The Before [Prequel- Part 1]

Level 35

~~~Catherine's pov~~~

After talking to Loki, I met with Phil, May, and Deke.

Phil, of course, got a lecture from May and me about how he shouldn't have told Loki without my knowledge and allowed him to take my place, once again, without my knowledge.

Following that lovely conversation, we started our journey to Level 35.

Deke led us to an elevator, where we slowly made our descent to the off-limits Kree level.

"I imagine it's not as simple as taking the elevator down to 35," Phil commented as Deke began to mess with some buttons beside the doors.

"No. We can't access it. But I can get us in below it, find my way in. I'll call the elevator from Level 35 itself." He explained to us while simultaneously removing a panel from the top of the lift.

He pushed some more buttons on his belt buckle and began to levitate.

Okay, I admit, that's kinda cool.

An anti-gravity belt? That's something my dad would literally kill to get his hands on.

"Alright," He sighed, pulling himself through the hole in the ceiling. "You guys hang tight." And with that, he disappeared.

As soon as he was gone, Phil turned to me. "You trust him?"

I scoffed. "You know me better than that."

With that, the elevator started moving up a floor, showing that Deke had kept his word.

The doors opened to reveal him standing with his arms raised from his sides. "Welcome to Level 35."

We just stared at him for a moment before brushing past him and entering the Kree floor.

"Yeah, well, hold your applause." He murmured behind us as we walked further into the dark room.

The lighting was extremely dim, like any other part of the Lighthouse. Ironic, right? But it was bright enough so that I could see some of the items in the room.

It all looked like science stuff; test tubes, microscopes, and various vials of unknown origin.

My dad would have loved this place, even though he was more of a mechanic than a chemist.

"What is this place?" Phil asked, looking around with me.

"Lab. Maybe R&D." I shrugged, giving my best-educated guess.

"R&D. Yeah. That works." May agreed.

Deke looked at us, genuinely confused. "I'm sorry, what's R&D?"

"It stands for Research and Development," I told him after I realized that May and Phil weren't going to answer.

We continued to walk through racks upon racks of experiments and shattered beakers. It seemed endless.

"If this place is all science, there's gotta be something in here that we can use. We just need to find it." Phil concluded after a minute or two of silence.

We all halted to a stop when we heard something that resembled screeching.

My heart pounded faster as my blood ran cold. "Roaches?"

Deke shook his head slowly. "No."

The screech came again, but it sounded more familiar... More human...

May seemed to pick up on it as well. "Wait. What is that?"

I followed her gaze and saw a glowing, glass-like box.