Unexpected

The Battle Begins

It was horrifying, the huge wormhole that spread in a large circle high above in the sky, black with undulating edges of Tesseract energy, but even more horrifying were the creatures that came flying out of it only a few seconds after the portal was opened. Dozens of strange, shapeless creatures came zooming out and towards the ground, though they were yet too far away for me to see them properly as I watched in dismay out of the windshield of my car. My heart sank and at the same time quickened in my fear. I was too late. It had begun already and I had been too slow to stop it!

I wasn't going to waste a second now I decided, pulling myself out of my frozen state and pushed the door of my car open even as I was in the street. Already people were in a panic, some running away from the flying things in the air, the wormhole, and the fight that was ensuing between Iron Man and the Chitauri, while others stood there in frozen shock at the unworldly sight, getting out of their cars only to stare stupidly at the sky. While part of me wished to flee with the screaming, confused people all around me, get back in the car and drive far away, I knew that I couldn't. Instead I started moving towards Stark Tower, first at a hesitant walk, then into a speedy jog, trying to make my way upstream through the crowd of fleers.

"Move!" A man in a business suit shouted, bumping into me as I wove through a panicked mass along a sidewalk.

"Get out of my way!" A woman dressed in jogging shorts gasped as I accidentally stepped right in front of her, almost making her trip.

"You're going the wrong way!" A hot dog salesman cried out to me, trying to pull his little hot dog carts with him before abandoning it in his rush to get away, "Are you crazy?"

"Most likely!" I yelled back, passing him, though I'm not sure if he could hear me as a couple of teenage girls charged past at the same time, shrieking.

Making my way through the havoc I kept an eye on the sky above Stark Tower watching as the red and gold Iron Man suit flew about shooting energy beams at the flying aliens, causing bright orange explosions of fire overhead. Unfortunately for every alien he shot, there seemed to be a dozen more pouring out of the great black hole in the sky and they streamed around him towards the ground. As they approached the people on the ground they started shooting awful weapons whose explosions caused cars to flip and blew great holes in the streets and I saw that the aliens themselves were not flying as one shot past over my head, but that they had strange alien machines like motorcycles or scooters or something and that they were driving them around. They were ugly things, humanoid in shape, yet grayish brown with skull-like faces and mottled, squishy and yet armored looking skin. They were disgusting and scary at the same time. I picked up my pace all the more after the one flew over my head with promise of many more to come.

"Run!" I shouted to all the people I passed who were frozen in their shocked fear, pushing them in hopes of waking them from their terrified trances, "Get out of here now! Move! Hurry! Run away!"

Why had I been so slow? If I could have gotten here sooner I might've been able to stop this! I know it was a silly thought that I could have ended this before it started, but I couldn't help the guilt that plagued me as I saw a man in the hurried crowd get shot down only ten paces in front of me by one of the aliens from the flying contraptions that had dropped to the ground. Skidding to a halt I rushed out into the street to get out of the creature's way as it started gunning down more of the fleeing people. Why hadn't I brought a weapon? Something to fight these things off?

Ducking and pushing myself against the wall of a building as another alien flew past, I found that I was merely thirty feet from the front door of Stark Tower, glancing around the street again and giving a the sky a quick look I charged towards it, flinging the door open and slamming it shut behind me. Even though I was inside I knew I was not safe, during my run I had caught sight of the Chitauri shooting at buildings and shops, cornering the people cowering inside. Charging through the main lobby away from the windows I found the elevator and frantically started pressing the up button, ducking near a potted plant as I saw another gray alien pass by the doors of Stark Tower, zapping people with its strange weapon. As soon as the doors opened I flung myself inside and pressed the 'close door' button with so much effort that I might've broken it. With the doors closed I pushed the button for the penthouse level, absolutely sure that that was where Loki was and waited as music played, drowning out the chaos outside. For a split second, though my heart was pumping, it was as if nothing odd or horrible was happening outside, but I knew there was.