Hero (Loki & Avengers)

Twenty-Eight

My eyes snap open.

I look around in confusion and see my body quite literally materializing right before my eyes. Tiny particles of silver metal in the air all float and clump together to form...me.

My fingers are last to materialize, and I watch in awe and horror as they finally form.

I then realize I'm in a closed room, not unlike those of Asgard. The walls and floor are made of gold. I notice the room is empty except for a single golden apple floating in the center of it.

"Cassidy Martin." I hear from behind me, and I turn to see the Goddess that Loki fought in the apple orchard standing there. She is beautiful, but distinctly un-human.

"I'm sorry who are you?" I ask, because I only know of her from that one moment. I don't know why she would be standing in a room with me.

Come to think of it, I don't know why I'd be standing in a room at all. I should be dead.

"I am the Goddess Idunn, keeper of the Apples of Immortality." She tells me. I look at her with wide eyes.

I don't reply.

"Loki would have defeated me, but you stopped him. You have saved a great deal of my people through your act of selflessness." She nods at me and I begin to walk around the room, running my hand along the smooth wall.

"I was really trying to save Loki." I admit.

"And you succeeded." She says.

"Thank you." I tell her, stopping my pacing and facing her.

"No, thank you." She smiles.

A door opens in the wall that I didn't notice before, revealing a bright and beautiful golden staircase into the sky. As if it's magnetic, I gravitate towards it.

The brightness of the clouds is blinding. It's breath taking. Without even realizing it, I've walked over to the door. Then I see a familiar face at the top of the stairs. My dad. He's smiling and waving down at me.

My eyes fill with tears, and I turn back to the Goddess Idunn.

"Are you here to bring me to heaven?" I ask her. Maybe she is the gatekeeper between the real world and heaven. Maybe I am dead after all.

For a single, beautiful moment, I'm glad to be dead. I can finally be at peace like I wanted. I'm no longer a freak with metal blood, no longer a hero, no longer a friendless nobody in school, and no longer a girl whose best friend tried to kill her. Seeing my dad's face makes me remember how much I miss him, and how easy and happy life was with him around. My heart aches for him.

"If that's what you want. Cassidy, you chose to save Asgard over yourself. So now out of gratitude I present you with another choice. You can choose a better life," She says, gesturing to the staircase, "Or another chance at this one. Choose wisely."

When she says the last part, my attention returns to the apple.

"Is that..." I ask.

"Yes, an Apple of Immortality. I will only offer it once." She tells me.

So I either join my father in heaven, and feel peace but in death, or I eat the apple and rejoin the living. I walk back over to the staircase and my dad smiles at me. I smile back.

I then notice the sky in this heaven, and it's a dazzling blue. It's a blue I've seen before, but I can't remember where.

Then it hits me. There are flecks of this blue in Loki's green eyes.