Fifth Avenue

Hartley had always got the strangest dreams, it was almost always the same, she stands on top of a building as she watches herself which she knew deep inside meant something more important, but she didn’t pay them to much attention.

“You can be one of us” a feminine voice whispers, “no more pain, no more suffering”

Hartley turns and sees another version of herself, Dream Hartley, who was staring to a shadowed person, her hand reaching out to grab them. The shadow hands Dream Hartley a gun, Dream Hartley takes the gun and turns firing it without even blinking.

Hartley shot up panting and sweating, her hair clung to her face. “Shut up” one of the girls groaned tiredly and Hartley placed her trembling hand over her mouth to muffle her gasping. Usually after these dreams she would climb up to her spot on the roof and let all her fears disappear, but as of yesterday, Sister Juanita had barred all the windows.

It’d been a week since she had snuck out and Hartley had still not completely come to an understanding of what had happened that day.

Silently she crept from her bed and walked silently down the hall and down the stairs until she found herself outside, in what the orphanage tried to convince the girls was a garden, but it looked a lot like a small fenced area filled with dead grass, dead plants and at the very end a dead tree.

Hartley crawled underneath the ginormous oak tree and curled up, clutching her legs to her chest trying to gain the warmth her thin night gown didn’t provide.

Looking up to the sky she felt the small trickle of a rain drop roll down her pale white cheek, she tried to hold the tears back but she couldn’t and as she began to cry the sky stopped its grumbling and finally fell, soaking the poor girl as she sat underneath the lonely oak tree.

She remained there until the sun began to slowly rise from the horizon and as she looked up to peak at the sunrise she was startled to see the outline of a person walking towards her.

Hartley tried to get up, in fear one of the nuns had caught her out of the orphanage before it was time to wake up, she didn’t want the minimal amount of food she was receiving now to get any slimmer. As she attempted to rise the muddy ground beneath her caused her to fall over and land stomach down, staining her night gown, she was sure to get a thrashing for that.

Someone chuckled and Hartley looked up shocked to find Bullet looking down at her “Need a hand up kid?” she asks and embarrassed Hartley takes the outstretched hand standing up straight. When she was up she tried her best to brush away the mud but ended up just smudging it in more.

“Why are you here?” she asks confused and Bullet sighs as she slips her hands into the pocket of her leather jacket, to fend herself from the cold.

“I’m not supposed to be” she tells Hartley “but I know what is likely

to come for you and” she hesitates “and the orphanage and I have to try and help you in some way” Bullet placed her hand on Hartley’s shoulder trying to comfort her, both girls walk and sit down on the breaking lounge chairs situated for the nuns in the corner of the garden. “You see Hartley” she begins “thousands of people have these abilities but almost nobody ever comes out publicly about them, I mean we all saw what happened to the different people in X-men am I right?” she laughs but Hartley gives her a blank stare telling Bullet she had no idea what she was talking about. “anyway” she says clearing her throat “some of these people, most of these people, in order to unlock these abilities, need a little bit of, let’s call it a push.”

Bullet stops unable to think of a way to continue her explanation “Hartley, I understand your slight concern, you just want to be normal, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I have to tell you by being one of these people that will never happen for you, see comparatively we are a small bunch and your powers have already started the first few steps of unlocking your abilities and they’ve started this unlocking for a reason, there are bad people out there who want and need someone of your abilities and we’ve taken it upon ourselves to keep you safe from them, no matter what, you may not know it Hartley but you’ve had people like us watching over you from the moment you were born” Hartley looks down to her hands and remains silent, “Reaper, the guy who found you in the alley, he’s just a henchman and the fact that he was able to get to you not once but twice means that even though you’re not ready you need to find a way to keep yourself safe.”

“How?” she asks and Bullet licks her lips.

