WebNovels

Chapter 54 - The Missing Piece

Max hurried out of the café and rushed toward his car without even sneaking a glance behind.

His steps only halted when he reached his car. He leaned against it, breathing heavily as his chest tightened and a suffocating nausea overwhelmed him.

With bloodshot eyes, dry lips, and a pale face, he looked like a perfectly debilitated man.

Max heaved a long breath and inhaled deeply. He licked his lips, wetting their cracked surface.

After a few more moments of forced breathing, a sharp headache emerged as he tried to calm himself.

In the next instant, he stumbled, his legs unsteady, his head fuzzy and dull. His vision blurred for no reason, freezing his eyesight in place.

Max freaked out. Grabbing onto the car for support, he breathed heavily and shut his eyes tightly. 

Horrified by his rapidly deteriorating health, his head churned with panicked thoughts, scrambling for any particular reason why his seemingly fine body was now crashing so suddenly.

Before he could call anyone for help or even think further, every symptom vanished; discarded, erased, as if they'd never existed.

"What the..." he muttered involuntarily, stunned.

A frown crept onto his brow, his nose scrunching in confusion. Speechless at the sudden shift, Max rubbed his temples to ease the headache that had already faded.

"What the hell just happened?" he whispered. If he didn't know Jessica, he'd have assumed she drugged him or something with coffee.

Reaching into the car, he pulled out a water bottle and downed the entire litre in one breath, gulping as if his throat had turned into desert sand.

His lungs ached from suffocation. Out of breath, he sucked in air with a sharp inhale.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

He focused on his breath and sighed at himself. Gradually, his body calmed, and the agitation subsided.

Now, taking a slight look at his body, his thoughts stirred, mulling over the events he had just suffered in the past few moments.

Since he couldn't deduce anything physically wrong with him, he blamed the sudden emotional shock for triggering his bodily breakdown.

So, his focus shifted to the information Jessica had blurted out, like some universally known truth Max had somehow missed.

"But how?" Max still couldn't wrap his head around how he missed mutants altogether.

From his transmigration into a new body to finding himself in the strange world of Marvel, he had deciphered, planned, and broken down every piece of information in his mind to strategise his survival.

He had known all major Marvel branches, from the Avengers to even street-level characters; yet, for some unknown reason, he had never factored in mutants.

Even though mutants and the X-Men were some of Marvel's most iconic parts, he hadn't even questioned their existence.

His eyes narrowed as the thumping sound of his heart intensified. Everything, his memories, his assumptions seemed suspicious now.

As a Marvel fan, knowing about mutants and the X-Men was a given. Still, he hadn't recalled their existence even as a joke. 

His focus had remained solely on the yet-to-arrive Avengers and various business matters, while the mutant situation, more revolting and dangerous had never crossed his mind.

Mutant stories carried more doomsday scenarios than most Avengers plots. Moreover, many of those events were difficult to avoid once a certain point had passed in the timeline.

'Days of Future Past' was one such plot.

Max gritted his teeth, his fists clenched involuntarily as he pondered. He tried to recall memories, not just his own, but those of the body he now inhabited.

 However, that too led to nothing.

He had no recollection of any news or rumours about mutants, not even someone jokingly bringing it up. The word 'mutant' he'd only ever heard from Jessica's mouth.

Max grabbed the car door, rushed inside, and shut all the exits. He warily scanned his surroundings, inside and even outside.

"Something's wrong with me," he muttered.

For the first time, Max was terrified of his own mind. The same mind that had aided him through everything, the one tool he trusted aside from the system, now even that seemed to be slipping away from him.

"But how...?" Skepticism crept in. A creepy, sticky feeling crawled over his skin, and agitation began to rise once more.

"Fuck. A mind reader! Dammit!" he exclaimed, his eyes widening in horror.

Now it all made sense, why there was no mention of mutants in his memories, neither in the past of this body nor in his thoughts after inhabiting it. 

He had never noticed anything, even remotely, connected to mutants.

Someone, somehow, had tampered with his mind.

The realization broke him into a cold sweat, a chill running down his back.

His chest ached, his throat parched, and fear crept through his veins like poison. 

Gradually, Max felt like he was swarmed by dark shadows. His pulse pounded, his blood pressure spiked, and his vision turned hazy.

Before he knew it, everything around him blurred into static and he collapsed onto the car seat, unconscious and cold.

….

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