No Tears | NR

Chapter 49

Birnin Zana, Wakanda

Yara was standing in a brightly lit, clean room without walls. It reminded her of the one she had woken up in earlier and at the same time, it resembled the kind of room one could find in a hospital. Yara blinked confused and looked down. There, she found a large, white piece of cloth. Lacking the capability to control her own actions, she looked up and found that she was part of a long row that seemed to have no beginning or end. There were more rows next to this one. Counting them would have been impossible. Yara felt panic grow in the pit of her stomach and rise to her chest which she barely managed to suppress.

The rows consisted of what Yara guessed to be human corpses, each of which was covered by a long, clean piece of white cloth. But somehow, that didn't faze Yara as much as she knew that it should. The infiniteness of everything here bothered her much more than the presence of death everywhere around her.

She walked toward the first corpse she saw, next to her, and slowly folded the blanket down to reveal the corpse's face, trying to be as respectful as possible. Upon seeing the face, several emotions bubbled in her stomach. Her expression turned into one of shock, pain, and confusion.

"Мама?"

The word had barely been more than a whisper and her voice broke at the end.

"Но как? Как это возможно?", she wanted to know how this was possible. Of course, there was no answer and she hadn't really expected one either, but she couldn't deny that part of her had hoped for one.

With a sudden thought, she hectically moved over to the next one and revealed their face as well.

"Сестрёнка? Нет, нет, нет. Не ты тоже", she pleaded for her sister not to be there, but of course, nothing happened.

She slowly reached for her sister's face and stroked her cheek carefully with a shaking hand, almost as if the dead woman was going to shatter into pieces underneath Yara's touch. The brunette's eyes were burning and she was sucking in shallow breaths. Her heart felt like it was being ripped out of her chest.

Yara forced herself to tear her eyes away from the familiar face and slowly made her way over to the next person. Lifting the sheet, she quickly recognized Yelena. Yara shook her head in defiance.

"No, this isn't real. No. No."

And yet, it felt all too real.

With a deep, sad sigh, Yara got up and moved to the next covered body. This one turned out to be Sam. He looked unusually serious which was creeping Yara out a little. In all honesty, this whole situation was creepy, but for some reason, she hadn't noticed or thought about it until now.

With another heavy sigh, she moved on to the next person, feeling a sense of anxiety growing in the pit of her stomach. She liked Sam and seeing him dead saddened her, but she couldn't deny that a sense of relief had washed over her as she had found him underneath that white cloth.

The anxiety grew again and made Yara feel sick as she moved on to the next body. Her heart almost dropped until she recognized Wanda. With guilt gnawing at her, she again couldn't help but feel relieved.

The next few bodies all turned out to be Avengers - only the ones she had met - and there were some former friends of hers who had all died or believed her to be dead. She despised herself for feeling relieved when none of them turned out to be the only person that seemed to matter right now. Still, that anxiety wouldn't go away. On the contrary, it was steadily increasing with each new body that she hectically checked. But none of them were her.

Yara lifted her head to look back at where she started and was satisfied when she found her empty spot with her eyes. Suddenly, just as she turned her head, she saw something appear there from the corner of her eye. The brunette whipped her head around and was shocked to discover that another body had appeared in her spot, replacing her own white sheet that had been lying there in a messy pile. Not wasting another second, she ran towards it, coming to an abrupt stop at the new body's head.