Dreams of another life

VI

Wanda didn't know where she was.

After the last, final failed attempt to get her boys back, to be happy, she had no strength left to care.

That book Agatha had talked about, led her to use, was gone and she was actually glad. Having that book in her possession was one of the worst things she'd done.

It had fed off her desperation, seeped into her soul and mind like a poison altered and designed for her and her only. Knew what she wanted, snuffed out the good like a candle.

It was like the book craved her demise, wanted her to fail. Drained all the hope and light out of her to replace it with darkness and greed of the likes she'd never felt.

The evil corrupted her, the darkness turning her into the kind of villains she used to fight against. Turned her into the very thing she believed she wasn't, a monster.

When it was gone, it left her feeling like a shell of who she once was.

When the mountainous temple came down, she'd been at peace. Accepted what would happen. She knew what she did was for the best and if that meant taking herself down with it, so be it. Her team would've been proud, if they were still a team. If they still cared after everything.

Waking up, she'd really believed she was dead. And had been relieved. Having no idea of what the afterlife actually looked like, if there really was one, it took her a few days to figure it out.

To figure out she wasn't actually dead.

Pietro was nowhere to be found. She looked everywhere she could get to, in every nook and cranny. If this was death, where was her brother? Where was Vision? Where was Tony? Where was Natasha? The list was too long.

The place she was in looked exactly like Westview, except it couldn't be. And there were slight differences and oddities that she noticed.

Like how there was a door in the middle of the street that she couldn't open. How sometimes she'd walk past a tree and catch her own reflection in the bark. How she'd hear things, traffic and cars and life, sounds that couldn't possibly be coming from a ghost town.

Something wasn't right.

If she was dead, she knew exactly where she'd be. In Sokovia, the mountain where her cabin had been, with her brother, her parents, Vision and maybe her boys. Perhaps even Nat and Tony could come by every now and then.

She wouldn't be here, in a place that reminded her of all her wrong doings. Well, not all of them, just the worst one.

It was peaceful, true, but that only added to her suspicions. Agatha should be here, if it was the real Westview. That's where she'd left her, and Wanda still hadn't seen her.

She'd concluded that it wasn't the real Westview, the real Westview being the fake reality she created. The one other thing that alerted her to the fact she may not be dead, was that she was dreaming. Dead people couldn't dream.

No nightmares, no dreams of being with her children or her family or Vision or the team.

Dreams of a time before her own, a time that belonged and was lost to the two super soldiers. Dreams of a war, events she'd only seen in history books. Of a family that she didn't know. She saw Steve before he was Captain America.

She wasn't dreaming dreaming, she was seeing someone else's. And it was more like their memories.

Which meant she was in someone's head, in their thoughts, without even trying.