- TWELVE -
A harsh, cold, wind rips across my face and I feel the hair on my arms stand up. I look back at my hands and see that they're pale; my finger tips are tinted blue.
I stand in a cemetery lined with hundreds of decorated headstones. Waking along them, I run my hand along the snow-covered stones.
Where am I?
A group of people wearing all black stand across the cemetery, circled around what must be a grave of a loved one. They're all crying, faces blotched with red. None of them look up to acknowledge my presence.
"We remember her. We remember all she did for us and all she taught us in her life. Today, we celebrate her life," a priest speaks from the front.
Icy rain begins to fall.
I walk forward to see the name on the headstone. I gently nudge the man in front of me and walk to the front of the group. Still, nobody seems to notice me.
Finally, I see the marks on the front of the stone.
"Jane Smith," it reads.
I have a perfect memory and in my life I have never met a Jane Smith. Why am I at her funeral?
What am I doing here?
"You want to know why you're here?" a familiar voice rings out.
I freeze in place. My heart begins to hammer in my chest. For the first time in years, I am barely able to control my expression as I turn and see two faces I have yearned to see for eighteen years.
My parents.
Their eyes are blank as they stare at me. They look the same as I remember them. My father's thick beard almost covers his mouth and a hat sits low over his eyes. My mother is still wearing the floral dress I last saw her in. Brown curls spill over her face.
"Mother," I whisper, my voice barely audible over the wind.
They step forward, still emotionless.
"Do you want to know why you're here?" she repeats.
I nod, unsure of what noise will come out of my mouth if I speak.
"To show you what you'll never have," my father says, his voice grumbling and low.
Confusion must be evident in my face as my mother continues.
"People like you- monsters like you- they don't get funerals. Let alone funerals surrounded my loved ones."
A quiet sob threatens to erupt from inside me.
"You think that you will be remembered? For what? Killing people? No, you didn't do anything for this world and so it will never do anything for you," she continues. "We never loved you anyways, so it's not like it really matters."
I shake my head, tears freely falling.
They have to love me. They must. Every day I lived in the Red Room, the promise that somebody somewhere in the world still new my name and loved me, kept me moving.
"Look at yourself, Nina. You're already dead". I look down at my pale, colourless hands again.
"And look around," she raises her hands gesturing to the empty cemetery. "Nobody misses you."
Then my hands begin to move of their own accord.
"No!" I scream as they grab my gun out of my holster and load it.
YOU ARE READING
SANCTUM | Avengers
Fanfiction"The scary thing is, is that at some point the targets changed to people but I can't remember when" ... After everything the Avengers have been through, it seems like nothing can stand in the their...
