Title: A Promise Unkept
Author: Thunderfoot (Sheena)
Email: takkenb-sheena@powerup.com.auDisclaimer: X-men belong to Marvel and (in this incarnation) 20th Century Fox, I don't own a single hair on Magneto's head :-(
Archive: If you want it ask.
-----------------------------Rain.
Driving rain that deadened the soul and the senses.
Rain that fell until they no longer remembered what it felt like to be dry, and still they trudged onwards.
Through the iron gates that loomed above them like a gargantuan sentinel.
Trudging through the mud that had a consistency of sticky soup, that clung to their shoes like the fear that clung to their souls.
Concentration Camp.
Death Camp. Where people where sent to die.
No longer a name, a person.
No longer an individual.
* * * * * * * *
A boy peeked out from where he clung to his father, eyes taking in the colourless surroundings. Through the fence he could see skeletal men working in a quarry, toiling despite the driving rain.
The boys' eyes fell to the exposed wrist of one of the inmates. A number lay branded there.
Was that to be their fate? Branded like cattle?
He clung closer to his parents, he felt safer with them.
Up ahead the path split into two. Soldiers stood at the junction directing people which way to go, sometimes pulling a person out of the crowd and sending them down the other path.
The boy moved even closer. They would stay together, his father had promised.
All too soon they reached the junction. The boy was roughly pulled from his parents and pushed down the other path. Stumbling along he found an alcove and pressed himself into it, crying.
His father had promised, he promised! His tears mingled with the rain.
"Eric!"
The boys' head snapped up on its on accord, answering to the call of his name. He rose and crept his way back to the junction.
"Eric!"
His mother was fighting to reach him through the gaurds, they were having to forcibly hold her back.
His father stood impassive, neither moving to help his wife, nor moving to stop her. He stood still as a statue staring at his son.
The boy, Eric, felt himself being pulled back, away from his mother, away from his family.
No.
He began to struggle, more gaurds joined the first to pull him back. Slowly they began to inch him towards his final destination.
"Eric!"
No!.
He stuck his arms out in an effort to reach his mother.
The gates, if he could just reach the gates they would be together. He stretched, putting all of his effort into reaching the gate.
He..had..to..reach..the..GATE!!
"Eric!"
NO!.
He stretched harder, and the group flew forwards.
How....? He could _feel_ the gate. But he was not touching it.............
There was no time to question, he had to _stretch_.
The gates buckled and groaned under the unseen force and more gaurds joined the group. One swung his rifle butt into the face of the boy.
The boy crumpled. The power was gone, silenced for now by an act of cruelty, but it would be back. The beast had been awakend.
He lay on the ground sobbing. His father had _promised_. He _promised_!.
END.