"We're here to be different; to show the world they don't have to fear us with loaded guns."
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Ximena Dominguez has lived one too many lives. The ending of the last wasn't one she liked to repeat. From a young age her mutant abi...
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"AH, YOU'RE EARLY..." A voice seethed near Ximena's ear. She blinked her eyes open to complete darkness. A fiery chill going down her spine. "You're too early," It tutted, disappointed.
She wanted to ask what they meant. Why they were so knowledgeable. Her mind was on fire, like it was melting. She had so many questions but every time she thought of one, her mind resisted and sent a blaring flare across her cerebral cortex. Her screech of agony was lodge in her throat, preventing her from crying out.
Gasping for air, relief, anything - it suddenly clicked where she was. And the gravity of it all became unbearable. Nails scraped along her flesh and it felt like millions of hands were reaching for her skin, peeling it off her again and again and again. It was pure torture.
It was hell.
A chuckle echoed around her. Through one ear and circling around the other. The sound caused her ears to bleed and she trembled in her comatose state, shifting from left to right. The peeling started again, commencing in long strips from her knee to the top of her thigh. Ximena choked on her own blood convulsing.
She was being punished, she just knew it somehow. For coming back early. For dying too soon. A sob wracked through her as she unconsciously sobbed for freedom. She was desperate, she didn't want to be back here.
She hated it.
Her sensitive, exposed muscular system flinched at the sudden piercing grip on her chin. It was familiar and struck genuine fear down to the pit of her stomach. Her sightless eyes sought a face to connect with the poisonous touch. It was futile. They didn't want to be seen, so she wouldn't see.
"Have you learned your lesson?"
A rapid fire coated her entire body, stretching her limbs out till her tendons cried out in protest. Her lungs couldn't scrounge up any air to fill them and she sucked on breathless gasps, suffocating. "I said... HAVE YOU LEARNED YOUR LESSON." The voice became boisterous, booming over her ear drums till they shattered in a thunderous ache.
At this moment, she was begging for death. A real one to end it all. She couldn't cry, speak, yell and yet, she was forced to feel every sensation the devil could concoct to make her writhe under its thumb.
She felt unbelievable small, helpless and weak. She felt her consciousness concede with the inevitable. Ximena was nothing but a sack of bones, a puppet for the master.
It seemed as soon as she came to the realization, the pain vanished. She couldn't even comprehend the relief, it felt like an eternity that she had been suspended in torment. Years, decades - she swore she kept count of each second - hoping it would end. And now, she was left with the scars. The striking memory of each strip of skin was pulled bare of her body.
