[Perspective: Wanda Maximoff]

  The motel room was beige. Depressingly beige. The walls were the color of wet cardboard, the carpet was a shade of despair and the curtains smelled of thirty years of stale cigarettes and regret.

  Wanda woke up, the morning light doing nothing to dispel the gloom. She rolled out of bed, walked over to the wobbly table, and picked up the object. She then sat on the edge of the lumpy mattress, staring at it in her lap.

  It was pink. It was covered in daisies. It was the most ridiculous piece of fabric she had ever seen.

  And she loved it.

  She ran her fingers over the rough cotton ties of the apron. It still smelled like his kitchen… a mixture of rich spices, lemon zest and that masculine scent that was distinctly him.

  A subconscious smile tugged at the corner of her lips. It was a reflex she hadn't felt in weeks, a muscle memory waking up from a coma.

  He gave this to me, she thought, clutching the fabric tighter. He said it was armor.

  In the silence of the motel room, the screaming in her head began to creep back in. But when she looked at the apron, or at the glass Tupperware container sitting on the wobbly bedside table, the static quieted down.

  It was becoming a problem. A beautiful problem.

  Aryan Spencer was a drug.

  When she was near him, the world felt solid. When she was away from him, reality felt like it was fraying at the edges, threatening to dissolve into the gray nothingness she felt inside.

  She stood up and walked to the window, peering through the crack in the curtains.

  I need to see him, the thought rose possessively.

  In her vision, she had seen their life together… the life that should have been hers. He belonged to her variant, which meant, by the cruel transitive property of the multiverse, he was the only thing in this universe that fit her.

  He is mine, a dark voice whispered in the back of her mind. He is the only other ghost here.

  She looked at the Tupperware. It contained leftover Tandoori chicken and two pieces of naan.

  "I have to return this," she whispered aloud.

  It was the perfect excuse. 'Oh, hello Aryan, I just happened to be in the neighborhood and I wanted to return your container.'

  But then what?

  She would hand it over. He would say thank you. Maybe they would talk for five minutes on the porch. Then she would have to get back in her car and return to this beige hellhole.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  "No," she said, her eyes flashing red for a split second. "That is not enough."

  She needed to be close enough to hear his heartbeat, to let his presence anchor her drifting reality.

  She needed a reason to stay. A reason that he couldn't politely decline. A reason that would make him open his door and keep it open.

  She looked around the motel room. The peeling wallpaper. The flickering lamp. The exposed wiring near the air conditioning unit that sparked whenever she turned it on.

  An idea coalesced in her mind.

  Wanda sat back down on the bed. She crossed her legs and closed her eyes.

  She felt the minds of the motel staff. There were only three people working. A bored receptionist playing solitaire on her phone. A cleaner smoking a cigarette out back. And a maintenance man... Frank.

  Frank was currently in the basement utility room, staring at the breaker box, thinking about his lunch sandwich.

  Frank, Wanda whispered in the dark corridors of his thoughts.

  Frank blinked. His thoughts about ham and cheese dissolved, replaced by a sudden confusing urge. The wiring, he thought. I should check the main line. It looks... loose.

  Wanda guided him. It was like puppeteering a shadow.

  She watched through his eyes as he reached for a screwdriver. She nudged his perception. The red wire looked like the black wire. The safety protocol felt unnecessary.

  Just a little twist, she suggested. Just to tighten it.

  Frank's hand slipped. The screwdriver bridged two terminals that should never touch.

  Spark.

  A pop. Smoke began to curl up from the box. The internal alarms triggered silently at first.

  Wanda withdrew from his mind gently, leaving him confused but unharmed.

  She opened her eyes.

  She could smell the faint scent of burning insulation drifting through the vents.

  "Oh no," she whispered, her voice devoid of surprise. "A fire."

  She stood up and calmly began to pack. She folded the pink apron with reverence, placing it at the very top of her suitcase. She packed her clothes. She packed the Tupperware.

  She checked the room to make sure she left nothing behind.

  Outside, the fire alarm finally began to wail… a rhythmic scream that signaled the end of her stay at the Sleep Ezy Motel.

  "What a tragedy," she murmured, grabbing the handle of her suitcase. "I suppose I will need to find somewhere else to go."

  She walked out the door just as the first tendrils of smoke began to fill the hallway.

  [Perspective: Aryan Spencer]

  Crash.

  The universe shattered into a billion shards of glass and every shard reflected her dead face.

  I woke up screaming.

  Or, I tried to scream. What came out was a strangled gasp, like I'd been punched in the solar plexus. I shot up in bed, my sheets twisted around my legs like a constrictor snake. My heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs… thump thump, thump thump… trying to escape.

  I sat there in the dark, breathing hard, the afterimage of a dissolving world still burned onto my retinas.

  "Okay," I wheezed, rubbing my face with trembling hands. "Okay. We're here. We're in Jersey. The bed is solid. The world is... unfortunately, still intact."

  I looked toward the corner of the room. "Oh, look at you. Did you enjoy that? The night terrors of a god-tier entity? I hope it was vivid enough for your little voyeuristic heart."

  I swung my legs out of bed and sat on the edge, staring at the floor. The morning sun was just starting to bleed through the blinds, painting stripes of gold across the carpet.

  "You'd think," I croaked, addressing the person behind the screen I knew was watching, "that after absorbing a literal cosmos, my brain could handle a little PTSD. But no. Apparently, unlimited cosmic power doesn't come with a 'Good Night's Sleep' DLC pack. The prose is getting a bit heavy on the trauma today, isn't it?"

  I stood up and stretched, my spine cracking like a glow stick.

  "Another day in paradise," I muttered, walking into the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. I looked at myself in the mirror. Dark circles. Hair that defied gravity and logic.