I. Seven Years Old
The child who is not a child has buried herselfitself into your shirt; the child who is not a child is covered in blood and gore and smells of saltwater tears and has bloody bloody bloody bloody teeth.
She cries, it cries, on and on and on, and its eyes are changing and its face is round and innocent and its eyes are dead and blank and it is crying into your shirt and you say X-23, get up, it’s okay, get up, get up, and it is unclenching its clawhands from your shirt, and it is sobbing, and it is saying in your voice X-23 it’s okay X-23 it’s okay X-23 it’s okay.
The body X-23 killed is six feet away from you. You can see it. It is rotting. The man’s throat was ripped out. X-23 shifted and ripped his throat out. X-23 ate part of his throat because Rice said X-23 shouldn’t eat for a few days. X-23 was hungry and that is all. X-23 ate a man’s throat and X-23’s mouth is covered in guts. X-23 is tired and crying and hungry. You do not know how to do this. X-23 sobs but it does not touch you. It is better this way. You get up and walk out of the cell.
II. Eleven Years Old
X-23 is hungry. You know this because it has not stopped pacing for two consecutive days now. It has not slept. There is blood where it steps. Its feet are bleeding badly. It does not stop.
When Rice leaves, you go in and you hand it a granola bar that you had shoved in your pocket. It looks at you and does not say a word. Its eyes are yellow now and you try not to think about when they are green.
(They are green when X-23 is very tired and cannot do anything but shift back to its original form, black hair and bright bright bright green eyes that it stole from you.)
(When X-23 was born, it/her eyes were brown. When X-23 turned five, it/her eyes were green. Now they are yellow; Rice wants a beast and he got one, down to the irises.)
X-23 stares, and you stare back, and it is eleven years old today, and it keeps pacing, around and around.
III. Thirteen Years Old
The X-men come for X-23, as the scientists had always feared they would. The X-men are monsters. The X-men are horrifying. The X-men have teeth and eyes and claws and fire and the X-men always come for one of their own.
X-23 leaves, and there are bodies on the floor, and you cannot tell if they are dead or alive, and there is blood coating your shoes, and you do not care.