The Flames of Amarra - DR STRANGE x OC - COMPLETE

THE MONSTER UNDER ALL NORAS' BEDS

Nora’s body was shaking. She tried to keep standing, but she already knew she’d never get out of this place alive. 

She knew how to control panic attacks. She’d done it countless times. But now, it was different. Her nightmares were real, always. And this man, this Stephen, was the one killing them all. She was sure of it. 

There was no controlling the fear now. 

She was in a room with the monster who killed so many of other Noras, and her ring was getting weaker and weaker by the minute. 

He turned away from her and looked back at Stephen. “What do you want ?”

Maybe she was wrong. Stephen didn’t seem to think it could be him. He didn't even notice how scared she was. Maybe Nora was just overreacting because she was, in the end, an unstable woman who couldn’t trust her own brain most of the time. 

“We just want to go home,” Stephen said. 

“I’ve been trying to leave this place for a long time,” the other one said. “But you both got here.”

He touched something attached to his hip. He had the Darkhold. If he had it, he was able to dreamwalk, and he could be the one killing Nora over and over again. 

Was she really crazy and imagining things ? Could she trust her instinct this time ? She wanted to talk, she wanted to ask him, but no sound was getting out of her mouth. She was scared of saying anything wrong and dying because of it. 

Because that was why they were all dying. One of them said something, and now they were all paying the price for it. 

Stephen also noticed the Darkhold. “Your guard the Darkhold in this universe ?”

“Yeah. For good reason.”

Nora’s mind was on fire. What kind of reasons ? Keeping it away from Wanda ? Using it to dreamwalk and kill every Nora Keller in the Multiverse ? 

Stephen took a step in his other self’s direction. “I could use it to communicate with my universe.”

“The Darkhold exacts a heavy toll,” the other one warned. 

Was he trying to keep them away from harm or straight up refusing to help so he could kill Nora ? She was too busy looking at the floor to try and figure that out. She couldn’t look at him. In her mind, as long as she wasn’t looking, he couldn’t see her. 

“I don’t mean to be callous,” Stephen said, looking at him, “but what heavier toll is there to exact ?” he added, pointing at the huge dark hole in the sky next to them. 

“Not just on its reality, on its user.”

The Darkhold corrupts everything and everyone it touches. 

Nora remembered that pretty well. Maybe he wasn’t the one killing her and he had just been corrupted. But again, Wanda had been corrupted by the Darkhold and was now trying to kill a kid to kidnap two others from another world. 

But Stephen still didn’t seem to think that one was the one guilty of countless murders. Or maybe he didn’t care. That was also a possibility. He didn’t ask her to stay outside. He didn't stop her from killing again. Nora was only a useful tool, but not worth saving from her nightmares. 

“Look, we’re really sorry you couldn’t save your universe, but maybe you could help save ours ?” Stephen asked. 

The other one turned around and walked back to the window. “Are you happy, Stephen ?” he asked. “Its’ the question-” He stopped in front of the glass for a second before turning back to them. “It’s the question Christine Palmer asked me at her wedding.”