“That’s the tough bit, it varies on the person dependant on what they have to suffer to actually unlock it” Bullet puts her hand over Hartley’s “Hartley, if they find a way to get to you, don’t go with them, they will tell you anything you want to hear” Hartley looks into Bullet’s eyes and hears her voice “Promise?” she asks and Hartley nods.

“I promise” she says and Bullet smiles.

Standing up Bullet gets ready to leave but stops “I know you’ve have a bad 15 years Hartley, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of your life will follow in its footsteps, Hartley you’ve lived at the orphanage your entire life” she turns to face Hartley “have you ever noticed the way that everyone found a way to distance themselves from you or how Sister Juanita has been acting as of late, they are all on it, do you think the girls in your school are getting sick and dropping like flies because of the cold weather, no they aren’t, something bigger is happening Hartley and we need to get you out of there before anything terrible happens to you” with that Bullet turns back around and walks away.

Hartley stood there for five minutes as she decoded what she had just been told, she didn’t have enough time to fully understand before she heard the morning bells ring, she ran back to the front doors and found it eerily silent as she snuck back into her room.

When she looked around she noticed the room was empty and all the beds but hers were made neatly, her eyes stopped scanning the room as she notices a small lump in the bed across from hers, the girl who seemed to still be sleeping was the youngest in the room, maybe three or four years of age, Hartley remembered her because of her bright orange hair and face covered in freckles.

Hartley moved over to the girl and shakes her shoulder lightly, but the girl remained still, becoming more worried Hartley turned to the girl so she was facing her.

The girls once blue eyes were now dull and grey, her entire body was pale and her face was frozen with a look of shear horror on it, her chest was unmoving. Hartley covered her mouth to hold in the bile that was quickly moving its way up her throat.

She had never, from what she could remember, seen a dead person, backing up Hartley fell over a loose shoe on the ground, tears begun to flood down her cheeks for the second time that morning.

“Murdera” a voice says accusingly and Hartley looked to the door shocked to see Sister Hannah pointing to her with an accusing finger. Hartley shook her head in denial but Sister Hannah remained in her place, pointing at Hartley.

Hartley looks up to her with wide eyes trembling in fear “I-I didn’t do this!” she says defending herself “I swear it wasn’t me” Sister Hannah remains in her place and Sister Juanita walks in beside her with a scowl on her old wrinkled face.

Crossing her arms, she looked from Sister Hannah to Hartley “Whots goin’ on ere?” she asks irritated. Sister Hannah lowers her hand and looks to her superior gaining the confidence to speak.

“She kulled da gal” Sister Hannah says and Sister Juanita looks to Hartley sceptically before shaking her head dismissively.

Sister Hannah gawks confused at her, her mouth opening and closing like a gold fish “She didn’t kull da gal” Sister Juanita sighs “As moch as I wud luv ta believe it waz, dat gal had bin sick for much to long for her ta ave lived moch longa” Hartley nods, although not understanding what Sister Juanita had just said, Sister Juanita looks to Hartley disgusted “Ya ave chore ta do, do ya not?” Hartley nods and grabs the clothes laid out on her bed as she pulled herself up, leaving the room as soon as she possibly could, just as she made it out of the room she dropped to her knees and emptied her stomach.

When she finally recovered, she went into the bathroom and hurriedly changed into the t-shirt and torn jeans, before she left the room she caught view of herself in the cracked mirror, if she hadn’t been thin before the lessened rations which she had been getting lately had made her so thin her the outline of her ribs was clearly noticeable.

Shaking her head Hartley leaves the bathroom and makes her way into the kitchen, since most of the girls had either died or couldn’t move the remaining girls had to do at least 10 of the day-to-day chores each, the church hadn’t been able to open in over 3 weeks due to the lack of able bodied children.

As she stepped into the mouldy kitchen she saw a girl standing at the sink, her entire body seemed to be trembling, the girl turned to see who had entered and as she did Hartley couldn’t stop the small gasp from escaping.

Gretchen’s once flawless face was now pale with huge purple bags hanging under her lifeless eyes. Her lips cracked and dry and her bottle blonde looked almost brown as it was now dead and oiled.

