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It is difficult to control his powers after the incident.
When it is all said and done, he stands there in the woods, bones aching with dread because he had failed. He had been given a mission, and he had failed. There is no doubt in his mind that he is going to be punished for such a fault. He needs to get back there—needs to accept whatever punishment is going to be sent his way, but for a while he finds himself unable to move. His feet are planted firmly in the ground while his heart pounds erratically in his chest. He needs to move.
His head aches. Something heavy and raw begins to push through the fog that had clouded his mind for so long. The sensation of pins and needles prickling his skin affects him as his he regains feeling in the limbs that had been numb for so long. The body that was once his begins to return to him, and he can start to feel every little sensation that reaches his flesh. Once again can he feel the cool breeze on his skin and the warmth of blood rushing through his veins and the throb of overexerted muscles beginning to shake. There’s a different sort of sting in his body, one that’s sharp and hot with a foreign object that’s not supposed to be there.
He needs to go—he needs to go now—for he knows this is wrong. He is not meant to feel or think or pilot this body he inhabits. It is not his anymore to control.
Taking a shaky step forward, he can feel the panic rushing through him, feel how his throat begins to tighten and constrict, how his lungs burn with the need to breathe. He needs to go back, needs to return, but he can’t remember where the place is or why he has to go there.
In his memory, he grasps at the hazy pictures of stone and steel and snow, feels that familiar tug in his center, and lets the energy around him displace as he’s sucked out of one location and thrown into the next. But when the smoke smelling of sulfur and brimstone disappears, he’s not in the right place. The air is warm here. Where is the snow?
He tries again. And again, and again, and again. Once he starts going, he can’t seem to stop. The world around him spins and blurs, images of unfamiliar towns and rivers and forests blending together in one big incomprehensible mess. He’s never teleported this much before in his life. His lungs are filled with the stench of rotten gas. Every time he blinks, he finds himself in a new place, one he’s not supposed to be in. But he cannot stop himself long enough to keep his feet on the ground, to give himself time to catch his breath. He’s working purely on muscle-memory and fear-filled adrenaline, the world shifting and morphing before his eyes in a disorienting kaleidoscope of colors and sounds and smells that leave him nauseous.
There is no telling how many places he has gone, how many times he has teleported, how long he has traveled. In the end, exhaustion wins out against him. He finds himself falling to his knees in a long-abandoned parking lot, the asphalt cracked and teeming with tiny weeds. He shudders as he catches his breath.
A shaky hand travels to gingerly touch the dull burn at the nape of his neck. When his fingers make contact with the wounded flesh, he finds his mind elsewhere while his body stays firmly in place. In his memories, he’s strapped to a table, face down with a needle poised against his neck. Then, he’s trapped in his own body, seeing himself dodging bullets and disarming guns, slamming bodies to the ground without a second thought. Now, his teeth are bared, and there’s a knife in his hand, and the man underneath him looks so, so scared—
He gasps out into the night, sweat soaking his body as he trembles. He squeezes his eyes shut, and his hands tug tightly at his hair, yanking and pulling as his scalp screams out in pain. But it’s not enough to wake him up from this terrible, terrible dream.
With a sob on his lips, he lifts his head, if only to see where he’s ended up. In front of him stands a church that has long-since been forgotten. Some of its windows have been shattered and boarded up. Vines and weeds are beginning to creep across its walls, nature attempting to reclaim what was once hers. Despite it all, the cross on the steeple still stands, a shiny glint of metal reflected off the moonlight.
It is with a sick sense of irony that he realizes perhaps this is the place he was meant to arrive at after all.
———————
The church smells like dust and mildew and mold, with a hole in the ceiling that has let rainwater rot some of the wooden beams. The pews are covered with moth-eaten tarps, but, for the most part, are intact underneath their protective cloth. The altar, however, has remained untouched, unblemished from any elements that could have caused harm. The man nailed to the cross is silent before him. How many times had he prayed to be made in the man’s image?
He finds himself kneeling, his joints aching at the position. It has been a long time since he has been allowed to pray. He pushes back the sentiment that prayer isn’t meant for animals—isn’t meant for mutants like him. He presses his forehead to the ground before him, hot, wet tears streaming down his cheeks. His lips move in prayer, words having gone unpracticed and grown rusty on his tongue.
In the face of it all—all the horror and torment and suffering he has faced—he feels a sense of relief and comfort. Returning to this holy place feels like coming home. God had heard his prayers after all.
———————
When the intruders enter his sacred domain, he speaks to them in his mother tongue. He hides himself in the shadows of the old building, perched upon the rotting rafters. His voice echoes off the walls, booming and distorted, a practice learned way back when he had been a showman. Those memories seem so far away now, another life.
He bellows out warnings with words he’d heard used against him. That he is kin with the devil, messenger and spawn of evil. One look at his form, and anyone is sure to believe he is demonic.
(Not his mother. Never his mother. With her, those words were never an insult or demeaning remark. Only she could speak those hated words with such affection, cupping his cheeks while he giggled, lovingly whispering, “My handsome little devil.”)
These people are not meant to be here, not meant to desecrate this holy place. He does not know why they are here—perhaps to drag him back to that dark horrid cage beneath the snow. He does not have the chance to further ponder that thought, for the air around him picks up with a frightening wind, and an act he can only describe as a miracle strikes the rafters. The wood splinters underneath him, sending him tumbling to the ground below.
He is forced to reveal himself—his disheveled and demonic form—but the intruders are not sent running by his appearance. No, instead the two women stand in front of him, curious but not scared by his looks. He’s left suspended in the air, breathing heavily as he fumbles to remember his English, stammering out apologies and pleas for mercy.
But they are not here to harm him. Nor are they here to send him back to the facility.
“What’s your name?”
Questions like this have not been posed to him for a long time. Weapons are not meant to speak, not meant to have a name.
The woman before him has such kind eyes. Perhaps his God had sent her here, too.
“Wagner,” he speaks. “Kurt Wagner.”