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Erik thought there couldn’t be anything worse than Auschwitz, than the sinewy, bone-deep terror that permeated every ash-coated inch of the compound. Nothing could be worse than the deep lines already etched into the skin of a sixteen-year-old boy. Haggard and gaunt, trembling from the weight of it. Nothing could be worse than that. Surely.
Auschwitz presented a unique kind of torture for Erik. He could feel the metal all around him. Singing. Screaming. He had never gone this long without using his gift, his mutation. The metal called to him like a phantom limb. Begging him to reach out, touch it.
Erik was many things, but stupid was not one of them. He saw the men in white lab coats at the windows, looking out over the work yard. Watching. Waiting. He heard whispers at night of experiments. Of men, women, and children whisked away after “an incident.”
Erik knew he had to be careful. His life depended on it.
It was 1940. Erik had been at Auschwitz for four months. He hadn’t grown close to many people in his time here. He couldn’t. Most people didn’t make it very long.
But Erik couldn’t resist the pull of Josefina and her mother, Helga. Josefina was a quiet girl, contemplative. She kept her head down, methodical in her work. Her mother, Helga, was the opposite. She had an indomitable spirit and, Erik suspected, something of a crush on him. She would greet him every morning with a cheerful, “Guten morgen,” and a brilliant grin. While Erik didn’t return the sentiment, he had grown rather fond of the duo in their time together, and he appreciated the days when the three of them were put on assignment together. Days like today.
Erik, Josefina, and Helga were assigned to grave duty. An assignment that all dreaded, and Josefina’s shoulders slumped when it was doled out. Helga just clapped her daughter on the back and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly, ushering her along. Erik plodded behind them, dreading the brutal work of digging, made even more macabre by the knowledge of his work’s purpose.
Erik kept his head down. Quietly digging next to Josefina and Helga. Focused on the burn in his forearms as he scooped more and more dirt out of the earth. He paused for a second, just a second, as the clouds parted and a ray of sun bore down on him. He relished the warmth, the soft caress of sunlight on his skin. Helga glanced at him and a soft smile spread on her cheeks as she admired the soft moment. She never saw it coming.
A scream, pierced through the air from close. Too close. Erik’s head snapped to the source. It was Helga. She had fallen into the grave they were digging. A soldier stood a few feet away, a smug smirk contorting his features into something gruesome. Something monstrous.
Erik and Josefina carefully slid down into the hole, rushing to Helga’s side. She was cradling her ankle. Her normally strong features were contorted in pain. Josefina was frantic, rubbing her hands over her mother’s arm, crying, “Mama? Mama?”
Erik’s heart seized in his chest as he took in the clearly broken ankle and the soldier looming menacingly over the grave, gun casually drawn.
“Helga?” Erik murmured, “Can you stand? You need to stand.”
Helga nodded and clung to Josefina and Erik for support. But the moment she put weight on her ankle, she collapsed back to the ground, sobbing at the pain.
“Mama?” Josefina cried.
“Josefina, you need to go now,” Helga whispered, cradling her daughter’s cheek in her hand. “You need to go.”
“Nein!” Josefina cried, “Nein, I’m not leaving you!”
“Josefina, go with Erik now. I’ll be alright,” Helga whispered, tears in her eyes.
Josefina only clung to her mother harder, clutching her like she could change this. Like any of them could change this.
“Erik, please,” Helga whispered, her watery eyes locking onto his.
“Josefina,” Erik says, “It’s time to go now.”
“Nein!” Josefina wailed, but Erik was stronger, grabbing the girls’ shoulders firmly and hauling her away from Helga.
Before Erik could get them out of the grave, a gunshot rang out. Sharp. Deafening. Erik felt the metal as it ripped through Helga’s chest. Felt where it lodged into her ribs.
Erik’s arms went slack, and Josefina took her opportunity. She wrenched out of Erik’s arms and threw herself at her mother, hands fluttering over the fatal wound now coated in blood.
Josefina grasped her mother’s cheeks, sobbing and babbling incoherently.
A second gunshot rang out.
Erik watched as Josefina slumped to the ground. A hole in the side of her head and he looked at the soldier standing above him. Laughing. A sick, wet laugh.
Erik saw red.
He saw a metal helmet.
Before he could think, his arm shot out and twisted, crumpling the metal helmet faster than the soldier could blink. He slumped to the ground. Dead.
