11 and 1/2 year old Melody Simons thrashed in bed, haunted by a black demon within her soul. Through a growing layer of crimson, the ebony shape stalked its way to her, a heightening terror building in the pit of her stomach. The thing drew nearer-
And she awoke in a lather of sweat, soaked from head to toe, to a new morning. Sighing, she stepped out of bed, wondering when the persistent nightmare would stop coming.
Downstairs she found complete and utter chaos, and laughed as her mother appeared from the midst of it all.
“Your second time trying to make breakfast, huh?” Melody asked. Her mom turned on her, happy to have someone to blame.
“Melody, go outside! I’m doing fine on my own!” Rachel Simons retorted. Laughing, Melody ran outside into the backyard of her London home. They had managed to find a place to build where there was enough room for a huge backyard, mainly for Melody, since she loved to be near the birds.
She walked up to a regularly visiting bird, one she had affectionately named ‘Stalker’, and stroked it. It began to sing, and she harmonized along with it. After a while, she sighed and smiled, relaxed.
“Will I ever become a famous singer like you, Stalker?” she laughed, lapsing into a thoughtful daydream. She had just gotten to her first Grammy when the strange man appeared.
“Hello?” he asked Melody. She looked at him, and then at the open gate which he had come through.
“May I help you? I’m Melody,” she said. He looked at her.
“Oh! Good! I’ve come to hear you sing,” he said. “I”m a talent agent.” Melody’s breath caught in her throat. This was it, her big chance!
She immediately pitched into her own song, called, “Outcast”. The man was smiling at first, then slowly he started to wobble, and Melody, not noticing, sang, if anything, louder.
She was cut short by a thump as the man fell to the grass. She recoiled in shock.
“Are you all right?” she yelled at him, wondering what she had done. He got up slowly and looked at her . Melody tried to scream at the utter blankness of his eyes, but instead, a pulsating spiral of blue shot out of her mouth and hit him, full force. The man crumpled, and so did Melody, screaming, with the blue spirals still surging from her lips.
When her mother finally came outside, she was confronted by a scene in which a man was unconscious, possibly dead, the garden destroyed by unidentified ripples, and her daughter, weeping in the middle of it all.
“I didn’t do it, I didn’t, oh, I didn’t mean to....”
Two weeks later....
The man was dead, and Melody, dismissed under the cause of unknown death circumstances, was traumatized and refusing to talk to anyone.
Her mom knew.
What else could she be? came the whispers of her talking to herself from downstairs, wrecking Melody’s life as surely as killing the man had done.
Melody was one of the so-called “mutants”.
She went to sleep, only to be haunted by the demon. Now she knew who he was. He was the guilt and bad in herself.
Only this time, when she woke up, she was greeted by a rag full of chloroform.
“Give her the shot....”
“Now? Is she strong enough?”
“It doesn’t matter! She could be a threat if we let her out without this!”
Her eyes flickered open. Something was wrong. Her mind swam...where was she? Green haze swirled around her , punctuated by sudden blurry flashes of human faces. Mommy? she thought. Where are you? Where am I?
She managed to reach out a hand...through the green there was ice! A cold tube, filled with some strange substance...tubes coming in through the sides?
“She’s awake!”
“She must be strong enough! Do it now!”
“We don’t know if-”
“Let me through!”
“You fool!”
She heard a muffled bump, then a buzz.
Something was coming in, one tube was pressuring forward, against her brain. She felt she should be scared, but she was peaceful.
A spasm of pain richoted through her head and her body shook violently as the needle pierced. With deadly accuracy, it moved inwards to the very core of her brain.
Then it secreted a substance which worked itself into and around her brain, enabling her to use a sort of On/Off switch on her powers....yet the girl only knew agony.
“We did it! We did it!”
“I hope so.”
“Now give her the memory applicant.”
“So soon?”
“We must let her go...we have overstayed our claim with her...”
Another buzz...and a second tube jostled forward to position against the other side of her brain.
The needle pierced.....the girl knew pain.
“We did it....”
A 12 year old woke up in an alleyway.
Thoughts rushed to her in a jumbled stampede. Most concerned questions of where she was and who she was, for that matter. But far from the future, the girl lingered on the past.
For she could not remember who she had been, or who she had known, or even her family. But still, there were haunting remnants of a green tube, and pain...searing, burning pain....and a girl before all that.
“Hello?” came a voice. The girl whirled to face him, surprised at her quick reflex. “Hello?” came the voice again.
“Yes?” she found her mouth saying. A man stepped into the alley, unsure of himself.
“Are you the orphan everyone’s been seeing here?” he asked gently, amused. She looked at herself. She definitely did not look like an orphan, clean-cut jeans and a purple blouse...with a....blue spiral......where had she seen that before?
“I suppose...am I an orphan?” she addressed the man.
“Well, since we can’t find any family, looks like you’ll be meeting New York’s finest orphanage,” he laughed.
She recoiled. An orphanage? She wasn’t a common street rat!
“No!” she yelled. The man looked surprised.
“Where else would you go?” he asked. She looked at him warily. He seemed gentle enough, but there was something about him...this man...there was something wrong about him....
“No,” she repeated, firmly.
“Now come on,” he said, impatient. He moved forward and took her arm.
“NO!” she yelled, only instead...the blue spiral from her shirt pulsed out of her mouth, hitting the strange man directly on.
Gasping, he fell down, clutching his heart, as she ran down the long alleyway, crying-screaming....
Magneto watched her go, still holding his heart. He was satisfied with her strength. Soon, he began to laugh.
She ran....
When she finally stopped, a name surfaced giddily to consciousness.
“Melody?” she said blankly. “My name?” She shook her head angrily.
“No. If this is how I am, then my name has to be....
And a title came to her, undeniable, through the green haze in her own self...
“Echo.”