The Fourth Dimension

Children of Afterlife

Author's note: This short story is based off of the second half of season two in the show Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, however it does not follow the exact same storyline.

    "Hey! That's mine!!" A small voice screeched from the other side of the patio.

"No it's mine!" a slightly deeper voice argued back. After searching the patio for the source of the yelling, I found Adrian and Nicolee. Adrian clutched a small yellow tulip in one hand, and fought the young girl away with his other.

"Children!" I raised my voice slightly to overcome the noise around us. "Why are you fighting?" I knew the reason, I just wanted to hear them confirm it.

"Adrian took my tulip and won't give it back!" Nicolee whined and stuck her finger in his face. Nicolee's brunette hair was pulled back into two braids. She wore overall shorts that were stained green on the front. Her face splattered with freckles below her soft jade green eyes.

"Did not! I had it first!" Adrian is known for taking things and claiming they're his, so it was no surprise to see him make this claim again. The four year-olds in front of me squabbled back and forth as I decided who gets the tulip, of course it should be Nicolee, but how will I get Adrian to back off. I knelt down in front of them and motioned for the boy to give me the flower. Smiling, I felt my right hand go into the fourth dimension and pull another version of the yellow tulip out. When I pulled my hand back the flower seemed as if it were being separated into two tulips.

"Yay!" both of the children exclaimed as I handed Nicolee her flower and Adrian the dimensional one. They both ran off, stuffing their noses into the middle of the plant.

"Hey Talia," I turned around to the familiar voice.

"Lincoln," I sighed as his name rolled off my tongue. He wore a red shirt with his sleeves rolled up right above his elbows and dark jeans with his usual black ankle boots. One of the women that was brought in a few days ago by Gordon was next to him. "What's up?" They were both a bit taller than me since I'm only sixteen. "You want me to meet Daisy- I mean Skye," I realized, having seen this woman in my visions so many times it's hard to call her by this name.

Skye looked confused for a second, "How do you know my name?" She inquired. Her oak brown hair went halfway down her arms and she had bangs covering her forehead. Skye wore black jeans and a brown long-sleeve top. Her face showed Chinese and another ethnicity, which I expected since her mom, Jaiying was from somewhere in China and her dad, Cal was from North America.

"I saw this moment already," Skye looked even more confused. "I can enter the fourth dimension, and...ya know...see the future," I dumbed it down a bit. "...Among other things," I mumbled.

"Ohh..." She smiled, finally understanding.

"This is Talia, she's also an inhuman, as you now know," Lincoln chuckled. "She actually went through terrigenesis a similar way you did," He explained to her. "With an obelisk and a Kree temple."

"Welcome to the club," I giggled loudly.

"Ms Talia," someone squeaked behind me. I turned around to find six year old Haley cradling her blonde, yarn-haired doll. "Can you please get Nicolee a doll so we can play for a while?" She held the doll she called mimsie out to me and pleaded with her baby blue eyes.

"Yes, of course," I told her and bent down. I placed my hands on the doll before reaching into the fourth dimension, to make it easier to find a copy that was abandoned after someone made a different choice. I pulled out a the copy as Lincoln grinned behind me and Skye watched in amazement. "Hold on," I told her as I reached into the pocket of my leather jacket and pulled out some black yarn before securing it to the copy's head. "Now, the one with the black yarn is Nicolee's," I warned, knowing the fight that would take place if she had the wrong one. I handed the doll over after Haley nodded and she ran over to Nicolee with it.

"How did you do that?" Skye asked right away.

"I can go into the fourth dimension," I didn't give much explanation.

"Won't your powers mess with time? Taking objects from there?" She sure got her father's inquisitive mind.

"The items I take eventually go back to the fourth dimension and I only take from the abandoned paths anyways so no, it doesn't affect time the way I use them." I tell her as simply as I could possible make it.

"That's so cool!" Skye laughed a bit.

"Well I better get going, I'm in charge of watching the kids at the moment, see you around Skye," I went back to where children of all ages were playing on the large stone-paved area. The sun began to set with the mountain range in the background. No one really knows where Afterlife is located except for Gordon and our leader, we don't really care, however, since it provides a safe place for us. Not everyone has powers, such as the children, most are simply, potential inhumans, meaning their powers still need to be unlocked. Our leader holds all of the terrigen crystals and only brings to life a single power once every couple years to keep the balance of inhumans and humans.

Everyone has a purpose in afterlife, we still get sick, and need to eat, and everything else. Therefore you're assigned a job when you enter, unless you have powers you can't control of course. My job is babysitting, sadly. I mean, I love kids and all, but I don't want to spend every living moment with some else's child. It's a relief when parents and guardians get done working and all the children disappear from the patio.