Another day, another mutant signal. It was a routine Kurt had gotten used to at this point.

This was unusual, though. An unusual case indeed. Most cases were in family homes and apartments, with parents who were just as confused and distraught as their children. But this was a mansion, for one, a bona fide mansion, the owners of which were perfectly fine with a group of straggling mutants rummaging through, no frightened teenage mutants in sight.

But there was more to this. There always was. And as Kurt split from the others to search for signs of the mutant, he found himself faced with the basement. Locked by code, but the door had a window, and from the upstairs light he could barely make out the inside and—

He was in just like that. Kurt squinted in the darkness, slowly creeping further in. He’d been in America long enough to know every mansion had a creepy basement, and by God, he’d found it.

No sign of the mutant yet, though. Just rows of books, faded computer screens, and odd specimens in jars. Was this where the owners got their money? Kurt stepped into moonlight, filtered through the bars on a window high above, and felt something cold on his ankles.

Panicked, he looked down, and saw white spectral hands wrapped around his legs like chains. Looking up, he ran cold— this was their mutant, surely, this figure barely illuminated by the moon. He slowly raised his hands, in fear that they’d be restrained too, and smiled.

“Just once,” he said, “I wish people would simply say hello.”