Rogue huddled under the bridge, her gloved hands pressed to her ears in a futile attempt to drown out the world that was crashing down around her. The sky was black, only illuminated by the flashes of lightning cracking across it every so often. She had never fared well in storms; they seemed to bring out the worst in her. She rest her head against her knees, praying for it to finish quickly, for the earth to stop trembling beneath her feet and the tears to stop streaming down her cheeks.

Every boom of thunder brought forth flashes of a life she wanted nothing more than to forget. No matter how far she ran or where she hid, that sound always found her, haunted her like a ghostly echo of her past sins. She could feel it in her bones, even when she managed to drown out the sound the vibrations rang through her clear as day.

A part of her thought it was the universes way of ensuring she never forgot, an inescapable nightmare that could find her wherever she went. She wondered if anyone would notice if the storm brought the bridge crashing down onto her, or if anyone would care for that matter.

A car drove slowly by, desperately trying to remain on the road despite the storms other intentions. Through the rain streaked car window she could see a small girl staring back at her. Their gazes met and the girl smiled and waved, her clear blue eyes filled with childhood innocence and unconditional acceptance. She tore her gaze away and slammed her eyes shut, not wanting to see her tainted self mirrored back at her through someone so innocent.

Then she heard it. The sound was blood curdling, the screech of metal scraping across pavement. She looked up to see the little girls car flipped on its side and a group of people surrounding it. Rogue jumped to her feet, the storm still raging around her suddenly seeming unimportant.

The people made no move to help the girl or her family; they crowded around the demolished car and began to rock it. Obscenities filled the night air, drowning out the storm and making her wish, for once, that the thunder would grow louder. The crowd pushed and yelled as the family desperately tried to protect their crying daughter from the mob.

"You're not welcome here mutant!"

"Go die!"

"Why don't you fight back you freak!?"

Flashes of her old life began flooding her mind, the people she had put in comas or worse, her home at the institute, the hoards of people who would brutally and senselessly attack her family just because they were different. Rogue met the girl's eyes, red and glossy from tears, and felt her own body tense with rage.

"Why don't yah pick on someone yur own size?" she cut through the noise of the crowd like a knife, watching as their eyes one by one turned to fall on her.

"This doesn't concern you." A man huffed gruffly at her. "We're just taking care of a little… problem."

"Actually it does." She threw back at him, narrowing her eyes into a piercing glare that made him flinch. "If she's a li'l problem then I'm the biggest problem you'll ever have."

She removed a glove from one of her hands and shoved it into the pocket of her jacket. The man eyed her cautiously as she approached him, then cried out as she wrapped her bare hand around his exposed throat. The rest of the crowd watched in horror as the man convulsed at her touch then collapsed unmoving onto the cold wet pavement.