My eyes narrowed, snapping onto Kaecilius' with such determination that I could almost feel something branching from me to him. Could I-?
Maybe.
I tensed my jaw, imagining again the effects of the Taipan's venom.
The man shifted his weight for a moment before his glaring eyes turned to me, a tilt in his head giving off a creepy, inhuman appearance. "What are you doing?" he asked calmly, rolling his shoulders as though trying to loosen up.
Wait.. Hadn't we just gone over this? Hadn't I just killed him?
I envisioned minor arteries rejecting all blood that flowed to them.
"Don't attempt to use Death against her son," he ordered haughtily, drawing a mirror shard and rushing at me. His words lacked meaning to me. What did he mean by this? Why was he repeating himself?
Or better- why was he alive? Again?
Use your instincts.
I ducked to the left, refusing to break my stare as his leap of fury soared over me and behind to reset. My imagination became something of power- and I felt it in the way my body remained steady- even when I felt my conjured sword appear within my hands and block his impending weapon.
My teeth gritted together as Kaecilius pushed downward on his blade, dropping mine closer- too close to my face as I focused on the pupils of his eyes. "I said-" his tense vocals were riddled with enrage.
I imagined the spinal chord of the nervous system shriveling from the lack of its energy, snapping off from the base of the brain. The etching began on his forehead.
A moment passed. Then two.
And then we were facing each other again.
Kaecilius seemed just as confused as the three of us, we were all looking at each other with expectant glares. The sorcerer lunged at me again, and we repeated the same moves over and over again. I knew what it was; Stephen had somehow set up a time loop, just as he had stopped time for me.
I wondered why he would need such an odd thing.
With each downfall of Kaecilius, my attempt to stop his blade during his strike grew weaker and weaker. My body began to betray me and feel sluggish- and my mind was slurring the details of what would happen within the next seconds.
Why, if time was repeating, was my energy not also being restored?
I felt fear reach around and strangle my throat as I saw my arms shaking in a last effort to keep his mirror shard from piercing me. I knew that in a moment, or within the past moments if he attacked this way again, I would not be able to block it. But- would I remain dead?
We were standing before one another again; I felt my teeth clench together as I cursed the two other sorcerers for standing there while I met my near-demise. I looked over at the two of them with an instigating glance.
Suddenly, my rasped breath was cut short as my body jolted backward, a sound I had never heard before dragging my eyes downward to my own body. A smaller piece of the mirror dimension had embedded itself into my chest.
The erupting pain that ran up and down my spine was second hand to my frantic thoughts. Would I get a second chance? Was this game over?
I tried to swallow. I wanted to gasp for air.
Shock kept me quiet as I watched the blood begin to stain the uniform I had only just gotten; I could feel my heart beneath the burning, pulsating so hard that I thought it was going to fly out of my chest and follow the way Stephen had gone. Horror ruptured my calm as I tried to swallow again, unable to draw any new air into my lungs. Where the shard stuck out- it felt the same as when I had felt Kaecilius' hand on my shoulder.
My knees locked themselves and I began to sway; I felt a very urgent need for sleep. The wind against my back as I fell backward felt like the gust of a blanket that was made whilst a child was being tucked in.
And then the pain went away, and I was standing again.
I shouldn't have- but I took a precious second to gather myself. I felt confused tears threatening to drop from my eyes as another shard was thrown into me for the second time.
I didn't want to relive this over and over.
The distraction of the blow, I could tell it cut my spine in the way I couldn't move my limbs, left no room for a plan B.
I was stuck like this for two more repeats. I felt life being taken from me four times.
After the fourth, Wong moved at the initial reset, conjuring a golden block (I assumed) and blocking the thrown weapon before it could hit me again. A breath of relief rushed from me- a need to sniffle causing my attention to return to my body; I was shaking.
Kaecilius glared at the three of us; Mordo was glaring at everyone, and the zealot behind him stood as a minion would to the wicked witch of the west. We all stood, deciding how to go about this predicament.
Only then, after I had gotten my breathing under control, did I realize that this specific loop was much longer than the others. Everyone else seemed to realize this too, as I saw Kaecilius tilt his head and knit his eyebrows together in preparation of a victory. "Now," he said, clapping his hands together and tilting his lips in an almost-smile. "It is not too late, especially for you." he directed his attention to me.
There was too much hatred within me to comprehend what he was saying- what he meant. The seconds we hadn't expected continued to grow within that single frozen moment, and the more I tried to comprehend it, the more my head began to ache with the overload of conceptualization.
Stephen came back onto my sight; He floated down from behind Kaecilius and his zealot- a look of pride imprinted on the tilted serious-like smirk he displayed.
Once his feet landed behind the two, they turned around.
"What have you done?" Kaecilius asked, lifting his hand to his face. Something must have been happening.
"You get what you wanted," the doctor said, the smug calm in his voice giving me a sign that everything was okay now. "Eternal life with the one true darkness."
Just then, the two evils began to jolt, their skin growing a gross black as though they were becoming coal after a long fire. Then, their feet left the earth- and their screams of pain flew towards the dark dimension as it receded until it was nothing but the night sky that I was looking at.
