Worlds Apart | Leo Fitz Book Five

Chapter One

Everything was black. Asia barely remembered closing her eyes. And then suddenly, it wasn't. She let out a gasp, air flooding her lungs, eyes rapidly taking in her surroundings. Her notably different surroundings. Her eyes started darting about, taking in everything. The room was dark and there was a spotlight on one item ; a giant, sleet and red Monolith, not unlike the one which swallowed up Jemma only two years ago. Her heart started to beat quicker in her chest and she turned to look for Leo, to reach for his hand, and she met only empty air. "Where's Leo?" She asked, the words coming out hoarse, as if she had been coughing. "Where's Leo?" She repeated when no one replied, unsure if anyone had heard her.

But before anyone could answer, the grey rock slipped into liquid, rushing towards them. She tried to turn and run, to liquify herself and disappear into the air, but it was too late. The liquid rock coated her and everything, once again was black.

And then it wasn't.

Everything around her was slowed, like moving in molasses. She lifted up her hand, which was an effort in itself, to look at her fingers. They appeared to have small, crystalline structures forming around them and grey lines streaming off of her hand as she waved her hand back and forth in front of her. What the hell was going on? She turned slowly trying to get a visual on her surroundings, trying to pick up any queues on where the hell that outer space rock had sent her. Before she could make a full turn, she was moving at full speed once again. Like her feet landed on the ground as if she had been on the downturn of a jump the entire time.

She was standing in a dark room, grey walls and floor, dimly lit by a few floor lights. So she was somewhere with intelligent life. Because wherever the hell she was, at very least, it was inside. She brushed off her pants that seemed to have a weird, grey residue on them and looked around. Her eyes lit up when they landed on one thing familiar: "Daisy!"

The brunette looked up, wide eyed, and met her gaze. "Asia, thank fuck!" She said, running to her friend and wrapping her in a hug. "Where are we? What is going on here?" The unspoken question of why the hell is this always happening to us? floating in the air between them.

"I think...we're in space," Asia said slowly, gesturing behind her friend. There was a small window, just tiny enough to look out of, that showed out beyond the room they were in. Out into an inky black like none Asia had ever seen before. And it was pinged dots of light every now and then, milky and silver and beautiful. Stars. The things her father had spent her childhood teaching her so much about. A place she never thought she would see in real life, but here she was. This was Shield after all. It seemed more and more that nothing was outside the realm of possibility.

"And, Leo isn't here," Asia whispered quietly as Daisy's eyes flicked to meet hers. "He wasn't in the room with the Monolith. When it swallowed us. So we're separated...again." There was a deep, aching sorrow in her tone. It seemed that no matter where she went, no matter what she did, the universe seemed to find a way to keep them from each other. Once, long ago, Leo had mentioned as if it felt like they were cursed, and in moments like this...it felt like he was right.

"We'll find him, Asia," Daisy said quietly, taking her friend's hand and giving it a quick squeeze. "But first, let's find the others who are stuck here." She glanced around the room for a moment, before nodding towards a door. "Also, while we're looking...is it just me, or did that Monolith look different than the last one?"

"It did," Asia agreed. "It had those weird red cuts in it, three of them. And while we're in outer space, we're...definitely not on a planet. So they clearly don't all go to the same place. Which is interesting, and terrifying all at once. If there's another one out there, how many more are there, and where do they all go? And why weren't we all displaced into the same room?" She reached forward and opened the door for her friend.