Kill Your Mind ⋙ Avengers

z e r o

[E D I T E D]

KILL YOUR MIND
❝life is simply a mix of mayhem and magnolias, so embrace this gentle riot and gather flowers along the way.❞

00. Everlasting Escapee

AT FIFTEEN YEARS OLD, Elizabeth Tyler could not see past the end of the year. She simply couldn't. A future just hadn't seemed like an option back then because every time the girl had tried to push herself into what she imagined herself to be like in a years time: all she could see was an unforgiving black void of empty. It had seemed pointless for her to hold onto the immature hope of being rescued because, at the end of the day, hope only bred disappointment, and Elizabeth had felt enough of that to last her till the end of her pitifully short life. So when she was asked, aged seventeen, by S.H.I.E.L.D's head psychological assessor:
'What had you imagined your future to be like when you were in that situation?'
Elizabeth Tyler struggled for the correct words.

How could she ever begin to describe the utter lonely black hole that had been her idea of a future without sounding as though she was only one more shit day away from flinging herself over Tony Stark's balcony? It seemed absolutely pointless to try and detail the endeavors that she imagined so instead, she had kept her mouth shut, broke eye contact, and waited for the next question to be asked.
The evaluation came to an end shortly afterwards.
The memories didn't.

At fifteen years old, lying on a mattress saturated with both blood and dirt, Elizabeth Tyler had finally understood the idea that not everyone was cut out for living on Earth. Even as a child, when hope had slipped from her heart with an unnatural ease that matched her wit, she had never seen herself as an old woman. Hell, she hadn't seen herself past the age of twenty. Yet, perhaps this were normal for a child of her age. After all, not many children ponder too heavily on their future afflictions. However, as she laid back on the mattress she had slept on for three hundred and seventy one days, she kept count, and imagined how her life could continue on from that moment, nothing seemed to slot into realistic scenarios whilst still retaining positivity. Every end result seemed to leave her wishing for another. Then again, when had anything left her truly satisfied?

There was a time that she could remember being happy.
A pure, childlike, type of happy that could only be seen throughout ones early childhood. It was the kind of happiness that could only be retained until a certain birthday before it crumpled at the seams. She remembered the day that feeling became just a memory. In fact, she was nearly one hundred percent sure she knew the exact time on the clock when it had been erased. She had been ten. Still far too young to be subject to such an wounded heart but she could hardly change that now. It had taken a lot out of her, however, to continue without the gentle ease of that purity. Over the years, the idea of survival had simply become more important than that previous illusion of happiness; one of the main reasons as to why she had made it this long. Girls rarely lasted a few months in the depths. They were too soft. To survive nearly a year, well, it was hardly a sought after achievement, but she had done it nevertheless. She had survive three hundred and seventy one days in that squalor.