A few notes before you dive into my short story:
I have NOT seen the final Avengers movie.
I HAVE seen Infinity War, and if you haven’t STOP READING NOW there are spoilers in here.
This story takes place in the Marvel universe.
The first person I called was my sister, “Angie? Shit. It’s so good to hear your voice.” Silence. Sniffling. “Ange? What’s going on?” She could barely speak, “Fr- Franklin.” I collapsed. Our brother. He was sixteen. My phone fell from my hand and landed next to me. I stared at it, watching the numbers go up, letting me know the call was still connected and for how long. I don’t know how long I stared at those numbers before picking the phone back up. “What about mom and dad?” I felt my vocal cords vibrate but couldn’t recognize my voice, cracked, despondent. I could hear Angie’s slow breathing. “Mom,” she paused and I wasn’t sure what to make of her tone, “Mom and dad are fine.” She almost sounded angry. We stayed on the phone not talking for a while, taking comfort in hearing each other’s breathing. “I love you,” I said, feeling slightly more ready to start putting the pieces together. “I’ll call you later.”
Nothing could be worse than losing my brother, I thought. Little did I know.
I was getting a bunch of text and notifications from social media, my friends and family making sure I was okay. I posted a note on Twitter, To everyone trying to contact me, I’m fine. Just wrapping my head around what’s happening. I love you all and will speak with you soon. I also made an Instagram post with the same note. No photo, just a screenshot of the tweet I posted. I got up, grabbed my bag, and made my way to the shrieking and crashing above. It was worse than I imagined. There were cars on fire, and storefronts, entire buildings, windows all the way up to 15 stories smashed. The smell of burning rubber and the stench of something unfamiliar filled my nostrils. That’s when I saw them. Bodies were in the streets. People had flung themselves to the pavement below- out of grief, hopelessness, shock, horror, it was impossible to tell. I felt myself getting sick. I ran to a garbage can and let out the little contents of my stomach there were. I slumped next to the garbage can, again unable to move. A woman came over to me. “Hey, hey come here,” she lifted me up, pulled a tissue out of her bag and wiped my mouth, “there are a bunch of people in this guy’s apartment and he has food and water. You can sit in there. It’s quiet and he has a working TV, so you can see what the fuck is happening,” I nodded my head. She put her arm under me to help me walk towards the apartment.
I was in and out of consciousness as we walked towards a stranger’s apartment, me clinging onto this other stranger who smelled oddly fragrant and familiar. The apartment was on the first floor and the front door of the building was open when we got there. The woman swiftly closed it and helped me into 1B, opening the door onto a huge, open living room. A number of people were there, but were undisturbed by my presence. “My name is Anna. What’s yours?” I looked at her. It was so hard to recall something so mundane. “Lita,” I managed to whisper. “Thank you.” She brought me over to a long couch along the wall and sat me down. “I’ll get you some water. Just sit and try to relax.” That word “relax” seemed so far away.
Looking around the room, I began to notice the people. There was an older woman holding a small dog sitting opposite me, staring intently at the TV. A younger man stood next to her speaking animatedly about where he was when it happened. He must’ve not lost anyone, I thought. He seemed excited about the event. The people listening were also alarmed by his demeanor, but politely listened. Everyone handles trauma differently, maybe this was his way of coping.
I looked at the TV as Anna handed me a tall glass of water. I nodded in thanks. Speaking just didn’t feel like an option anymore. She seemed to understand, pat my shoulder, and walked away to speak with the group across from me. The news anchor tried to hide her terror, but you could see it in her eyes, “A state of emergency has been declared. The entire world is under attack. According to reports, a large chunk of the human population has vanished. We are unsure the people who have disappeared have been eliminated or moved somewhere…else.”
I drank a sip of water and pulled out my phone. Scrolling through Twitter, I just saw posts from all over the world. It was staggering- all of the updates were solely about what was happening. No snarky takes, no conspiracy theories (at least not yet), and no politics. It was solely people sending condolences to those who were lost and sharing info they knew. In that moment I wanted to go home. I hadn’t heard from all my friends, so I quickly went through my texts to see who reached out:
Mohammad, check.
Astrid, check.
Khalib, check.
Dianne, check.
Sienna…
Jared….
Matt…
I texted everyone back and reached out to Sienna, Jared, and Matt with a simple, Let me know you’re okay even though, I already knew. Tears welled in my eyes. Sienna and I went to college together and lived within walking distance since we graduated, 10 years ago. We were constantly having sleepovers, staying up late to watch scary movies and talking about our futures and dating shenanigans. She knew everything about me and now she’s gone.
Jared was my first boyfriend out of college. We worked at a startup together. He was an account manager and I was an engineer. He made me laugh more than anyone, but after a few months it became clear there was something troubling him. Soon after, he came out to me. His family was extremely religious and, from what he told me, not the most understanding, but he was suffering not being true to himself. I was surprised and sad, but also so happy he felt comfortable enough and ready enough to tell me. He told his parents just a few weeks ago and after some tears and lots of questions, they too were happy he came out to them and felt incredibly guilty for making him feel he couldn’t. They even left the church they’d been apart of for several generations after the pastor told them Jared wasn’t welcome back. In fact, Jared was on a trip to see them. I texted his mom and his dad. Maybe he just wasn’t near his phone?
Matt was Sienna’s brother. I met him at a carnival our college sponsored. He was running the ball toss booth and was finding all sorts of clever ways to use “ball(s)” in a sentence to beckon potential players. Don’t let these balls get cold, take a chance with these balls, toss one ball and you’ll have to toss another. Maybe clever was too generous, but he was pretty entertaining. I wound up playing ball toss and we became fast friends. I met Sienna shortly after. Nothing ever happened between us but there was definitely something there. We’ll never find out what the something could have been.
The older woman on the couch was watching me, “Do you want to pray?”