Traveler - Avengers Soulmate

Denial-End

Back in my hotel room I went through my suitcase, reaching into the bottom and finding the wooden box. Taking it out I smiled and softly caressed the lid, feeling the smooth glide of it under my fingers. Undoing the latch I opened it and saw the two stones sitting inside the velvet casing. They were smaller than one would imagine, their size belying their power.

There sat the blue space stone and the yellow mind stone, glowing in the setting sun. I hadn't seen them in almost a year, the box remaining locked in a safe in the back of my closet. Nobody would ever guess that I was hiding some of the most powerful artifacts to ever exist in behind winter coats and summer dresses.

"Welp, let's hope this works," I tell myself before grabbing the space stone. I tuck the mind stone into the pocket of my jacket and take a deep breath. Focusing on the aether, I will open a portal to lead me to it. Suddenly I feel my entire body pulled up off of the floor and thrown towards a wall. Except, I never hit the wall. I pass through it and into... somewhere.

I landed roughly on the floor of what appeared to be a dark cave, no sunlight to be seen anywhere. Groaning, I stood up and looked around. And yeah, there was nothing here, but it looked oddly familiar. As I walked around I realized I was at the edge of a cliff. The bottom disappeared into darkness and I had never been happier to be able to fly than in that moment.

"Where the heck did you take me?" My voice echoed back to me, but I received no response from the stone. It just glowed its blue light and I sighed, placing it in my pocket along with the mind stone.

Walking around, I realized that I had no sense of time. I could've been walking for a minute or an hour, I had no idea. Then, out of nowhere, a shill went through my whole body. Shuddering, I started walking towards where the feeling was coming from.

In front of me was a giant black rock with a red glow coming out of it. As I crouched to look into it, I realized the red glow was coming from a viscous black-red liquid that was in a hole in the rock.

"Is this?" The liquid was moving around as if it was alive and I reached out to touch it. Before my hand even made contact with it, it seemed to jump out to me and flowed underneath my clothes.

"Ah!" Taking my hand back, I took a couple steps away from the no longer glowing rock. I could feel the liquid, that I'm pretty darn sure was the aether, flowing under my clothes and into my skin. It burned, as if it was branding my skin.

"That's kinda gross," Looking down at my hands I could see the red glow of the aether, feeling it almost pulsing in my veins.

"I was not expecting this," As soon as I said that I could feel my consciousness fading, the last thing I saw was the red glowing of my hands.

* * *

"Aliana! Aliana!" I could hear a voice calling my name, but it sounded so far away, "Wake up!" Suddenly it felt like I landed back into my body, as if I had been astral projecting for too long.

"Oh, thank God you're awake." Blinking, I closed my eyes again as a bright light shone into them, "How are you feeling? Do you want some water?" Finally being able to open my eyes without feeling like my brain was going to explode I looked over at the woman sitting next to me.

Snowy white skin, long black hair done up in two braids and black eyes. She was undeniably gorgeous and extremely familiar.

"Lily," Turns out that using my voice was a bad idea as I was taken over by a coughing fit as soon as I spoke. Lily reached over and held a cup to my lips from which I quickly drank. As I sat back in the bed I groaned, bringing my hand to my side which I just realized hurt like hell.

"Don't move too much, you'll rip the stitches." Lily warned me, reaching over to hold my hand. I stared at her, my best friend that I hadn't seen in a year and a half. She was still as beautiful as I remembered, but I also noticed the dark circles under her eyes and how haggard she looked. Lily was always dressed to the nines, she refused to ever leave the house without looking like she was about to walk the runway. Even when she was doing a 12 hour shift in the hospital with me, she managed to look glamorous.