Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

I needed someone to help me, and I already knew who. I walked out and down the long corridors to the front of the ship. This was the area where all controls were for the ship. To my right was a big glass panel, looking out to the sky in front of us. Right before me was where all the computers were lined up. Sort of like N.A.S.A. but more advanced in technology. The thing is, there were only about sixty people out of two hundred that were on the computers. This made me realize what time it was. Everyone was in their quarters sleeping, just to wake up to another day of work. I was assuming that Scott would be in his quarters. Before I was able to walk out, Dad came walking in. Of course, he looked straight at me.

“Reuben...”

“No, Dad. Not right now. I can’t.” I said as I walked out and to Scott’s quarters.

I interrupted him. I was mourning, and I couldn’t handle anything right at the time.. He knew that, and I knew that he wanted to talk, but I couldn’t handle that right now. I walked to what I thought was Scott’s room, but I guess my feet had a different idea. I didn’t know whose room it was until I knocked, and James answered. He was wearing a grey t-shirt and blue flannel pajama pants.

“Hey Reuben, are you okay?” James asked, concern covering his face

“I don’t know. I just don’t know what to think. May I come in?”

“Yeah sure.” He gestured that I go in, and I went in and sat on his bed. He closed the door and moved a chair in front of me.

“I think you already know what I want to talk about.” I said to him.

“I’m all ears. Good or bad, whichever one, I’ll listen.” I don’t believe how kind he could be.

“I can’t look at my Dad without remembering my mother. I can’t look at him without remembering everything I said to him. I want to make it so nothing like this happens again. I can’t handle this. It’s too much pain to bare. I wish I could make all of this go away.”

“We all do things we regret. You just need to move forward. Stop living in the past and live in the present, while the opportunity is still there.”

“Thanks for listening.” I said.

He nodded his head, and I walked out, closing the door quietly behind me. I felt like I still had things to say, but I couldn’t put them into words. I started walking to my point of origin, Scott’s room. Walking around the corner, I felt like something was wrong, but shook it off thinking I was just a little sleep deprived. Just one last stop, then bed it was. Room after room I walked. I felt like I was lost. Now I began to have anxiety. What’s wrong with me? Breathing heavily, I B-lined it to my room, thinking I was too tired and it could wait until tomorrow. I felt like someone was still following me, so I decided I was just going to go onto the platform of the helicarrier, because it always calmed me down. I zipped up my brown leather jacket, thinking it’d be slightly cold out at 1:30 A.M. It didn’t take long for my eyes to adjust to the dark. My anxiety slowly began to recede, but I went to the edge, lied down, and let my legs dangle. It began to get really cold out after a while, so I decided to go back to my room. Before I reached the door, I looked one last time at the stars, thinking my mother was watching me. I turned to the door, and Red Skull was just inches away from me. He had a mischievous smile, and I was knocked out from behind. I woke up back in a cell, but this time it was more high tech. I rubbed the back of my head where I had been hit. I should’ve seen that coming. I was going to need brain surgery after taking all these hits to the back of my head. Red Skull has already made a strategy for me. His strategy was for there to be some sort of distraction, then knock me out from behind.

“How does it feel to be back here again?” Skull said.

“Great! Remember how much fun we had last time?” I said as sarcastically as I could.

“This won’t be like last time. The cell you’re in has a mechanism that can track and power related to the Tesseract, and absorb it. You’re slowly dying as we speak.”

“You really want me dead? Without me nothing will stop the Avengers from killing you.”

“Yes, but your death will give them time to figure out where we are, and right as they get to you, you will die. Your death will be slow and excruciating, not quick like your Mother’s.”

“At least she didn’t suffer.” Shock covered his face.

“Using my mother as leverage for me to give up won’t work. You see, I’ve already had a near death experience, where my Mother and I had a very thorough conversation. I’ve had time to mourn over her death. You won’t find any leverage against me.”

“I do not need leverage to kill you.” He said calmly.

“No, so why are you talking to me? Why not just watch me suffer from one of your T.V.s because you obviously have this place littered with cameras.”

“I like to torture my victims before their death.”

“Oh, fun.”

“Here’s how your death will go. If we stay on schedule, you should die in approximately five hours. Every thirty minutes, the rate of the absorption will increase.”

“If everything goes right.”

“You better hope everything goes right, not that anything would change your fate.”

“What, are you going to kill me and hope the tesseract will still thrive within me? That’s not possible, because as soon as I die, the tesseract dies.”

“No. We will torture you and make you wish you were dead.”