Chapter 1
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The rain fell steadily, and the streets of Vienna darkened as night approached. Lamps cast pools of light onto the wet pavement, illuminating the scene outside Emilia Novak's dormitory window. The 22-year-old slumped back in her much-hated "ergonomic" chair, relieved to have finished the final revision of her undergraduate thesis. Though she still needed to defend it before a committee, she felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. With a sigh, Emilia removed her glasses and closed her eyes, giving them a much-needed rest. She knew she would have to call her mother soon but decided it could wait until after her thesis defence. Talking to her mother always seemed to add more stress to her life, reminding her of how easily everything could go wrong if she didn't overcome her laziness and apathy. Instead, Emilia considered calling her father, who was always supportive and loving, even if he tended to be overly interested in spiritualism and other esoteric beliefs. She couldn't help but wonder how her parents had managed to stay together for 10 years before their divorce, considering how different they were. With a sigh at her musings, she drearily stood from her chair and headed to make some late dinner before passing out for the day. Just as she took more than a few steps in the direction of her small kitchen she felt a piercing pain in her chest. It quickly spread out from the initial point, as now it felt like her whole upper torso was pierced by thousands of needles. As she collapsed to her hands and knees in the middle of her small dormitory room she briefly wondered if she overworked herself so much that she was getting a stroke or a heart attack, neither should feel like this. No common medical condition she knows of should feel like this. Bet prior coherent thoughts suddenly fled her mind as the pain spiked and spread over her whole body, her toes felt like they were on fire, her head pounded harder than when she had a 41-degree fever a few years ago and her arms just started to feel numb, her nerves overwhelmed by the searing pain she was feeling. As tears started to pour from her eyes as she trembled on the ground from this agony, the torment suddenly came to an end after a final spike that made her feel like all cells in her body were tearing themselves apart. It took a few minutes for her mind to regain some form of cohesiveness to it, phantom pain still flared in her body periodically and her sobbing continued along with it as she slowly calmed herself down. She was still alive, somehow, whatever that pain was it has passed and she was still breathing. With that thought, she took a deep breath to the count of four, hold to 7 and exhale it to 8 through the mouth. She repeated her by now favourite calming breathing exercise a few times, after the third exhale she opened her eyes which were forced shut previously. She has felt the cold rocky material below her hands before but couldn't make sense of the situation even after opening her eyes. Her gaze travelled over her surroundings, as her still sluggish mind tried to make sense of what she saw. It wasn't such an inexplicable sight that would warrant such a reaction otherwise, it was a simple alleyway, with trash bags along the side and a flickering lamppost peaking over the edge, giving some illumination to her surroundings. This was all good but she was in her dorm in Vienna when she collapsed, she couldn't have sleep-walked outside into a shady alleyway in that state. She stood up with great effort, still feeling like she was both hungover and had muscle ache in every single one of her existing muscles. She was slowly hobbling towards the flickering light at the end of the alley as she considered her situation. She was sure her dorm room was locked and the hallways were watched by security cameras, plus she didn't remember hearing anything unordinary so she probably wasn't attacked by someone, maybe poison? But why would anyone bother to poison her in her dorm and drop her in this alleyway afterwards presumably unharmed? That halted her thought process, was she unharmed? She didn't wake up in a bathtub filled with ice cubes so probably her organs were still in their original place. Maybe she was kidnapped and now she was being released after someone paid her ransom. She didn't know if her mother had any enemies or was that famous that she would be targeted so far away from her home. But all that was just hypothesise, nothing was certain as of now. She needed to find out where the nine hells she was now. As she made it to the end of the alley while immersed in her thoughts she returned her attention to her