[AU, RW] NARRATIVE, PART 2.
Following Rogue’s disappearance, Betsy had never again been lucky enough to be listening at the precise moment that a voice was extinguished—partially because Nate Grey, supposedly the most powerful telepath in the world, was now handling just that. Her own effort had been appreciated, though worthless—a frustration she hadn’t particularly enjoyed. Betsy knew she wasn’t as trained or as powerful as other telepaths, but here she was with these powers, and she could do nothing with them but sit and wait. And Betsy Braddock had never been good at waiting, especially when she had an idea to test.

Betsy brushed a strand of violet from her face, long lashes only partially hiding the clock face from view. It was 10:00 AM.

The bed creaked as she sat up slowly, fully dressed, the back of her neck stinging at the movement. It had been almost precisely a month since she’d gone out for her walk that led her to the memorial garden. A month since she’d last been able to sleep without the aid of medication and glancing behind herself each time her room felt too quiet, her hand coming to rest on her bare shoulder to guard her skin against some perceived chill. Lack of sleep made you paranoid, among other things, and at first, Betsy had feared she was becoming a prime example.

Now, she had other theories.

Her feet made soft, satisfying clicks as she slid them carefully into her shoes and rose from the bed, walking for the door. She’d never gone to bed, though she’d gotten dressed as though it was any other morning. Her only concern about getting stopped from what she was about to do was Nate, or Anneliese—but she hoped, if Nate was listening, he understood. No one who’d vanished had come back. Clearly, people were only moving in one direction, and not the other. So it followed that if this really was a matter of interdimensional rifts, as Nate had theorized, weren’t they all simply waiting to cross over?

Betsy’s steps were hurried, purposeful, anticipation burning like acid in her limbs as she hurried down the halls, mind racing. Suppose Nate was right. Suppose, then, everyone had their “time” to vanish into some other world. What if everyone had their own place? Rogue had vanished from a room on the second floor while Betsy had been listening. If the disappearances were unique matters, somehow tailored to fit the person vanishing, then Betsy knew the first place she would look for her own exit. Yes, look for it.

The doors before Betsy were shoved open, morning sunlight flooding both the hall and her face. She rushed down the steps, heels clacking on hard surface, then turned directly to the left, shading her sensitive eyes from the light. Was this the way? Her heels burned at the continued brisk footsteps she was making as she rushed down the path. Green, orange, and red on the trees sped by her in a blur of color she didn’t stop to enjoy. If she was wrong, she would go back to the school and wait again, like everyone else. But if she was right, and she’d had her answer all these weeks—

The clacking noises her heels had made slowed in frequency and volume, then stopped altogether. Betsy’s breath caught in her throat as she tucked a violet strand behind her ear. She was standing before the winding path that led into the memorial garden, which was significantly less unsettling in the broad daylight. The sun touched upon little minerals in some of the stones, lending to a sort of glistening effect, while some markers gleamed brilliantly in the gold.

And then, suddenly, it was there. The feeling that someone was watching over her shoulder. A chill ran up Betsy’s legs as she glanced behind herself out of sheer reflex, the sound of her heart thudding in her ears. I’m here, she thought to herself, adrenaline pumping through her veins. Now where do I go? She felt silly an instant later, something tightening in her chest. Into the garden, of course. She had to go. She had to keep—moving.

The beat in her ears now had something of a drum quality to it. Betsy tried not to listen, her nerves on high alert as she glanced back one more time, then took her first step—measured, purposeful, but slower than it could have been. She’d always despised graveyards, interdimensional rifts or no interdimensional rifts—and despite others’ feelings toward the place, that was exactly how Betsy viewed the memorial garden. It was a cemetery, where dead people were buried. A constant reminder, right behind a school, no less, of your own mortality. It was spooky. It was inappropriate. Who really wanted to go for a walk and think about how short life was? One moment, you could be out driving with the roof rolled down and the wind in your hair, and the next, you were gone—a victim of someone rounding a turn too quickly. Or, as was the case at Xavier’s, you could be practicing your telekinesis in class, only to be fatally attacked by a rampaging hoard of your mind-controlled friends.

Betsy Braddock wasn’t afraid of much. As someone who’d leapt at the chance to travel the world to walk before the cameras of thousands and advertise the best clothes money could buy, she was adventurous. If she didn’t party hard and often, her week was wasted. She’d tried too many wild and, as far as society was concerned, downright inappropriate things to remember them all. Whenever she was dared, she delivered. Her life, when she was happiest and most active, was one big, blurry risk. There wasn’t an end in sight. There wasn’t supposed to be. Someone as young as she was had the whole world ahead of her, and death was a far-away point on the horizon that wouldn’t be reached for years and years.