"Man," Strange said, turning to the three of us as he opened the Eye of Agamotto and began to unfreeze the previously rewinding time. "They really should have read the warnings after the ritual."
Wong burst out laughing at the comment, and I knitted my brows together in confusion as Stephen looked at him in disbelief. "Warnings," He wheezed, tapping his staff against his leg. "That- funny."
Now, the rebuilt city began to move as you'd expect. People began moving their carts of supplies, chefs continued flipping their meals, and cars began to move foreword again in an orderly fashion.
I swallowed the last bit of anxiety. Job - done? "Is it finished?" I asked, "Is he dead?"
"Not dead," Stephen corrected, walking over to form a small conversational circle. "I've made a deal with Dormammu.. they're not going to be back."
I nodded and sighed.
"We should return to Kamar-taj." Wong said, and they began to move again.
"Not me." Mordo said, and I noticed the extreme anger written over his face. He stared at me with a disgusted look- and I knew that this feeling was what had allowed the shard to hurt me; after all, he was the one directly beside me. "Do you think there won't be consequences to this?"
What was he talking about?
"You saw what happened to the Ancient One when she tried to defy the natural laws of time.. the bill comes due," the stern hope of truth in his voice reminded me of when Stephen and him were arguing. "Always!"
"Look around, Mordo." Stephen shot back with a convincing tone. "The broken law saved the world."
"Maybe. But it is our job to protect the laws, not break them." The man said gravely, shaking his head.
He stared at Stephen for a long moment- the muscles within his jaw clenching and un-clenching with every though he was having. Then he looked at me again- a hateful glare that made my blood run cold. I felt the fear of death again, beckoning me to take a step closer to a darkness I never wanted to know.
"And I will no longer be a part of it." He finally said, turning away.
Mordo began to walk and the distance between us grew, slowly dissipating the warning of 'you're going to be killed!' within my head.
"Shouldn't you-" I began to say, taking a step to go after him. He may have been one of the last sorcerers now.. I didn't know how many there were, or how many were left after Kaecilius.
Stephen held up his hand to stop me. "I knew," he said, turning the other direction and pulling his sling ring from his pocket.
He knew? Knew what? That Mordo was going to leave?
The portal opened to the gray stone of Kamar-taj. I glanced over my shoulder before following the two men through. It was calming, in a way, to see the life that would continue because of us.. or just because of Stephen. But there was that thing I did that got me tangled up with Kaecilius in the first place.
I wondered why I had tried to save Strange, and I would have to thank Wong for stopping the loop of the mirror shard.
The thought made me shutter.
-
I held the small ceramic cup of steaming tea within my hands, right beneath my nose so that the air I breathed smelled of the herbal concoction that was made by Wong.
After a few hours of reading, Stephen had managed to figure out how to rebuild Kamar-taj, which was actually The Ancient One's and the Sorcerer Supreme's Temple, as Wong informed me. "Who is that, then?" I had asked, chewing quietly on a piece of bread that had been given to me. The Ancient One was dead now- but who was the supreme person?
"I don't know," Wong shook his head, tucking the books that had fallen from the library's bookshelves back into their places. "The next Supreme will have to be aged in the ways of our practice.. the Vishanti must choose when they believe them to be ready."
"Who's the Vishanti?" I asked, sipping the drink within my grasp before silently cringing at its burning heat.
"I assume the new master.. it will be Master Strange," Wong said, looking around the room before having a seat in front of me. "He wears the eye already."
"Yea," I nodded curiously, noting that he didn't answer my question. "What is that thing, anyway?"
The man pressed his lips together; It seemed to me that everyone got very annoyed when you started asking questions. Instead of responding, he stood a moment after sitting and walking down a book aisle- returning with a thick stack of bound paper that he placed before me. "Behind reading." he said, "There is a thousand life times of knowledge that you may want to know so that everything makes sense."
Intimidation rose in my throat as I stared down at the book he placed in front of me. "I suggest you begin now." and Wong left me with the piece of literature.
After I opened to the first page, dread swam into my hope of learning. "Wong!" I called after him, "I don't have a translator!" but he was gone, and I swore beneath my breath at the complexity of everything. How was I supposed to begin this if I didn't know what the pages were saying?
Determination was set into the crease of my brow as I slammed the cover shut and stood, scooping the book into my arms. Entering the Temple's center, where a large globe floated above a pedestal- I found Stephen, placing the Eye back into the center where it fit into a holder perfectly. "Stephen," I said,
"Alaria, just the person I wanted to-"
My abrupt confidence boost at the want to understand everything made me cut him off. "Did Mordo leave his belongings here?"
The man thought for a moment, "I think so- probably." he furrowed his eyebrows at me. "Why?"
I nodded my gaze to the book in my arms.
"I need his computer."
-
Im v relieved i can begin my own plot now. It's so much easier *even tho I haven't written anything in a week😨😄
Ill get there maybe, I've been sidetracked with other work ❤️
Thanks for reading!
ps i also haven't edited this so im sorry and I'd love if you helped me out and commented where things sound wrong or have typos!!! :)
xx A.