surroundings. The road it opened to was a small two-lane one, with barely anybody walking around in the middle of the night as it was. Maybe she wasn't passed out for more than half a day then, at least she could hope she wasn't kidnapped as she thought. Even in the open, trash in and outside of bags littered the sidewalk, while some cheap-looking cars were parked haphazardly on both sides of the road. She looked around, searching for any signs or landmarks maybe indicating where she was. The houses were old, some looked like they were built centuries before. Not like those in Vienna she was used to at all, most buildings there were older than some countries and looked as good as some decade-old buildings. She searched for any writing or road signs around the road, she quickly found a graffiti depicting Captain America in a less than quality on the side of the building she was leaning on for support, wherever she was at least they had comics here. Then she found a sign with the name of the road she was on, it read "Rivington Street". Well, that didn't bode well. How the hell was she transported to England, or even the USA? Road Signs in most of Europe tended to be written in the local language, barely any were in English. With a push she separated from the wall, slowly getting a handle on walking without support. Her head was still pounding and each step took effort but both were slowly getting better. She single-mindedly focused on only the next step, so she jolted a little when words seemed to directly enter her mind, *She must be crackhead* along with a wave of disgust that washed over her. She snapped her head up from the walkway, searching for the source. She didn't find any for a moment and another string of 'words' entered her mind *She must be high as hell, I should avoid her* followed by another wave of emotions. This time trepidation with a tinge of fear. She finally found who she deduced should be the source of the 'words' she 'heard'. It was a gangly man, now in the process of crossing the road. His intention was clear, he didn't want to go beside Emilia on the same walkway as they were headed in the opposite direction. His steps became hurried as he seemed to notice her gaze as it locked onto him. He soon disappeared along a corner and Emilia lost sight of him. This time the steadily mounting waves of discomfort and fear that were washing over Emilia in waves abated and gave way to a wave of relief and soon the emotions ceased. Emilia felt extremely perplexed by this and also confused. She stood there in the cold night staring at the corner that the man disappeared behind. "What the hell" she muttered, wondering whether the drugs or sedatives the imaginary kidnappers used on her were making her hallucinate even now. She dismissed that idea. Too unlikely. Plus the emotions she felt were quite distinct from her own, the 'words' she 'heard' were often fewer words and more thoughts. Yes, that was right, thoughts, ideas and emotions. Was her father right after all? Did she open her third eye because of those drugs or is she just having mental trauma from the pain? Maybe it was a combination of the two. She always silently dismissed her father's lectures about spiritualism before, trying not to hurt his feelings but also not taking them to heart. It just didn't make sense, there was no proof, spiritualist-, Buddhist- or martial arts monks were often shown in the media making fools of themselves while trying to prove these kinds of things. But this could be different she would need to experiment with it after getting back to college, maybe they would still let her present her thesis to the committee even if she was out of the original deadline. Although it took some self-convincing she again started walking down the sidewalk. Her mind still whirling with ideas about what happened so far in the short time since she found herself here. As her eyes were fixated on the ground just in front of her feet she noticed a discarded newspaper thrown beside a trash bin. She quickly picked it up, intent on finding out the approximate date while wondering who even bought newspapers anymore instead of reading news on an app. "2007 March, 27th", she read aloud to make sure she saw it right. It could be a memento to someone, that they just found fitting to throw away. That was far more likely than her travelling back in time more than 16 years. She was about to throw it into the bin when her gaze caught the headline on the front page, it earned another "What the hell" from Emilia as she gazed at the handsome face of Tony Stark that stared back at her from below the headline reading 'Tech Mogul Tony Stark says he could get humans onto Mars in a decade'.
