Shadows | s.r

CHAPTER 11

Alayna Maximoff saw one thing before she woke up.

One horrible thing that will probably be in her nightmares for many nights to come.

She was back in the room.

The room she was kept in.

At Hydra.

There was a lonely bench that had sat directly in the corner. That was the place she had slept.

There were still scratch marks on the walls from when she would be experimented on, there was still a bowl in the corner where she would be given water.

And it was still dark.

Pitch black dark.

It was like no light had reached into the room for years, and Alayna knew that was true.

She had lived in darkness when she was there, Hydra just saw it easier for her to feed into the shadows that way.

Suddenly the door opened, catching Alayna off guard.

A girl was thrown into the room.

Alayna tried to catch her but, the girl went straight through her and hit the wall behind her with a sickening crack.

Alayna's eyes widened it was like she was a projection, a hologram of some sort, she could see this world and yet she couldn't interact with it.

The girl then began to groan.

She lifted her head up and, Alayna realized who it was.

She was looking at herself.

This girl was Alayna.

Just younger, and more beat up.

The younger girl moved herself from the wall and sat down on the bench. She had a shock collar on. A ragged white shirt and pants, that looked like they hadn't been washed in years. Her wrists looked like she had boiled water and dropped it on them. Her hair choppy and short, coming down a few inches past her chin. Her eyes glowed gold as they felt the shadows around her. Projecting the only light in the small room they were in.

She wiped her mouth, which Alayna didn't know was bleeding.

The real Alayna started rub her neck where the scars from the collar lay.

Young Alayna sighed as she slumped against the bed. She looked like she was trying to find something that wasn't there in the shadows. Like she was trying to find solstice in them. Like she was trying to find a home.

Alayna watched her old self as she did this, finding herself watching the shadows as well. How they danced along the wall, as if they were wild, free. The shadows always seemed to want her to feel free when she was confined. They reach out to her and make her feel better almost, as if she's not alone somehow.

She could always control shadows, so it almost seems like they are another life form to her, how they could be a living, breathing creature, that only she can interact with. Which is true, she is the only one that can see shadows of people,  read them, and find out who they are in a snap of her fingers.

Her old self suddenly stiffened against the wall, and Alayna could hear footsteps outside the door.

The door opened and there stood a man.

He had brown hair and blue eyes, a mask over his face and a metal arm.

He was holding what seemed like a tray of food.

Alayna almost winced when he walked through her.

He walked and sat on the bench with her old self, stoic as ever. It was radiating off the man.