The horrible howl was as brutal as a throat-cut shriek, but more brutal, deeper, less hopeful of a swift end.
Scott Summers came running from one directions, clad only in a pair of shorts, while Ororo Munroe came from the other, a robe casting shadows over her dusky skin, drawing out the moon-paleness of her hair and eyes.
Door were rattling open, sleepy voices speaking, as a shadow, nothing but nebulous edges and wild, burning eyes moved with cat-grace speed from the bowels of the dwelling.
Jean Grey, who had arrived moments after Scott, gasped and involentarily broadcast the telepathic chaos she discovered emenating like Medusa's tendrils from what was once a barracks-neat room.
Blood. Pounding throb of hunger-need-savagry in the ears, blocking all other sounds. Take. Scrap of paper, falling in a blood-cut-sharp line, twirling then as it drifted in shattered pieces to the floor. Hunt. Disjointed images, of the last struggles of prey, the mad dash, the warm savage glee of dominance and territory as the feeding began. Alone. Freak. Outsider. Beast. Shamed. Scent of flowers. Scent of blood. Ice-cold grip flowing back around his heart.
Fangs glinted briefly in the the shadows as the wild flurry of uncontrolled telepathic imagry seemed to fragment, exploding, then slide back, behind a dark and deadly face of - what?
Half-crouched, growling, Logan exploded from the shadows, claws extended, expression so crazed it defied wild - so agonized it burned home the horror of it's appearance.
"Damn! Scatter! Wolverine's gone beserk!" yelled Scott, switched to command-mode.
Alpha. Die. Driven by instinct, the feral mutant spun, claws at full extention, and swung out wide, in a movement designed to eviserate. A hunting manuver. Territory-battle.
Professor Xavier's telepathic force suddenly joined them, but the shorter mutant snarled in fury, showing no sign of recognition. He thrashed wildly, despite his friends' attempts to restrain him.
Finally, Hank McCoy - arriving from the MedLab - managed to leap into the fray, and with the combined force of Scott, Ororo, and himself - and the telepathic efforts of Xavier - managed to shove a hypodermic into Logan's muscular shoulder.
His head was turned toward Ororo as he collapsed, eyes on her, watching her, hand outstretched as though reaching for her, fingers twitching - then he was still.
"Thank God." whispered Scott, climbing to his feet, trying not to wobble. "Thank God's that's over!"
But Ororo was staring into her own hands, unable to forget - to even move the image from her eyes - of those eyes, those haunted, maddened, agonized eyes...
Xavier emerged from the medical-quiet of the MedBay, his expression ashen and drawn. He seemed to have aged ten years in the span of an hour, and everyone felt the strain.
"Professor?" Scott's voice was questioning, but concerned.
"I attempted to scan Logan's mind." Xavier folded his hands. His eyes closed, and his students were shocked to see tears on his lashes. "Let me...show you." he whispered.
Shadow-form, claws shadowed moons,eyes so full of - everything. Rage and pain and - yes, even hate. A creature of wild savagry. Needing the kill, anything to feel, to feel - to feel. In the distance of that mind, a whisper of the tattered, shredded conciousness, Logan stood briefly, screaming, "You never knew me! None of you! I was just your damn hunting dog!"
But the shadow-form was blown away as if by a gust of fretful wind, leaving first only the howling agony, then the crushing ache of silence.
Out of that mind was eased a single, tortured image.
A list. A list of names.
Friends.
Logan's friends.
Some older, some younger.
Crossed out in blood.
Marked with the symbol for extinction.
And pictures, perverted in their precision, of fallen bodies, mutilated in sergical percision, tortured, then cast aside.
A girl, fresh on the edge of her teen-age years, lay dead beneath the shielding body of a Japanese woman. Scattered around them were heaps of bodies wearing the crest of Clan Yoshida.
Yukio.
Akiko.
More, a series of chemical equations, written in a neat, precise hand.
"Hank?" Scott's voice was uncertian. This level of chemistry was beyond him.
Instinctively, almost desperately, the small group turned their mind from the gruesome images and the fear for their friend to a threat they could fight, could beat - could throttle.
When the felinoid mutant saw the symbols, his expression was one of complete and utter disbelief, followed by a horrofied understanding.
"What is it?" Jean rested a hand on the blue-furred shoulder of the cat-like genius.
"A plauge. A terrible plauge." He looked up. "One that will make Legacy look like the common cold. It...it...kills humans." His voice shook uncharacteristically. "Alters their genes, makes their red blood cell walls rupture, massive bleed-outs...."
"How can we deal with it?" Scott, ever practical, ever ready to fight against impossible odds.
"You don't understand, my friend." Hank's gaze was earnest. "You have to see." Taking a deep breath, he managed to explain. "The plauge is not a virus, but a protazoic mimic. By now, it's attached itself into every level of the food chain. Pollution, atmospheric especially, would give it a perfect growth environment. Every human, mutant, animal, every form of life ever to walk on this planet is carrying it in their system. But it's reached critical mass, a kind of chain reaction, and now, unless you have the X-gene, which seems to use the protozoic mimic at some point as a food source, it will simply - and I do not say this lightly - kill you." His cat-like gaze was almost desperate. "Within 4 months, we will have 6 million dead." The shock left them silent, agast at such a vast number. "Three months later, 1 billion. By the end of the year, there'll be one human non-mutant left alive on Earth. Just one."
"Goddess." whispered Ororo, unable to find words for such horror.
"My God." Scott's voice shook.
There was a long silence as Xavier looked away, tears dampening his cheeks, his expression one of stricken agony.
Finally, as their world simply crashed into shambles, facing a horror beyond their imagination, a question they could ask, needed to ask, needed to focus on for their sanity, was returned to.
"And Logan is...?" Hank's normally warm voice held an edge of anger as his heart went out to his normally gruff friend.
Xavier took a deep breath.
"Logan is insane."
Part II, "Grasping at the Cliffedge", in one week!