Whatever It Takes

Introduction

Every night, her eyes filled with the monsters that swallowed the sky outside her bedroom window. Buildings crashing and a new car joining an already massive pileup every so often. By now, most had ditched their vehicles. Namely because they were on fire.

Her mother made this grave conclusion about their own. Their last means of a somewhat hopeful escape had been obliterated by one of the black beings whose screech rang like an alarm bell still clear through her imagination. She caught a small glimpse of it as it ran off, hoping to dodge the attacks of the Avengers.

She felt little fear, however. Because at this point, she could still smell the shampoo in her mother's brown hair she had inherited. To the little 12 year old girl, she had nothing to fear of in her own world; as somehow she got lucky enough for our to survive held up in their rumbling basement throughout the chaos.

This was four years ago. And now, little Emma Hansen feared getting a cold without her mother's hand to hold.

She was 15 now, but every time she opened her eyes to her shadowed bedroom walls starting up at the ceiling, she took in her cold, empty hand, and remained cemented in her 13 year old form. The one who had received the notice that her mother had died that Christmas Eve.

Removing het bedsheets, Emma felt thin as air as she turned her door knob and stalked into the kitchen. The floorboards of the small, New York apartment she resided in creaked slightly under her weight. A shaky hand outstretched to the fridge and managed to find a water bottle past heavy eyes. A momemt later, Aunt May watched her adopted niece take a swig of her water that relieved her parched mouth. "You know, you're the only teenager I know who's up this early. " May spoke kindly. She always did. It was crazy to think she had no children of her own. Emma still jumped slightly, setting the water back down with the smallest chuckle, but not a word.

"Another one of those dreams?" May asked. Emma nodded, "Just can't catch a break," she replied quietly. Then, her brown eyes flicked up, "did I wake you?"

"Aunt senses," May joked, stepping towards a slightly distraught Emma, "I always know when a bad dream strikes." She pulled a piece of brown hair from Emma's face, who was attempting to smile. In moments like these, May had a knack for sounding just like her mother. "You don't have to be up for another few hours," her aunt noted, "why don't you try and sleep?"

Emma bit her lip. "Can I sleep on the couch?" She asked. Childish as she felt, all she could see in her darkened ceiling after a nightmare were the same monsters that floated past her eyelids. May nodded and kissed her forehead, now leading her to the couch, "of course."

Emma followed her to the plush couch and laid down, pulling a nearby blanket over her thin frame. May turned the TV on, having done this before, and left it on a movie she didn't take the time to recognize. Something animated, she caught at the very least. Emma's eyes fell soon after watching the characters on the screen.

The monsters didn't come back after that.