Rogue: Kiss of the Southern Tempest by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Rogue-Kiss-of-the-Southern-Tempest-1260246260

Rogue: Kiss of the Southern Tempest ANIMATION

Skin of Quiet Walls

The road to the safehouse had forgotten its own name.

Rogue knew that because the signpost had rotted to a pale, gnawed plank, its letters eaten by rain and time until only grooves remained—scars without language. The forest around it leaned inward, as if the trees were listening, their needles and leaves knitting together above the asphalt like a cathedral roof that did not believe in mercy.

She parked the bike a hundred yards away and walked the rest, boots crunching on gravel that sounded too loud in the stillness. Her gloves were already on, double-layered leather, seams stitched with the kind of care only someone terrified of skin could appreciate.

“Still standing,” she murmured, when the safehouse came into view.

It squatted at the edge of a clearing, a low concrete structure with narrow windows like slits cut by a cautious blade. Once, it had been a sanctuary—a place for mutants passing through, hiding, healing. Once, she had come here bleeding, hunted, desperate. Once, she had left more behind than footprints.

The door was ajar.

That alone would have been enough to turn back, but Rogue had never been good at retreating from ghosts. She took a breath that tasted of pine and damp earth and pushed inside.

The air changed immediately. It was warmer than outside, heavy with the faint scent of old metal and something sweeter beneath it, like overripe fruit. The lights flickered on as if startled, humming awake one by one, revealing a corridor lined with doors. The walls bore scratches—some shallow, some deep—marks made by fingers and claws and things in between.

“Hello?” Rogue called, her Southern drawl soft but steady. “If anyone’s home, you’re hidin’ real polite.”

The answer came as a whisper, layered and intimate, as if the walls leaned close to her ears.

—Rogue—

She froze.

The voice was not one voice. It was many, braided together, each thread familiar in a way that made her chest ache.

“That ain’t funny,” she said. “Whoever you are.”

The corridor breathed. The lights dimmed, then steadied. The whisper faded into a low murmur, like a room full of people speaking just out of reach of comprehension.

She moved forward, past the first door. The nameplate was still there, though rusted: MED BAY. The second: COMMON ROOM. The third had been pried off entirely, leaving behind two empty screw holes like blind eyes.

Her steps took her deeper, pulled by a gravity she did not want to resist.

In the common room, the furniture lay draped in sheets, white cloth yellowed with age. A chessboard sat mid-game on a low table, pieces frozen in a strategy abandoned long ago. Rogue reached out, then stopped herself inches from the board, her gloved fingers trembling.

“Don’t,” whispered a voice she recognized all too well.

She turned.

No one stood there—no one solid. Instead, the air shimmered, and a shape resolved itself, like a reflection caught in warped glass. A woman leaned against the wall, arms crossed, dark hair curling around her face. She wore a familiar jacket, green and yellow, frayed at the edges.

Rogue swallowed. “Marie,” she said. Her own voice, younger, sharper. The version of herself she had been when she first came here.

The apparition smiled, slow and knowing. “You always did hate that name.”

“This ain’t real,” Rogue said. “I ain’t doin’ this.”

“Sweetheart,” the younger Rogue replied, pushing off the wall. “You been doin’ this your whole life.”

The room shifted. The sheets slipped from the furniture and pooled on the floor like shed skins. The chess pieces toppled, clattering into new positions that made no sense. The walls pulsed, faintly, as if something beneath them had a heartbeat.

Rogue backed away until her shoulders brushed the doorway. “You’re a memory. A trick.”

“Maybe,” said another voice, male this time, low and amused. “But tricks still cut.”

A man emerged from the far corner, tall and broad-shouldered, his eyes glowing faintly. He wore the remnants of a uniform she remembered patching up once, her hands shaking as she pressed gauze to his side.

“Cal,” she breathed. “You died in Phoenix.”

Cal’s smile was crooked. “Not here,” he said. “Here, I stayed.”

He stepped closer, and Rogue felt it—a tug, subtle but undeniable, like the first brush of skin before a kiss. Her power stirred
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