From Present to Past - The Tigris Series Book 3

Chapter Four

Darkness. That's how it always starts. Infinite, vast shadows of blacks, deep blues and reds. All without a shred of light, or a light echo of sound. It's neither calm or unsettling; it just simply, is. To some, they may think the emptiness and nothingness would mean that they're dead.

I wouldn't be so lucky.

Lights suddenly flickered on, humming lowly in it's old, high-powered frequency as it temporarily blinded me. Dust and mold filled my senses, aging the room that much more as I finally took in my surroundings.

There I stood, at the very center of what appeared to be a bedroom that had once belonged to a young girl. The thin metal bed frame dated far back to the early 1900s, as well as the thin white sheets and floral quilt. You could tell that all of it was simply reused rather than being brand-new, something that was done often to save what little money they had. The walls were cracked, the floral wallpaper peeling off bit by bit as if a large cat had been set loose to reek it's havoc. An old wooden vanity resided at the far side of the room, it's mirror shattered only partially, revealing only half of my features as I stared at my reflection behind the dust and grime that covered it's glass.

You didn't need to be a detective to be able to tell that the room has been abandoned for some time. Left to rot and be forgotten to time. Though the years had stacked onto each other, thinning the line of connection to it's very essence with each pass around the sun, I would still remember every last crevice of what this room once was.

It had once been mine, after all.

I turned away from the mirror, expecting to see what had once been my bed behind me. Instead, I saw an empty chair at a distance, sitting idly at the center of an empty, concrete room, barely illuminated by a lightbulb that barely clung to the ceiling. Suddenly, I was no longer within the familiarity of the bedroom. The air turned cold and the tension thickened; though, the smell of dust and mold still hung in the air all the same.

"It's almost time, Tigris." a male's voice echoed in my head, bringing the same sense of dread it always did.

Zola's voice.

"No." I whispered, feeling a growing sense of dread in the pit of my stomach as I stared at the lonely wooden chair ahead of me.

"You don't get to decide." his voice echoed again in it's thick German accent. "You never did."

Suddenly a man appeared, sitting in the chair with his back straight in perfect posture, his hands resting on his knees as his deep brown eyes seemed to peer right through me. His chestnut brown hair barely reached past his eyes as it hung loosely and messily in his face. I recognized him to be an old Hydra agent, one that I had been sent to eliminate after the discovery of his betrayal. My brows slightly furrowed in confusion as I scanned over his features, feeling my heart rate increase.

"What do you want me to do?" I questioned, my voice wavering as it softly echoed between the concrete walls.

It was silent for a few moments as I continued to stare at the man. Then within the next moment, the man's features changed within the blink of an eye. It quickly shifted between multiple different past targets of mine, before slowing to take on the features of the last people I wanted to see in that chair. Barton, Banner, Thor, Stark, Natasha. . . and then it settled on one. He stared back at me with his bright blue eyes, his blonde hair combed back as it always was. He seemed focused, though the disappointment in his gaze was unmistakable.

Steve Rogers.

"I want you to finish what we started." Zola's voice echoed once again from behind me, sending a chill down my spine.