Manhattan ⇻ The Avengers [1]

chapter thirteen

Alison didn't exactly know what was happening. One thing she could tell for sure was that Kae wasn't around. And that worried her, because Kae had always been around, as long as she could remember.

Another thing that she could tell was that she had taken control. Alison hadn't been in control of their body since the apartment fire last year. Unlike the rest of the personalities, she didn't like having to face the world, it made her anxious and reminded her of things she didn't particularly want to remember. Like when her death was announced on the local news.

Alison had started out as Stephanie Nicole McKinney, a girl that Kae had met days before she died in a housefire. It had been all over the news, Stephanie was the only one who had died, but her parents had died in a car crash years later, but the only reason Alison knew about that was that Gen had just joined them and wanted to know more about the other people that she would be sharing a body with (apparently that included pre-Kae history).

Now, Alison felt like she was being lit on fire all over again. It terrified her, but not as much as the people looking at her in fear. The pyrokinetic was barely able to distinguish Steve and Tony before she was consumed, every part of her body ablaze.

She began to panic, trying to snuff out the flames, doing everything every school had ever taught them to do in case of a fire. Then someone else entered her frame of vision: Agent Taylor.

"Alison!"

She was confused, how could she know it was her? Then she remembered, the file. She was the only one of them like this. It had to be her.

"Alison!" Agent Taylor repeated, "You need to control the fire!"

She didn't know how to. That was why she stopped taking control. She kept setting stuff alight, like she was doing now. She knew that there was probably an explosion, she felt the shockwave when she had first come to life again.

"Think of something happy!" the agent's voice rang in her ears.

Alison tried. She thought of the time that she and Kae went to their first theatre class, or when Gen asked her what her favorite food was and she didn't know how to answer. She tried to think of how someone always sat with her on the couch and how they would talk about their soulmate just before they woke up.

But then she remembered. That she was alone. Kae wasn't there. Winter wasn't there. Gen wasn't there. And she didn't know why. And she was afraid.

And the flames kept blazing.

"They need your help!"

"The Avengers! They need you!"

"Alison! I have to leave now!"

"You need to remember who you are!"

Alison was the girl who died. Alison was the girl who stopped showing up. Alison was the girl who created fire. Alison was the girl who created destruction.

But Alison was also the girl who got a second chance. Alison was the girl who took on so much and survived. Alison was the girl who created light.

And so she did and the fires blazed.

Very suspenseful, huh? And a lot of insight into Alison's past. She's a little bright light with a past surrounded by darkness (that was a lot more poetic than I originally meant for it to be). Anyway, this was a good place to end the chapter in my opinion, so there may be one or two more chapters with Alison all alone. So, I hope you all have a wonderful week and that I'll see you all again next week with chapter fourteen.
~ Aria