Rip My Heart Out (Avengers Age of Ultron)

Chapter 3

"Emelia?" I heard a voice say quietly. "Are you awake?"

            I was, in fact, awake. I had tried to sleep, I really had, but every time I closed my eyes, I was back in the stars. My dream about playing with the universe repeated over and over again. I could handle the visuals. Although they were nothing like I had dreamed before, the stars were beautiful. Watching the dream play out was okay.

            It was the feelings associated with it. It would start out with pure elation. I was thrilled to see the universe and to be able to interact with it. I felt excitement and an overwhelming feeling of joy. But that only lasted for a moment. As soon as my dream changes and I start to change the universe, a new feeling consumes me. It's something much darker than anything I've ever felt before. It's dark and demented, and I can't stop it from taking over, no matter how hard I try. The moment it takes over, I can no longer control my actions, and that's when my dream becomes truly terrifying.

            I'm only relieved of this feeling when it's too late to change what I've done. By that time, the destruction's gone too far and I'm only left with absolute fear and guilt, two feelings that tear me apart more completely than the explosion that eventually consumes me in the dream and those feelings don't leave me when the dream ends.

            I tell myself it's only a dream, but something inside me isn't convinced. So, instead, I've decided to avoid the dream, and resist the urge to close my eyes and give into the terror.

            I rolled over, pretending to wake up as I did. "You must be Bruce." I stated feigning grogginess.

            "I must be." He said, walking to my side. "Sorry to wake you. I just wanted to check in. How are you feeling?"

            I sat up, which sent a rhythmic pounding through my head. I cringed and put my hand to my head. "I'm okay. My head hurts still."

            "You hit it pretty hard." He said.

            An image flashed through my head of the coffee table crunching beneath my weight and the force of my impact. "Yeah, I remember. I'm just lucky Steve was there."

            He nodded slightly while looking over the machines I was hooked up to. His eyebrows pushed together, wrinkling the skin between them. "Has anything else happened, since you got here? There are some weird readings on here. I'm fairly certain this isn't supposed to happen." He pointed to a graph. The lines went up and down consistently for a long time before spiking up nearly twice as high as before. That went on for several waves and then it went back to normal.

            "No, nothing's happened. What is that, my heart rate?" I asked.

            "Yes, it is."

            "Hmm. I must have been dreaming or something." I said, shrugging it off, like it was no big deal. I did not need anyone worrying about my nightmares with everything else that is going on.

            He shrugged too. "Yeah, probably."

            There was a moment of silence, only filled by the beeping sounds of the machines surrounding us.

            "So how long do I have to stay in here? All of this seems a little excessive for a concussion." I said, suddenly feeling very closed off from the rest of the world.

            "We just wanted to make sure everything was okay. Steve was kind of freaking out when you were unconscious."

            I nodded. Steve was certainly protective. I knew that was in his nature. That was obvious from our talks in the square, but it had never been, or needed to be, directed at me.