Sometimes I have dreams. Weird ones. Scary ones where I'm in a dark place, with people all around me screaming and crying, and it always hurts. Everything burns, and everything freezes, I feel like I'm curled up in the fireplace, but I can't stop shivering. I never understand why I'm so cold when I can smell burning meat. Sometimes I see my mom there, too; she holds me, talks softly, rocks me, but she never really feels likes my mom, and she never seems to be hurting like the rest of us. I don't know why but it always feels like a lie. I also hear another woman calling to me, she doesn't call me by my name, but I know she talks to me and for some reason, I know her. I've tried telling mama about these dreams but she never really listened, so I stopped trying.
I used to ask her about my dad, too. She never tells me much, just that she hasn't seen him in a long time, and that just before I was born he tried to hurt her. She always tells me she brought me here to protect me and save me from him, but she will never tell me where we came from before. Whenever I mention him she looks so mad, so I stopped talking about him. Sometimes my school friends ask me about him, why I don't have a daddy to bring to school on show-and-tell days, why my mom barely even makes it to the parent-teacher meetings, sometimes I make something up. I had Johnny Carroll convinced that Captain America was my father, he believed it for a whole semester. I got in a lot of trouble for that when my mom found out. Sometimes, though, I tell them about a guy that I've had a few dreams about. If I could pick my own father, I would choose him. He jokes with me, gives me piggy-back rides, walks me to school, helps me with homework. I miss him, even though he isn't real.
Tonight I had a really scary dream. I was down the street, at Boston Common with my mom, but in the middle of the night, and she looked so scary, like she wanted to hurt me. She was dressed funny, too. She was wearing black armor and a green cape, and she had a huge, black sword. I've never seen my mom look at me like she did then, and when I woke up, I tried to tell her about it. She tried to make me feel better, telling me she would protect me; it all made my stomach hurt. I knew she was lying.
I went back to bed, telling myself that she was working too hard, that I hadn't done anything wrong, so there was no reason for her to be mad at me. I looked through my comics for a little while, trying to find something I could read that would help me sleep, and found a picture on one of my Thor comics that looked exactly like how I saw my mom in my dream. I decided I must have been dreaming about that, ignoring the fact that I haven't read that book in a long time. Now I am waking up to yelling, like a big football game. I thought I was still dreaming for a second, when I realized I am sleeping next to a tree in the park. I look around, trying to figure out how I got here, and I see my mom, wearing the same thing as in my dream... the same thing that Hela wears in that comic book. I saw a big group of people fighting, punching and kicking each other, sometimes getting stabbed. I got too scared to stay there, so I ran to my mom,
"Momma! What's happening?" I was off to her side, running straight toward her, but on her other side I saw the woman from the comic book store. She had a sword too, and she didn't look like she was going to help my mom. Miss Y/L/N turned, looking really surprised when she heard my voice.
My mom reached toward me, I thought she was actually reaching for me until I realized I couldn't move.
"You silly boy, I told you to stay put, didn't I?"
"Váli?" The name makes me stop struggling, but I don't know why. I'm Aren, not Váli. She reaches for me, calling the wrong name, but something makes her fly back, away from me; my mom throws me to the ground behind her, and as much as I try, I can't sit up. It feels like that bully from school, holding me down again.
I can't see anything from where I am, but I can still hear fighting, I feel like any second someone will come find me and kill me. It may even be my mom. All of a sudden I feel like the heaviness goes away and I can sit up. My arm hurts to much I can't stop crying. Miss Y/L/N comes to me, kneeling next to me.
"Váli, I didn't know. I don't know how I didn't see you. I'm so sorry." I jump back when she tries to give me a hug,
"What are you talking about? I'm Aren, Who's Váli? What's happening?" that name sounds so familiar to me, but I can't remember why. I don't have time to figure it out, because I see my mom, she kicked another fighter away and took back her sword, coming up behind Miss Y/L/N, lifting her sword, I knew she was getting ready to kill her.
"Momma, no!" The lady pulls me down as she dives past me, out of the way of the sword; it gets stuck in the ground right where she was kneeling. "Momma, what are you doing?" I yell to my mom as I hang on to this lady who thinks I'm not me, "You said you would protect me! Why are you doing this?" Mom yanks until she finally gets her sword out of the ground.
"Don't be ridiculous." She sighs, standing. That look, the same look from my dream. "I'm not your mother."
YOU ARE READING
The Purging of Asgard
Fanfiction(This is a work of Fan fiction, meant to be read from the readers perspective, so I have omitted the main heroine's name.) You are a simple, quiet, comic store owner with a penchant for nick-naming your regular customers. So far your life has been a...
