章節 3: Worry : Improved
Finally, it was Friday, and Liam couldn't have been happier. Friday meant the weekend, after all. This meant he could do whatever he wanted. Usually, he would jog, try to train his body, or read through more books.
It was early 2005, still three years away from when everything would change. In three years, Tony Stark would become Iron Man, and the world would see actual superheroes again after Captain America was frozen in the Arctic.
'That still gives me some time,' Liam thought to himself. But truthfully, he had no idea what to do when the plot kicked in.
He would turn sixteen later this year. By then, normal people had some sort of plan for their lives—college, work, or something else entirely.
'But me?' Liam thought. 'No plan, nothing. I guess I'll read up on old books until I find out Oscorp produces the spiders and shows them off to the world as a future way to cure diseases.'
'Sure, I could go somewhere no one would find me or my grandpa and spend the rest of my days hiding from any danger, praying Thanos' snap doesn't kill me or my grandfather and that the plot truly goes how it's supposed to,' Liam thought. 'But that isn't me. I don't want to be powerless. I don't want to hide.'
Remembering a quote from his past life: It's better to die trying than never to have lived at all. In his previous life, he had done enough hiding. He wanted to survive, but he wanted to gain strength while doing so.
He was worried about Thanos, but he knew it wasn't just about him. He didn't even know if he could make it that far when everything went down. From 2010 to 2018, a supernatural fight seemed to happen every week.
The nights were the worst for Liam. His worries always came up, keeping him awake while thinking about countless possibilities. But since the start of the year, it wasn't just the worries that kept him awake. He had started having dreams—or rather nightmares—each one more intense than the last.
In the dreams, there were these whispers. He couldn't make out the words—they were always muffled, distant. Sometimes they turned into strange sounds, like the rustling of paper or the scraping of metal. And then there was the darkness. It felt alive, closing in on him until he woke up, drenched in cold sweat, his heart racing as if he'd just escaped something terrifying.
Liam tried to brush it off at first. 'Just stress and sleep deprivation,' he told himself. He thought it was just his mind playing tricks on him because he was overthinking everything. But the more the dreams came, the harder it was to ignore them.
Harold noticed. "You've been looking tired lately," he mentioned one morning, his brow furrowed with concern while he poured Liam a cup of coffee. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, just a lot on my mind," Liam lied, forcing a smile. He didn't want to make Harold worried. How could he explain that he was losing sleep over nightmares that didn't make any sense?
Liam felt like these nightmares were different from normal ones. Nightmares itself weren't unfamiliar to him—not in this life or his previous one. But these new nightmares, he didn't remember much when he woke up, except an intense feeling of dread.
He also couldn't explain them. Sure, he was worried about the future. But that worried? No, he wasn't. It felt like he had no control over whatever happened during his sleep.
As another night passed, Liam woke up in cold sweat again. This time, the whispers stayed in the back of his mind. Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he sat there for a minute or two, getting his breathing under control again.
'I need to get moving to clear my head,' Liam thought, putting on a hoodie and his old sneakers.
Jogging through the streets to the park, he enjoyed the fresh air. At this hour in the morning, the city felt completely different. It was much quieter and a lot more peaceful.
Jogging into the park, he barely saw any other people—only a few earlyrisers, whom were letting their dogs out or were jogging themselves. The whispers he had in the back of his mind, slowly faded away the longer he ran.
After a while of jogging, he sat down on a bench in the park, drinking a sip of water from his bottle as he watched the sun rise in front of him. Feeling the warmth of the sunshine, he managed to relax again.
A few minutes passed, and he stood up again, continuing to jog back to his grandfather's apartment. He was determined to live his life to the fullest. Gaining strength was something he knew would happen.
No matter how long it took, he was determined to get strong. Even with how unpredictable the Marvel Universe was, he was confident he could do it eventually.