Erik’s ears were ringing. He could feel the iron in the blood pumping through his veins.
He stared at Josefina. At Helga. At their lifeless forms. The grief, the terror, the anguish overtaking him.
From behind, two men in white lab coats restrain him and begin marching him towards the compound. He doesn’t resist. His eyes remain trained on Josefina and Helga until the doors shut, and they’re gone.
“Charles, I’m telling you, this is a bad idea,” Raven says for the umpteenth time. “Seriously, I know you’ve seen the news coming out of Germany. It’s not safe!”
Charles’ heart swells affectionately for his little sister. He catches her arm and kisses her on the cheek as he loads the last of his luggage into the taxi idling on the curb.
“I’ll only be gone for two days, Raven. Surely you can manage without me for that long.” Charles says cheekily, reaching up and shutting the trunk of the car.
Raven’s face grows uncharacteristically serious, and she pulls him in for a hug, whispering, “You can’t let them find out about you, Charles. Not even a hint.”
Charles squeezes his sister, then pulls back, hands on her shoulders, “I’ll be alright, I promise.”
Raven’s keen eyes search his face for a moment, then she steps back, defeated. She never could win an argument with Charles. No one could. Charles was as stubborn as he was posh, and his upbringing had instilled him with the unwavering belief that he was always right.
“I love you,” Raven calls as Charles slips into the backseat of the taxi.
“Two days!” Charles calls back, shutting the door. The taxi pulls away and then he’s gone.
Raven stands on the curb, watching the street where Charles had vanished along with the taxi and murmurs to herself, “Two days.”
Backstage, Charles nervously adjusted his tie, his hands smoothing over his sport coat. Despite his outward expressions of confidence, Charles did have reservations about being in Germany. It was 1940 after all. The papers were calling it World War II, and Charles had been surprised when the invitation came in the mail from Halle University. Despite it all, Charles felt compelled to accept. As he had told Raven, “Education is our most powerful tool. Perhaps I’ll be able to make a difference.” Raven had called him naïve, egotistical, an unerring optimist. Every name in the book she could think of to try and dissuade him of this notion. But Charles had always been a sucker for a good presentation, and there was little he loved more than the opportunity to talk about genetics to a rapt audience ad nauseum. So, he accepted.
“Now, please welcome to the stage one of the world’s foremost experts in genetics, Professor Charles Xavier!”
Charles exhaled and stepped out onto the stage to the polite applause from the audience. He took the podium, allowed his good English boy charm to effuse throughout his body, and began.
“Mutation took us from single-celled organisms to the dominant form of reproductive life on the planet…”
As Charles was nearing the end of his lecture, he noticed two looming figures in the back of the theater. Two men clad in Nazi uniforms. Their posture stiff, formal, unforgiving. Charles’ breath stuttered for a moment, as he regained his composure and tried to shake the feeling that he was being vivisected by their gaze.
He wrapped up to thunderous applause and as he began to answer questions from the audience, the two soldiers slipped out the back. Charles felt the tension drain from his shoulders, before he cast a quick net out and saw that they hadn’t left after all. They were waiting for him backstage. His easy smile grew wan, stretched thin as he answered the last question and thanked the audience.
Charles put his hands in his dress pants’ pockets and coerced his muscles into an easygoing stroll as he made his way backstage. He only made it a step past the curtains before he was looking up at two, quite large Nazi soldiers blocking his path.
Charles turned up his charm, “Good evening, gentleman. Thank you so much for coming, but I’m not taking any more questions. I’d be happy to answer yours another time. I’m quite weary from traveling, I’m afraid.”
“Professor Xavier,” the man on the right said, his voice gruff, grating, thick with a German accent, “Please come with us.”
“It was lovely to meet you, gentleman” Charles said, trying to push past the formidable men in front of him, “Please contact my secretary with any further inquiries.”
“We’re not asking,” the man on the left said, his feet planted firmly shoulder-width apart. The lines of his shoulders and the stiffness of his neck lending him all the regality, all the intimidation of a soldier.
Charles began slowly raising his fingers to his temple. He preferred to handle these things in a civilized way. After all, he was a civilized man, but they were leaving him no choice.
Before he could push the suggestion into their minds, there was a rustling behind him and the world went dark with a crack.