She’d stopped again on the path, glancing first to one side, then the other, feeling underwhelmed. Where was she supposed to go? Markers were carefully placed into the ground all around, and none of them stood out to her. Trying not to think too hard about what was under her feet, Betsy slowly, hesitantly placed one, two heels onto the grass and began walking. She wasn’t certain what she was looking for, exactly—all she knew was that being in the graveyard was her best lead, and if it failed, she would be out of theories. She’d had enough of waiting; enough of wondering.

Grace, Betsy read the names on the markers, not really knowing what else to do. Gellar. Frost. These had been lined in what seemed to be alphabetical order, as though the people under them had been buried at the same time. Xavier’s did seem to have suffered its share of mass killings, Betsy thought darkly, looking out over the expanse of grass, flowers, and carefully-maintained shrubbery. It was a place designed for tranquility and quiet remembrance, and as she continued walking around the markers and the seconds stretched into minutes, she felt her nerves relax ever so slightly. There was nothing sinister at all about nature or landscaping. But then—why had she felt so uneasy at the entrance? And why—

A light gasp left Betsy’s lips as she stumbled on her feet, a rare mistake for someone who, if anything, was trained to walk gracefully for a living. As her arms shot out to regain her balance, her ankle wobbled, and her shoe was promptly dislodged from her foot. Startled, Betsy fell back against the moist ground, landing in a decidedly ungraceful tangle of limbs and now green-tinged designer clothing. International supermodel, her arse. Taken aback at herself, she forced an uneasy laugh to no one in particular.

And then her blood ran cold.

Just inches away from where she lay sprawled, her shoe was sunken into a slightly-raised mound of soft earth. The dirt was settled, but not packed—as though it had only recently been disturbed. She’d tripped onto a freshly-dug grave.

Quickly, Betsy got to her feet, brushing herself off in a flurry of movement out of reflex, as though she’d fallen on top of the grave itself. It didn’t matter; the feeling of being so close to death turned her insides to ice, even as she firmly told herself it was disrespectful. Tossing hair out of her face, she started forward to retrieve the half-buried shoe when it hit her: The mound was unmarked. And when was the last time anyone had died at Xavier’s? Months ago. So unless someone at the school was harboring a horrible secret, this was—

And there it was again, the feeling as though her skin was prickling all over, standing on end. Betsy glanced around herself, half-expecting someone to be coming at her right now—but there was nothing. She couldn’t just touch someone’s grave; what if this wasn’t what she was looking for? What was she supposed to do? She reached for her shoe, snatching it from the dirt. She had to think. She was just brushing off the shoe, privately glad that she’d had the sense not to wear her favorite pair today, when something caught her eye.

It was an earring, lying there in the upturned ground. As Betsy leaned forward to get a closer look, brushing her hair out of her face to see, her heartbeat leapt to life in her ears again, pounding like the thudding of a muffled, underwater drum. The earring was a pearl drop, with a white diamond adornment near the top. Her parents had given her the set for Christmas when she turned eighteen, and she’d kept it in the jewelry box on top of her nightstand back at Braddock Manor.

It was one of the pairs she’d consciously left at home when she traveled, afraid she’d lose it.

Betsy’s stomach twisted into a knot. No. No, no, no. This was vile. She wasn’t going to dig into a grave. But as she turned around, the scene that greeted her was no longer green, and there was nothing remotely like shrubbery around. The ground was too--crowded. Rows upon rows of freshly-dug graves, identical in size to the one she was standing before, lay in neat rows. Horrified, Betsy brought her hand to her mouth, feeling a deep sense of dread. This was it, then. This was—she had to—

Nate, Anneliese, she called out shakily to the two people she’d contact in a time like this, plunging her fingers into the loose dirt. Why Anneliese was one of those two, Betsy didn’t know, exactly. Could they even hear her anymore? I’m in the memorial garden; I’ve found-- Her thoughts broke off as she continued to shove dirt aside, feeling the grime slip underneath her perfectly-manicured fingernails. Why wasn’t anything coming up? Handful after handful of dirt was thrown aside as the model scrabbled like a dog through the earth, afraid of what she’d find underneath, her slender fingers curling in gut-twisting anticipation as she continued. When would she hit something? Fear knotted with revulsion in her thoughts; she was disturbing a grave.

And then her fingers brushed something icy, stiff. Her nerves on fire, Betsy yanked her hand back as though she’d been bitten by something. Lying inches below her fingers was a partially-exposed human forehead. The body under there—it hadn’t even been put into a coffin, she shuddered. Not even cremated. With a slightly-trembling hand, Betsy reached down and brushed the dirt away with quick, flighty movements. The forehead exposed eyebrows, an ear, a cheekbone. A pearl earring. Wide, staring blue eyes. A mouth still slightly open, as though twisted into an expression of shock at time of death. Inches away, a disturbed ant crawled along an exposed purple strand.

If anyone had been going to visit the memorial garden that morning, they would have found it undisturbed, the leaves in the bushes nodding to a gentle breeze. Somewhere, a dimension away in reality, Betsy Braddock woke up screaming.