America gave herself a moment to recover her breath before opening the next portal. It’d been a long journey to the Outside, but definitively easier than coming with the whole team. She’d learnt her lesson: smaller portals and more time between jumps seemed to be working so far.
There was the nagging reminder in the back of her head, the memory of what had happened before, the knowledge that if something went wrong this time there’d be no one to bring her back. She ignored it, opening the next portal. She had to do this, she had to see it for herself. The image Galactus had shared with them was still burnt in the back of her head, to big and horrible for her to entirely understand. She had to make sure.
Finally, she crossed the last star portal. Her head was dizzy and her vision a little blurry, but that didn’t matter right now, not compared to what was right in front of her: Eternity, chained.
“What happened?” She asked, a whisper that sounded too loud in the emptiness of the Outside. She didn’t actually expect to get an answer.