It was another beautiful dream. Her and Vision were sitting together on a large, lavished couch with golden ornate engravings in the wood work in a marvelous mansion. His arm was around her, metallic and cold yet somehow so warm and familiar. On the ground were her boys - Thomas and William. Thomas was always the jealous one, so when William began to get too involved with a toy, Thomas would have to have it. After having probably the fifth or sixth toy train snatched away from him, William had enough. He began to cry.
Wanda fought down the smile - she couldn’t smile, otherwise Thomas would think such behavior was fitting. She read that in a parenthood novel once. After planting a brief kiss on Vision’s cheek, Wanda stood up and stepped over to her boys. She lifted William up into her arms and gave her lighter haired son a very stern look.
“Now, Thomas, what have I told you about sharing? Let your brother play and be fair!”
It was a beautiful dream. It was a terrible nightmare. The baby’s face began to warp, his voice dropping and sounding almost demonic. His skin burned away, turning red from exposed muscle before flesh grew over it. His skin stayed crimson and his eyes went pure white. It wasn’t Thomas anymore - it was the Lord of Evil himself.
Wanda let out a shriek and, instinctively, turned to Vision. But her husband wasn’t responding. His body was disintegrating, melting and turning to ashes on the couch. The walls began to melt as her dreamworld came crashing around her.
Wanda turned and began to rush out the door. William still tightly in her arms. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she pushed through the front of the house and into the outside. The light of the sun was overwhelming, temporarily blinding her. But when she regained her sight, she could tell she wasn’t in any friendly city or hometown. All that surrounded her were tall, abandoned and broken buildings. It was her prison, a land all for herself to try and tame the wild beast she had become.
Feeling her heart beating heavily, Wanda dared to look down. Her child, William, was no more. Cradled in her arms instead was an old, dusty, worn-out doll. But, for a brief moment of sanity, Wanda reminded herself of the truth. “There is no William. There is no Thomas,” she murmured and dropped the toy before beginning to retreat back into the abandoned school building she knew as her holding cell.
“I’ve been abandoned. I’m alone.”
It was never a dream or a nightmare.
