and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

[cerebral]

Who: Charles Xavier & Remy LeBeau, later Erik Lehnsherr.

What: ...someone isn't handling integration well.

Where: Near the fog.
When: Newdi early afternoon.

Notes: Mind horrors.
Warnings: None.

It had started out with good intentions. No, that's a lie. It had started out with Charles telling himself that this was a walk like any other, while he kept the real reason why he took that particular route at the back of his mind.

The fog bothered him. He could accept the gods as extraordinarily powerful beings, although he questioned their self-proclaimed divine status. He could accept magic and had already began to read various introductory books on thaumoturgy. But there were few solid facts about the fog --it was there, it gated them in and it contained monsters, but the rest was up to speculation.

And in the meantime, every part of him was railing against the idea of being trapped in this city. Perhaps if Raven, or Hank, or any of the other younger mutants were here, he would have put on a brave face and tried to handle things better for them. When it was himself--

But it wasn't only himself, there was Erik. And Erik was going out into the wilds while telling him not to, which only gave him more reason to worry.

At least, Charles thought, he had no intention of entering the gloom in front of him (although it only assuaged his guilt a little.) All he needed was to be near enough to let his mind wander into the great vastness before him.

After a long time staring at it, he closed his eyes, put two fingers to his temple and searched.

What he found was in some ways much, much worse than the rumours or his own imagination.