“Bet you’re enjoying this” she rasps “the fact that everyone who has ever picked on you are slowly dying off, one by one” she coughs and covers her mouth “Don’t think you’re fooling anyone, we all know you’re the one who’s” she gasps and leans on the edge of the sink to remain standing up “who’s doing this to us.”

Hartley steps forward to help her but Gretchen raises her shaking and frail arm to stop her “I don’t need your sympathy” she spits before turning back around and beginning to wash the dirty dishes in front of her.

Hartley’s hair started to once again grow dark red, she moves to Gretchen spinning her around “I know you don’t hold a lot of respect for me, I know you hate- even loathe my entire existence but you cannot blame this entire thing on me” she says angrily, her grip on Gretchen’s arm tightening “I have put up with your bullying since the very beginning and I’ve just kept taking it and taking it, well guess what I am sick of it!” Gretchen’s frail arm tries to pry Hartley’s hold on her arm but her current weak state made it almost impossible. “I know I am different” she says as her hair continues to grow darker “but that is no reason to treat me like some piece of trash on the sidewalk” Gretchen looks up to Hartley’s hair, her eyes growing wide “I just want to be treated normally!” a wonky grin crept onto Hartley’s face.

‘Hartley, stop it!’ Bullet shouted, through the mind link, and Hartley froze, she looked to Gretchen’s terrified face, her eyes then travelled to her hand which was tightly clasped around Gretchen’s bony forearm.

Taking a step back Hartley released Gretchen, her hair returning to its natural blue state and tears beginning to cloud her vision. “Oh my god” she sobs covering her mouth “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t” Gretchen didn’t move, she didn’t even scream at the fact that her arm was now dangling awkwardly at her side, she instead was standing staring wide eyed at Hartley. “I-” she didn’t finish her sentence but instead ran out of the room.

’What had she just done’ that was the only thing she could think.

Hartley ran until she found herself into a dusty and dark room which was once used to greet any guests who would visit, she fell onto the faded red rug that was pushed against the wall, she attempted to catch her breath, she tried to remember what she had done but she couldn’t recall anything but the feeling of searing rage within her.

She attempts to stand but a shooting pain coursed throughout her entire body making her immediately fall back down, clutching the material of the rug, another course of pain floods throughout her body feeling like a million daggers were all stabbing into her at once, she muffled her moans of pain by shoving her face into the rug making them come out sounding as quiet whispers.

‘It’s okay Hartley; this is what we want, you’re starting the awakening process’ Bullet says attempting to reassure her but Hartley paid her no attention as the pain continued to grow, her pale skin growing red from pain and her chair rapidly changing colours.

One more flood of pain coursed throughout her body and she shot into a seating position, her eyes became glazed over and she stared absently to the empty doorway.

A dark shadow begins to fall over the small city of Murkeshore; all the inhabitants already lay dead on the streets. Dream Hartley stood in the middle of a deserted street with a crazy smile over her face as she looks to the shadow with a look of admiration.

Loud screams of pain sound as music to her ears and as she takes in a deep breath, the smell of fresh blood flooding her sense and gave her an odd feeling of pleasure.

Looking across from her she saw Justin who was watching her with a pained expression, his face was broken and bloody, his body looked as if it had been beaten within an inch of his life. “It’s okay, I’m sorry, this was never meant to happen” he whispers as she fires a gun at him.

He drops to the ground but it didn’t seem enough for her as Hartley unloaded the rest of her magazine into him, his body jerking back each time a new bullet hit him.

Hartley dropped the gun to the ground and turned whispering the words “I am ready”

Everything went black and Hartley shakes her head to find herself lying across the rug, as she sat up her hair stuck in every direction, her breathing was uneven and a fresh coat of sweat covering her body.

‘Welcome to the team’ Bullet says and Hartley placed her face into her hands knowing she had somehow just entered a world she still knew so little about.