Avengers: Altruism [N. Romanoff]

13. Childish Antics

CHAPTER 13
Childish Antics

Terror. A child loses their mom in a shopping center and terror runs through their veins, the worst possible comes to mind. If they were to never find their mother again, where would they go? What would they do? It was a simply fear, something everyone was afraid of, but she's running and running, scared of the very open space around her.

Claire turned the corner, ignoring the fact that her body didn't feel like hers, that the height was too short, the walls did not build her childhood, and the only thing that was familiar was the racing heart in her chest. Her throat was clogged up, breath hitched and voice lost.

Fingertips ran along the concrete wall, tingling and buzzing, matching the dizziness of her head and the fear of the loss of memory. She couldn't recall what she was running from, but somehow knew she was trying to forget someone, trying to get far, far away.

She reached the end of the hall, noticing the large wardrobe that ironically stood tall, and perfect fit to hide her child-like form. The door slammed behind her, chills and sweat ran up and down her neck, her chest in pain from her struggle to breathe, she felt at a loss for all control around her. She couldn't do anything but run and hide, she couldn't do anything but anticipate the moment the doors swung wide open, she couldn't do anything but remember that she had left her mom behind to face Claire's monster.

She was only a child, a child that was experiencing first signs of a panic attack at such a young age, but as she fell to the floor she only willed to get out of the situation magically. Not only did she feel at a loss for control of her own body, she felt lost in her mind, she felt she had lost both her parents.

Time was ringing in her ears, her vision slowly growing redder each time she took a staggering breath, and then the horror music of the boots rounded the corner and made its way down the hallway.

One...Two... Three... who was coming for her?

Four... Five... could she remember just exactly how long the hallway was?

How small was she? How big was the monster? she could devise a plan, blind them with the clothing and dart for it, slam the door into their body, again and again, maybe she could even jump on him, hit him with her shoe. Him?

A soft sound of palm on metal, the twisting of the doorknob. Her breath hitched, this was way worse than the fear of being found during hide-and-seek. This was the fear of life-or-death.

What was that horrendous smell of alcohol?

"Dad! No!" a young boy's voice shouted out from Claire's mouth, nothing like her own, soothing voice, and more of a broken, overused shout.

"Howard," Claire gasped, clutching her pillow as she realized she had been hiding in a fantasy world, quite literally.

She was only in her bed, beads of sweat covering her legs and back. She was overly hot for winter, but her sheets were way too cold. Her pillow had fallen to the floor in her slumber, in her nightmare, and all that was left was the pulled apart bedding.