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The rain fell steadily, and the streets of Vienna darkened as night approached. Lamps cast pools of light onto the wet pavement, illuminating the scene outside Emilia Novak's dormitory window. The 22-year-old slumped back in her much-hated "ergonomic" chair, relieved to have finished the final revision of her undergraduate thesis. Though she still needed to defend it before a committee, she felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. With a sigh, Emilia removed her glasses and closed her eyes, giving them a much-needed rest. She knew she would have to call her mother soon but decided it could wait until after her thesis defence. Talking to her mother always seemed to add more stress to her life, reminding her of how easily everything could go wrong if she didn't overcome her laziness and apathy. Instead, Emilia considered calling her father, who was always supportive and loving, even if he tended to be overly interested in spiritualism and other esoteric beliefs. She couldn't help but wonder how her parents had managed to stay together for 10 years before their divorce, considering how different they were. With a sigh at her musings, she drearily stood from her chair and headed to make some late dinner before passing out for the day. Just as she took more than a few steps in the direction of her small kitchen she felt a piercing pain in her chest. It quickly spread out from the initial point, as now it felt like her whole upper torso was pierced by thousands of needles. As she collapsed to her hands and knees in the middle of her small dormitory room she briefly wondered if she overworked herself so much that she was getting a stroke or a heart attack, neither should feel like this. No common medical condition she knows of should feel like this. Bet prior coherent thoughts suddenly fled her mind as the pain spiked and spread over her whole body, her toes felt like they were on fire, her head pounded harder than when she had a 41-degree fever a few years ago and her arms just started to feel numb, her nerves overwhelmed by the searing pain she was feeling. As tears started to pour from her eyes as she trembled on the ground from this agony, the torment suddenly came to an end after a final spike that made her feel like all cells in her body were tearing themselves apart. It took a few minutes for her mind to regain some form of cohesiveness to it, phantom pain still flared in her body periodically and her sobbing continued along with it as she slowly calmed herself down. She was still alive, somehow, whatever that pain was it has passed and she was still breathing. With that thought, she took a deep breath to the count of four, hold to 7 and exhale it to 8 through the mouth. She repeated her by now favourite calming breathing exercise a few times, after the third exhale she opened her eyes which were forced shut previously. She has felt the cold rocky material below her hands before but couldn't make sense of the situation even after opening her eyes. Her gaze travelled over her surroundings, as her still sluggish mind tried to make sense of what she saw. It wasn't such an inexplicable sight that would warrant such a reaction otherwise, it was a simple alleyway, with trash bags along the side and a flickering lamppost peaking over the edge, giving some illumination to her surroundings. This was all good but she was in her dorm in Vienna when she collapsed, she couldn't have sleep-walked outside into a shady alleyway in that state. She stood up with great effort, still feeling like she was both hungover and had muscle ache in every single one of her existing muscles. She was slowly hobbling towards the flickering light at the end of the alley as she considered her situation. She was sure her dorm room was locked and the hallways were watched by security cameras, plus she didn't remember hearing anything unordinary so she probably wasn't attacked by someone, maybe poison? But why would anyone bother to poison her in her dorm and drop her in this alleyway afterwards presumably unharmed? That halted her thought process, was she unharmed? She didn't wake up in a bathtub filled with ice cubes so probably her organs were still in their original place. Maybe she was kidnapped and now she was being released after someone paid her ransom. She didn't know if her mother had any enemies or was that famous that she would be targeted so far away from her home. But all that was just hypothesise, nothing was certain as of now. She needed to find out where the nine hells she was now. As she made it to the end of the alley while immersed in her thoughts she returned her attention to her surroundings. The road it opened to was a small two-lane one, with barely anybody walking around in the middle of the night as it was. Maybe she wasn't passed out for more than half a day then, at least she could hope she wasn't kidnapped as she thought. Even in the open, trash in and outside of bags littered the sidewalk, while some cheap-looking cars were parked haphazardly on both sides of the road. She looked around, searching for any signs or landmarks maybe indicating where she was. The houses were old, some looked like they were built centuries before. Not like those in Vienna she was used to at all, most buildings there were older than some countries and looked as good as some decade-old buildings. She searched for any writing or road signs around the road, she quickly found a graffiti depicting Captain America in a less than quality on the side of the building she was leaning on for support, wherever she was at least they had comics here. Then she found a sign with the name of the road she was on, it read "Rivington Street". Well, that didn't bode well. How the hell was she transported to England, or even the USA? Road Signs in most of Europe tended to be written in the local language, barely any were in English. With a push she separated from the wall, slowly getting a handle on walking without support. Her head was still pounding and each step took effort but both were slowly getting better. She single-mindedly focused on only