章節 4: Incursio
"Ugh, another nightmare," Liam groaned, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
The nightmare this time had been far more intense than the ones he'd had before. The whispers from the nightmare still echoed through his mind; the voices sounded shrill, urgent, and desperate, but Liam couldn't make anything of them.
Now being sixteen years old, he felt the nightmares happened more frequently, and their intensity had increased immensely over the past few months. Each night brought something darker and more terrifying than the last.
With a sigh, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, feeling the chill of the floor against his feet. He felt sick, his mind filled with the images of the night before.
At school, the day dragged on. Liam slumped in his chair, fighting against the exhaustion that he felt. His friend Jake noticed, leaning over. "Hey, you good? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Yeah, just didn't sleep well," Liam muttered while forcing a smile.
As the teacher lectured about something that felt unimportant, Liam's eyelids grew heavier. Before he knew it, he'd dozed off. darkness enveloped him once more.
In the depths of his sleep, he found himself back in a landscape, the whispers returning to taunt him. This time, they were accompanied by a pair of glowing red eyes, each marked with strange crosses, watching him from the shadows. Panic surged through him as the eyes bore into his soul, the pressure of their gaze suffocating.
Suddenly, the scene shifted. A familiar silhouette emerged, a monstrous figure shrouded in darkness. The whispers intensified, merging into a singular, deafening sound that went through his mind.
"Liam!"
His eyes shot open at the sound of his teacher's voice. "Liam! Are you with us?"
"AHH!" he shouted, jolting upright in his seat, heart racing. Laughter erupted around him, his classmates snickering at his outburst.
"Do you want to go home for the rest of the day? You really don't look well," the teacher asked with concern.
"Yeah, I… I think I need to," Liam replied. He felt like he was moving in slow motion as he gathered his things and shuffled out of the classroom, the laughter fading behind him.
While going home, Liam couldn't shake the questions racing through his mind. Why was that spectral being haunting him? What message was it trying to convey, or was it warning him or something?
Once home, he stumbled into his room, collapsing onto his bed. The exhaustion washed over him pulling him under. Just as he drifted off, the remnants of his earlier nightmare flickered in his mind, the image of the spectral figure lingering.
The darkness enveloped him once more as he wandered through the ancient, shadowy landscape. some sort of mist around his feet, and the distant whispers echoed through the air yet again.
"Where am I? I'm certain I just went to sleep," Liam murmured his voice filled with confusion.
As he continued to explore, the whispers grew louder, leading him towards an ominous-looking gate. "It seems like the whispers are coming from this gate," he noted, glancing at the strange, dark substance framing it. "But what is this place?"
He reached out to touch the black substance of the portal frame and felt a pull. In an instant, he was drawn through the portal.
Confused and disorientated, he found himself staring at a set of stairs leading up to a ruin. "Where the hell am I this time?" he wondered, the surroundings heightening his bewilderment.
With no other choice, he began to climb up the stairs. What initially seemed like a short climb soon felt endless. After what felt like hours, he finally reached the top.
In the center of the dreamscape ruin stood a silhouette---a monstrous figure shrouded in darkness, its eyes glowing a bright red. In front of the monster, a sword, embedded in a stone pedestal. The blade glowing with an strange light, etched with glowing runes that pulsed rhythmically, calling out to Liam with a profound power.
Suddenly, the monster's silhouette came closer, and a chill ran down Liam's spine. The whispers grew louder, forming words he couldn't understand. As the clouds of darkness parted, the figure became clear, revealing its monstrous form. The vision of the sword and the creature intensified, and Liam felt an irresistible pull, as if the sword was pulling him in.
A shiver of terror surged through him as he reached out, but before he could grasp it, the dream shattered.
"No!" he gasped, his eyes snapping open.
Liam jolted awake, his body drenched in cold sweat and his breath coming in short gasps. The realism of the dream stayed with him.
He looked down, his eyes widening in shock. There, on his chest, lay the very sword from his dream. Its blade shimmered with a faint, strange glow.
He reached out softly, his fingers brushing against the cold metal.
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