more for one hunk of plastic on the streets than a piece of gold, it still was kind of a damper on chatting up a girl. “If we’re going to do this, wouldn’t it be more natural if the knight were carrying the lady’s bags?” he asked.

“Fold,” Sledge said, setting down his hand. He wasn’t even going to try to bluff his way with this bodge hand. A joke was made about his manhood for folding on the first hand. Sledge simply smiled and allowed the gentle taunting to continue, though his fingers began to curl in a slight fist. With him out of this hand he could push and prod the men at the table and start his manipulation. “Thanks for your offer Mr. Burke. Mr. Glover’s project all depends upon if he can give me more concrete future goal for it.”

Now he had to start leaking information. It was critical that Mr. Burke realized that he was in the company of organized criminals. Not only that but he had to feel that his career was at risk by any one of those present. Any one, that is, except for the British man who had a trustworthy face.

Sledge tensed at hearing his name. He hated it the same way that one would hate having to eat socks. It really did leave a foul taste in his mouth. What’s more, he hadn’t anticipated anyone who knew his first name to be calling out for him while he was out looting. Familiarity meant trouble. He turned to the voice, half expecting to see some sort of authority there. To his surprise, and his pleasure, there was no police officer calling out to him, questioning why he was carrying large cloth shopping bags. Looking like an old trick or treat-er could easily become looking like a pedophile. As usual the lady’s name danced around the outside of Sledge’s memory. She always looked so familiar to him. Not Anna, though from a distance or with the right light she could pass as a double. He passed the odd mixture of déjà vu and not knowing as the result of the costume.

Speaking of which he had to take a moment to admire it. In preparation for the holiday he had seen plenty of miniscule ruffled miniskirts and cropped corset tops that somehow constituted as any possible animal, person, or strangely enough, party game, that one may feel inclined to dress as. This was something else. Oh sure, it followed the guidelines for sex apeal, but the outfit mad no sense to him. Was it meant to combine the horrors of clowns and doctors? Hard to be frightened of something that looked so hot.

“Maxwell,” he corrected Seyta, her name slipping back into his mind. He smirked, fully aware that she could question his baggage, but appreciating that she didn’t outright do so. The conversation was light for now, and she questioned how his Halloween was going. “Overall I’d say that it’s going well. Should be heading back to me flat now, but had to get some Christmas shopping done. You?”

Sorry to hear that Syn. Hopefully next time?

Heated water kept pouring from the taps, and the temperature in the small room continued to rise. In his dream there hadn’t been a moment where he felt warm. It was worse than being caught with wet socks. His dream self had been on to some sort of profound truth. Impeding doom tended to put everything into perspective. There is only so much to go around in the world, and of what there is, it isn’t nearly enough. Even if all the resources in the world were to be split evenly, everyone would still come up short. Enough of his life had been spent suffering because someone else had more. More money, more space, more food. Not only did “they” have more than him, “they” had more than they needed. Now was the time for him to be one of “them”. This apartment, while not abundantly large, was of good size for New York City standards. His bedroom easily accommodated the queen sized bed he had purchased, along with some stylish furniture. It was truly his castle, and he wore his fedora like his crown.

With the shampoo rinsing out of his hair, Sledge gave his head a few experimental rolls. Slowly his neck was loosening up, and taking away with it the last dredges of adrenaline. He felt more exhausted now than he had upon waking. The muscles no longer being in tight coils helped with the relaxed feeling. His dream was nothing more than that. What horrors the mind is capable of creating at night. Sledge was still young. While he knew that others his age were getting married and having children of their own, he was hardly ready to settle down. Why on earth would he care to watch out for a kid?

Because that was you at one point. Sledge peeked outside the shower curtain, expecting to see someone there. He was not use to having an inner voice telling him the difference between right and wrong. Strangely the voice sounded the way that it did in his dream. “Charlie boy, leave me be,” he muttered as he turned the taps off. Having his older brother’s voice telling him how he should be behaving was, at the very least, highly annoying. If it weren’t for the times that Sledge had been sent to jail the two would still be trying to act as if they were anything but strangers. Why did the voice that was serving as a conscience have to sound like the only person who really knew what all he got into? If the real Charlie had wanted Sledge to travel the straight and narrow, he would have given him a lecture, not paid bail each time. “Besides, I was never as hopeless as ‘im.”

The situations were totally different as well. Sledge had been born into a position of poverty. He knew what it meant to be on the streets of a city. Fighting for everything he needed, eating as little as possible so that there might be something the next day, freezing at night. When the world turned in his dream, it didn’t throw him. It was a life he had lived before, and he’d do it again.

Consider yourself added to the ranks Alice.

More information on the creature: This creature was originally a "volunteer" with some slight psychic powers. Experimentation on the test subject with the M drug (and the drug itself) has caused all sorts of wackiness, and a dose of genetic splicing hasn't made it look any prettier.

