Disclaimer: Characters are Marvel's Use of Characters is Nonprofit.

Notes: The end of writer's block; the product of 15 mad minutes of typing.
There seemed to be a lot of Witness fic coming out all at once, which got me
thinking along that particular Marvel plot again. :) This is sort of an
alternate-twist-on-an-alternate-future-possibility. Continuity isn't all that
straight. Please don't: A) Read without sending feedback, B) Archive
without my permission, or C) Print for the purpose of incineration.

There's a bit of violence and gore.

Mnemosyne
By BelaLeBeau

Something must have happened to change the course of time and reality, but
whatever it was, neither I nor anyone else can fathom when it happened, or
what caused it. In any case, I can only hope it will somehow change again, and
that I will not become, as the people have called me, "The Witness."

It wasn't supposed to be me. It was supposed to be Gambit. Since the day that
Bishop claimed that he and the Witness were one and the same, we'd all
assumed- at least I had assumed- that somehow Remy would be the one. He
wasn't. He died like all the rest of them. I remember quite clearly his body
sprawled out on the field just outside the Xavier estate's boathouse, his
spine lying next to him like a bloody snake. I hadn't had time to be horrified
for him; what they had done to the others was far worse.

They hadn't all died at once, as poor Bishop had assumed. The first attack
took Remy and Scott and Kitty, who, for one reason or another, had been home
that evening, while the rest of us were out. It was the second, which came at
their funeral, which heralded the death of the others. Ororo. Kurt. Rogue.
Peter. Bishop had died as well, and his screams had risen above those of the
others- after all, it was why he had come to us in the first place. To protect
us from it. He'd failed, obviously.

I'd managed to escape into the woods. It was a cowardly thing to do, the one
act I've always hated myself for; but I'd given it my best. I'd fought as hard
as the rest, and it was only through some cruel trick of fate that I'd made it
through. While the bodies of my teammates, my friends, were hacked to bits,
I'd sprinted off into the trees and prayed that *they* wouldn't come after me,
that *they* wouldn't remember me. That they would be so thrilled with throwing
the bloodied heads off the X-Men to each other like children with snowballs in
the winter that they'd get tired and decide to go back to whatever foul lair
their master had sent them from.

I'd lived alone after that. A quick note to my brother to tell him what had
happened, and then... nothing. I refused to return home for years, and I
watched... or, I "Witnessed"... the Death of the Dream. Ah, Xavier, if you
could see us all now. Lost children are we, a lost world in which there is no
law, except whatever is enforced by the terrorists who call themselves
lawkeepers. At this end of time, I can see now how Magneto could have believed
so much in mutant rule, and how the flatscans could have been so devout in
their anti-mutant campaigns. These understood, in their own asinine ways, that
there couldn't be peace between the races.

America is gone. So is Britain. Europe is a land of nomads, the East is held
together by tyrants. My brother, Alex and Lorna, Emma and her flock: dead,
some of old age, some killed in the last battles. I missed Brian greatly. Had
there been anyone to talk to, he alone would have been it; he was my brother,
he would have kept me sane. The being known as Shard, who had understood all
too well what had happened, disappeared. Rachel vanished to some other time,
hoping to mend things. I have not seen any evidence of improvement. And me? I
tried not to watch. But there wasn't much choice. On the telly of reality, the
only channels were war and pain. I closed myself up as best I could, and then
I waited.

I waited for the future. I knew Bishop and Shard would be born someday, and
with careful steps, I could perhaps remodel the present to change the past. It
seemed the only thing I could do.

They have yet to be born, or found, if they live. And so I'm left only with
memories, and I almost wish that I had simply run into the blood-stained arms
of Sinister's horde when they had come to collect Xavier's loyal Knights. My
deathbed is a cold place, in a cold room. Nobody will be here to witness the
death of the Witness, and it's just as well, I suppose. I'd rather wait to see
the ghosts of my dearly beloved friends than be forced linger for the
questioning slaves of this era.

So I go. Off to somewhere... where I won't need to Witness anymore.