A mile in my shoes

Chapter 21

As the opportunity arose, Sam had offered to go farther into the base. He was trying to find a bit of peace and quiet away from the rest of the team. There was a time when they were inseparable, bound together like a tightly-knit family, but that wasn't the case anymore. Too many things had happened, particularly recently. He had made a lot of mistakes and poor choices, and carried the weight of the guild and remorse upon his shoulders. His eyes were now wide open. Sam needed to attempt to set things right, to make amends, or at the very least not make things worse. He had promised that to himself.

Much to Sam's dismay, Steve, with his need to control everything, had insisted on sending Scott with him. Did he really believe Sam needed help opening a few doors? Sam's perception of Captain America had started to shift lately. He began to recognize the flaws in the man that he had previously overlooked. Sam had a serious issue with hero worship.

Sam had no intention of staying around them. The more he had learned, the stronger his urge to leave it all behind grew. He was mad at his teammates and even more so, at himself. Strangely enough, Scott was the best option for Sam. Being the most recent addition to the team, he didn't have the same attachments and allegiances to the others. Convincing Scott to either go with him or, at least, to let him go without a fight seemed like a plausible course of action. He just needed to find the right convincing words.

"Sam?" Scott asked once away from the main room, his tone wavering. "I have to go."

"What do you mean? Go where?" Sam asked in turn, confused.

"I'm going to turn myself in at the compound." Scoot said, taking a deep breath, his gaze fixed on a distant point. " What I saw made me reconsider everything."

"What exactly did you see?"

Scott began to recount his mysterious experience. He had been in the forest, doing his best to track and capture that magical user one moment, and the next he was back in the streets of San Francisco. The city was both different and the same he used to know. Everything was just too empty. The once-vibrant neighbourhood was now eerily silent. Abandoned vehicles lined the streets and nobody seemed to want to remove them. A child's bicycle had been abandoned on the sidewalk. Shops had visibly been vandalised and left open, barren. Nature had begun to reclaim the urban landscape, with weeds pushing through cracks in the pavement. The city was being left unattended as if nobody cared anymore.

People were passing by, walking almost like zombies. They were being resilient and were trying to live yet another day, to go back to the way things were. Something was broken in them. Scott was feeling very confused and disoriented. Still, he tried to smile at the rare people he was passing by. They weren't smiling back. Suddenly, somebody bumped into him, nearly causing him to lose his footing. Only at the last moment did he manage to regain his balance, avoiding an embarrassing fall. The person who had bumped into him was now surrounded by a group of teenagers. They were laughing at him. The first happy sound he was hearing was directed against him, mocking him.

Scott rapidly discovered that the world had changed drastically. He managed to see his reflection in one of the last standing windows. Scott recognised Cassie even though she looked older. He didn't have time to process anything. Gasping for breath, his heart racing, he desperately glances around for something, anything that would help him understand the unbelievable.

One thing became abundantly evident very fast. The teen who had collided with him and the friends he went back to were actually bullying his precious daughter. They were openly mocking her and nobody was doing anything to help her. Scott hurriedly left the area, hoping that Maggie was still living in the same house. He kept his head hanging low. His thoughts were racing a mile per second. Thankfully, the Internet was a fantastic resource for information.