Rogue: The Southern Enigma by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Rogue-The-Southern-Enigma-1260246117

Rogue: The Southern Enigma ANIMATION

The Weight of Infinite Kisses

She woke to the scent of honeysuckle and the sound of her own heartbeat, a wet, thick thumping in her ears. The sky was the color of a faded bruise, and the ground beneath her bare feet was cool, smooth glass. Rogue stood, a tremor running through her. The last thing she remembered was the mission—a psychic anomaly in the Nevada desert, a shimmer in the air that tasted like static and old regret. She’d touched it. Idiot. She always touched.

Now, this.

A city sprawled before her, its architecture a grotesque collage. A gleaming art deco skyscraper stood beside a rustic log cabin, which was itself attached to a pristine white laboratory hallway that led to a Gothic cathedral. It was a landscape built from mismatched memories, a junkyard of the mind. Her mind. Theirs.

“Well, ain’t this a pretty pickle.”

The voice was a low, honeyed drawl, and it came from everywhere and nowhere. Rogue spun. A figure materialized from the shimmering air in front of the cathedral. He was tall, with dark hair and eyes that held the cold fire of dying stars. He wore a faded flannel shirt and jeans, but he carried himself with the predatory grace of a jungle cat. Rogue’s blood ran cold.

“Cody,” she whispered. The name tasted like dust and a first, stolen kiss that had nearly killed him.

“In the flesh,” he said, spreading his hands. “Well, your flesh’s memory of my flesh, anyway. It’s a distinction without a difference in here, darlin’.”

This wasn’t Cody. It was the echo of him, the part of his personality she’d absorbed in that one terrifying, ecstatic moment in her youth. A fragment, given form and will by this place.

“Where is ‘here,’ Cody?” she asked, her voice steady despite the ice in her veins.

“You don’t know?” He grinned, and it was his grin, the one that had made her heart flutter in a dusty Mississippi town. Now it made her want to run. “You built the foundation, sugah. We just did the decorating. This is the Rogue Gallery.”

He gestured, and from the lab hallway, a man in a pristine white coat emerged, his face a mask of clinical fascination. It was Dr. Adler, a telepath she’d brushed against during a rescue mission, his mind a labyrinth of cold equations and suppressed longing.

“Subject Rogue,” Dr. Adler said, his voice a dry rustle. “Fascinating. Your psyche is the substrate, but the architecture… the architecture is ours. A shared delusion with a singular purpose.”

“And what purpose is that?” Rogue asked, backing away.

“To keep you,” the sky itself seemed to groan. The voice was a chorus of a thousand souls, each one she’d ever touched. It was the sound of the crowd at a fairground, the murmur of a hospital waiting room, the silent scream of a dying Sentinel pilot. “To keep you here. With us. Forever.”

The city shuddered. A section that looked like a suburban living room—flowered wallpaper, a ticking clock—began to bleed into a military bunker. A woman in a floral dress stood by a faux-marble fireplace, stirring a pot on an invisible stove. A man in combat fatigues stood in the bunker’s doorway, his knuckles white on a rifle. Two different minds, two different realities, grinding against each other.

“Don’t listen to the rabble,” Cody said, stepping closer. “They’re just echoes, caught in their own little loops. Me? I’m different. I’m the original. I’m the one you really wanted.”

He reached for her face. Rogue flinched back. “Don’t touch me.”

He laughed, a warm, genuine sound that was somehow more terrifying than any threat. “Oh, honey. In here, touch doesn’t matter. In here, we’re already as close as two people can get. I’m in your blood. I’m in your bones. I’m the scar on your soul.”

He was right. She could feel him, a familiar, comfortable warmth at the edge of her consciousness. It was seductive, this peace. To let go, to just be part of this place, to never have to worry about her deadly skin again.

“You could be happy here,” Dr. Adler said, stepping forward. “We could continue our research. Together. Unlock the full potential of your physiology without the messy variable of human contact.”

“I’m not a specimen in your lab,” Rogue snapped.

“No?” A new voice, silky and dark. From the shadows of the cathedral, a figure emerged. She was ethereally beautiful, with porcelain skin and hair the color of moonlight. She wore a flowing gown of shadows. Rogue didn’t recognize her, bu
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