Chapter Text
I awoke an hour later to the feeling of rain dripping onto my cheek. The drizzle hit Loki’s balcony with a loud pat, and I got up to brush away the drops on my face. Looking at my hand as the water slid down it, I couldn’t recall how I passed out. In fact, I couldn’t remember what happened after… the encounter.
Nothing he said had made any sense at all. He just rambled about life and death. What I kept wondering about is how he knew anything of me or where to find me. How did he even get into this military fort?!
I glanced around to find any trace of the man who had paralyzed me. There was no sign of him, but I did notice the plant he had touched. The leaf he had held in between his fingers was brown and rotting.
Loki would be up soon. I was surprised he didn’t realize I was missing, but then I figured he must have needed more rest than I thought. Then I stopped myself.
My pajamas were soaked through and my hair was a wet mess. He would definitely notice something was up. I couldn’t speak to him about last night; it was crazy. Hopefully just a hallucination from stress. Also, he’d lock me away until he found the perpetrator, but I needed to get to Lorelei.
I slowly opened the door, being mindful of creaks. Loki was still in his same spot, his hair falling around the pillow. He was beautiful.
The bathroom was only a few feet away. I would just have to tiptoe quietly by Loki and open and close the bathroom door without waking him up. Easy, right?
As I was sneaking to the door, I didn’t see Loki wake up. “Little one,” he called. I squealed and put my hand over my heart as if I had a heart attack. “What are you doing?”
I swear my heart had burst right there. “N…nothing,” I stuttered. “Just going to shower!”
Loki was wiping the sleepiness off his face, narrowing his eyes at my appearance. “What in the gods happened to you?” As expected, Loki jumped from the bed and came straight to me with concern blazing in his eyes.
I rolled my eyes and tried to laugh it all away. “Oh you know… I just went out for a bit, then it rained and all that. No big deal.”
Loki stared dubiously at my clothes. “You got that soaked from being out there for a few minutes?”
Not my best lie. “Yeah, it was pouring so you know I was going to head to the shower to wash off.” I started to walk to the bathroom.
“Dana.” I turned around to see him standing scarily still. “You’d tell me if something was wrong?”
Why did he have to ask that? Taking a deep breath, I willed a convincing smile to my face. “Of course.”
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I had kissed Loki goodbye as we went separate ways for the day: him to his search for Lorelei and me to the woods. I told everyone that I would be out shopping for groceries. I may have been shacked up in the tower, but I wasn’t a prisoner like Tony said. I could still go out and live in the real world for a few hours, under supervision.
I managed to evade Tony’s security detail by convincing him it wouldn’t take more than an hour and that bringing two huge men into a grocery store would be a little suspicious.
Finding a wooded area a good distance away from the compound wasn’t hard. When I could barely see the white building, I stopped and put my bag down. The woods around me were eerily silent, and even though it was still day out, I felt a little scared.
I didn’t have a plan, truth be told. I just needed to see if what the man had said was plausible.
I pulled out a blanket from the bag and set it on the ground. Sitting on it, I tried to concentrate on the sounds around me. Flapping from a bird’s wings. A slight brush of the trees and its leaves.
Meditation was new to me, but I thought I could give it a go. After a few minutes, though, I sighed in frustration. Nothing was happening.
Maybe I was doing something wrong. I remember in movies they always tell you to clear your mind. How the hell could I clear my mind with all this shit going on? Add on to the fact that I was alone in the damn woods.
I shook my head and tried again. And once again, nothing.
Irritated, I stood up and walked through the trees to a small stream, splashing the cold water on my face. The water felt so good on my skin—it was like my body felt alive whenever I was near it.
That gave me an idea.
I took a step into the bank, shivering as I felt the cold. I immersed my body in it and let my hands just touch the surface of the stream as my legs were surrounded by the rushing water. And again I attempted to see something beyond me.
Suddenly, my vision went black.
When the darkness faded, all around me was fire and destruction. I could see the bodies of millions piled up in the streets. I heard screaming. It took me a moment to realize the screaming was coming from me. In front of me was a familiar figure.
He smiled knowingly at me. He was no longer hiding himself but in full regalia. He wasn’t dark but… purple.
“I told you, little one.”
He was staring below me, so I followed his eyes to see red all over my white dress. I was in a pool of blood. Shakily, I lifted up my hands and found them stained dark red.
I whipped my head to look at him but found myself staring at his armor. It’s shine acted as a mirror, and I could see myself. My skin had gone pale, and all over me was blood.
But my eyes. My eyes were black.
I let out a scream, this time waking myself from the vision. I came to in the water but found that the water was pitch black. My power had been seeping out of me into the stream.
I yelled and ran out of there, the water returning to its normal blue.
I sprinted to the clearing, grabbed my bag, and made my way back the compound as fast as I could. There was no plan here. There was no time to think of anything. I just had to get out of there.
When I finally reached the compound, I was so out of breath that I fell to the ground. My vision got spotty before I ultimately fainted. My clothes still as wet as they were this morning.