It targets primarily mutants rather than humans. If in a crowded area, it will seek out those with an active x-gene first. This is because it has been "programmed" to do as such. It will attack a human if one is in its way, but for the most part, they are safe-ish. The biggest threat it offers to them is the damage and chaos it is causing.

It has: Energy sourcing. This is what is causing the blackouts. The electrical energy is stored up inside of it. From time to time the electricity will arch across the body.

Power sensing- How it seeks out an active x-gene. This is a remnant of the test subject. Just explains how it knows what to hunt down.

Heat breath- Well, when you've got high voltage running around in you, you aren't going to be an Ice Breaker's commercial now are you? It's internal temperature is underneath 54,000° Fahrenheit, but that doesn't mean it's an easy bake oven either! You will get heat burns standing right in front of it's mouth.

Edit for clarification~

This shall now be called the bakrakhan (thank you Aurion). Anyways, the bakrakhan is not exclusively human, nor is it exclusively mutant. It is what happens when a scientist does not care to control the variables and an experiment spirals out of control.

Emily Schroder was convinced that she worked for a mad man. Dr. Ethan Mitchel Daniels had a bio-hazard sticker on on the door of his lab, but to her knowledge there was nothing that would have warranted such caution. From what she had observed, the man just liked having some privacy while he ran his experiments. As his assistant she was delegated to tasks that his hands could not do while he conferred with the lab rats. For the most part this meant serving as a secretary, but she was able to watch some significant, though strange experiments. Tonight he had to take one of his many lab rats to a vet (an action that she thought was adorable given that others in the same business could care less about their rats' health), and had left her to clean up the day's work, and to type up the notes that he had written down. Unfortunately his notes were complex to decipher. There were at least three different trains of thought, and she had to decide which ones related to what the experiment had been. To complicate matters, the lights of the facility tended to flicker when multiple scientists were needing to use high powered devices. Tonight it seemed that the laser was in high demand, for the lights were flickering more than usual. Pausing from her work, Ms. Schroder helped herself to the pot of coffee that had gone cold. Once more the lights flickered in the lab before things went dark. She sighed heavily, resigning herself to having to figure out what needed to be typed up by the glow of her laptop before the battery power gave out.

From one of the other labs down the hall the sounds of glass shattering shot out. Whoever had been in there must have been caught by surprise when the lights went out Ms. Schroder thought. Amazing how you can work someplace for years, but once the lights were turned off, it becomes an obstacle course. There were crashing noises as scientists bumped about in the dark. Emily took her cell phone out and dialed the electric company, in hopes of finding out when the power would be turned on. Much to her annoyance, as she settled back in front of her laptop, the phone kept ringing before she was disconnected. Technology was wonderful when it worked, but when it didn't it made you wish for the days of old. For now she was just going to have to sit back and be patient. Once she got some more of the work done she could call again. The chances were highly likely that the power wouldn't be out for long. This was New York after all.

From down the hall more crashing sounds were heard, but Emily didn't pay much mind. Today's work had been important, and it was her job to make sure that all relevant information was properly recorded. While squinting at the almost incomprehensible writing she was able to relive the excitement of the day. It was sad in a way. It was Halloween and rather than spending the evening getting drunk with her friends, she was working overtime because of a sick rat. She rested her face lightly on a fist and turned the page of the wire bound notebook. At least she wasn't alone in her wok. There were more banging noises now, and rather than the normal rhythmical pattern of a man at work, it sounded more like some sort of struggle was going on.

Emily quickly saved the word document, noticing that the battery life was dying, before heading to the door. She peeked through the highly set door window first in one direction. Even the emergency exit sign light, which should have been powered by the back up generator was out. The only time that she had ever seen so much dark was when she was a little girl growing up in Cayuga county. A nasty Nor'easter had ripped trees out of the ground and power was out for days. Now she turned to look the other way down the hall, opening the door slightly.

Wham! The door was slammed shut in her hands, causing her to jump back. A face that at one point might have been human glared back at her from the other side of the glass, the pupiless eyes glowing like bright coals. There was a tortured look to it, as if it was blaming her for the flattened features, the misshapened hand that had smacked against the glass. The teeth lined jaws separated, allowing a tongue to slide out. Emily shuddered as she closed her eyes. The tongue had been long, looking more like some sort of probe, and she could feel a clammy sensation on her neck, as if the muscle had been wrapped around her throat. Lights danced in the hallway, though not from the fixtures. It was as if the thing was a plasma dome. She wanted to move away from the door, but her body had stiffened up and her knees wouldn't allow anything more than the smallest of a shuffle. The laptop's battery quit, the sounds of it shutting off seemed to consume the room until she was left in silence with the lights off.