EYLIS ※ Tony Stark [3]

2 - COLD SWEATS

"MOTHER!"

Angie could hear the little girl's shrill voice ringing in her ears. She had never seen it all so clearly.

The child running up to her mother. The mother limping, wincing in pain.

Angie could almost feel the woman's wound across her own chest. She almost felt it on her own skin when the blood stained the child's hands.

Dense, hot, red blood. So much of it.

Angie wished she could walk up to them, nameless as they were. The certitude of her familiarity to those strangers had never felt stronger. An inexplicable thread drew her to them, like she would never leave that moment ever again.

For the first time, the white haze that always surrounded them had lifted and she could finally see them clearly.

Angie's throat ran dry, a muffled shriek escaped her lips the second she took in the other woman's face.

Thick black hair, striking blue eyes.

It was like looking into a mirror.

And then Angie woke up.

⁂

The first thing she saw when her eyes jolted open was Tony's deeply worried expression. Angie's heart hammered in her chest and her skin felt hot and clammy. She had kicked the covers away in her sleep and clearly startled Tony awake.

"What's wrong?!" he helped her sit up on the bed. She was still panting heavily "Is it the dream again?"

She could only nod, trying her best to calm herself down. She just couldn't shake the feeling of doom twisting her insides.

"It-it was so vivid this time..." she finally managed to say "I saw them Tony, as clearly as I see you!"

The worried crease between Tony's brows deepened "It's just a dream Angie. None of it is real."

"It's not just a dream!" she exclaimed, not realizing how distraught she sounded. She ran a frantic hand across her hair "Tony, the woman, I saw her face, she's... me."

"You?" he repeated incredulous "You are the woman with the wound?"

Tony had heard the rundown of that dream so many times. But every time Angie talked about it, she emphasized how little she could see of the woman and the little girl. They had always been distant, blurry silhouettes.

"Are you sure it was you?"

Angie nodded "I-I saw her, Tony. It was clear as day."

Tony didn't know what to think. He still didn't believe in dreams being anything more than an expression of a person's subconscious. Just like science had always hypothesized.

But the recurrence of that same bizarre scene and Angie's panic every time she woke up; that was real. He couldn't understand what any of it meant. Or if it meant anything at all. He refused to believe in prophetic mystic nonsense, so perhaps that dream said more about Angie's state of mind than anything else.

Nevertheless, he decided to humor her, just because she wouldn't take it well if he shrugged it off like he normally did "So if you're the wounded woman," he began pensively "Who's the little girl then?"

She shot him an aggravated look, almost making him regret asking. Neither of them said anything, and the silence made it clear they both knew exactly who the child in the dream was.