the next step, so she jolted a little when words seemed to directly enter her mind, *She must be crackhead* along with a wave of disgust that washed over her. She snapped her head up from the walkway, searching for the source. She didn't find any for a moment and another string of 'words' entered her mind *She must be high as hell, I should avoid her* followed by another wave of emotions. This time trepidation with a tinge of fear. She finally found who she deduced should be the source of the 'words' she 'heard'. It was a gangly man, now in the process of crossing the road. His intention was clear, he didn't want to go beside Emilia on the same walkway as they were headed in the opposite direction. His steps became hurried as he seemed to notice her gaze as it locked onto him. He soon disappeared along a corner and Emilia lost sight of him. This time the steadily mounting waves of discomfort and fear that were washing over Emilia in waves abated and gave way to a wave of relief and soon the emotions ceased. Emilia felt extremely perplexed by this and also confused. She stood there in the cold night staring at the corner that the man disappeared behind. "What the hell" she muttered, wondering whether the drugs or sedatives the imaginary kidnappers used on her were making her hallucinate even now. She dismissed that idea. Too unlikely. Plus the emotions she felt were quite distinct from her own, the 'words' she 'heard' were often fewer words and more thoughts. Yes, that was right, thoughts, ideas and emotions. Was her father right after all? Did she open her third eye because of those drugs or is she just having mental trauma from the pain? Maybe it was a combination of the two. She always silently dismissed her father's lectures about spiritualism before, trying not to hurt his feelings but also not taking them to heart. It just didn't make sense, there was no proof, spiritualist-, Buddhist- or martial arts monks were often shown in the media making fools of themselves while trying to prove these kinds of things. But this could be different she would need to experiment with it after getting back to college, maybe they would still let her present her thesis to the committee even if she was out of the original deadline. Although it took some self-convincing she again started walking down the sidewalk. Her mind still whirling with ideas about what happened so far in the short time since she found herself here. As her eyes were fixated on the ground just in front of her feet she noticed a discarded newspaper thrown beside a trash bin. She quickly picked it up, intent on finding out the approximate date while wondering who even bought newspapers anymore instead of reading news on an app. "2007 March, 27th", she read aloud to make sure she saw it right. It could be a memento to someone, that they just found fitting to throw away. That was far more likely than her travelling back in time more than 16 years. She was about to throw it into the bin when her gaze caught the headline on the front page, it earned another "What the hell" from Emilia as she gazed at the handsome face of Tony Stark that stared back at her from below the headline reading 'Tech Mogul Tony Stark says he could get humans onto Mars in a decade'.
The rain fell steadily, and the streets of Vienna darkened as night approached. Lamps cast pools of light onto the wet pavement, illuminating the scene outside Emilia Novak's dormitory window. The 22-year-old slumped back in her much-hated "ergonomic" chair, relieved to have finished the final revision of her undergraduate thesis. Though she still needed to defend it before a committee, she felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. With a sigh, Emilia removed her glasses and closed her eyes, giving them a much-needed rest. She knew she would have to call her mother soon but decided it could wait until after her thesis defence. Talking to her mother always seemed to add more stress to her life, reminding her of how easily everything could go wrong if she didn't overcome her laziness and apathy. Instead, Emilia considered calling her father, who was always supportive and loving, even if he tended to be overly interested in spiritualism and other esoteric beliefs. She couldn't help but wonder how her parents had managed to stay together for 10 years before their divorce, considering how different they were. With a sigh at her musings, she drearily stood from her chair and headed to make some late dinner before passing out for the day. Just as she took more than a few steps in the direction of her small kitchen she felt a piercing pain in her chest. It quickly spread out from the initial point, as now it felt like her whole upper torso was pierced by thousands of needles. As she collapsed to her hands and knees in the middle of her small dormitory room she briefly wondered if she overworked herself so much that she was getting a stroke or a heart attack, neither should feel like this. No common medical condition she knows of should feel like this. Bet prior coherent thoughts suddenly fled her mind as the pain spiked and spread over her whole body, her toes felt like they were on fire, her head pounded harder than when she had a 41-degree fever a few years ago and her arms just started to feel numb, her nerves overwhelmed by the searing pain she was feeling. As tears started to pour from her eyes as she trembled on the ground from this agony, the torment suddenly came to an end after a final spike that made her feel like all cells in her body were tearing themselves apart. It took a few minutes for her mind to regain some form of cohesiveness to it, phantom pain still flared in her body periodically and her sobbing continued along with it as she slowly calmed herself down. She was still alive, somehow, whatever that pain was it has passed and she was still breathing. With that thought, she took a deep breath to the count of four, hold to 7 and exhale it to 8 through the mouth. She repeated her by now favourite calming breathing exercise a few times, after the third exhale she opened her eyes which were forced shut previously. She has felt the cold rocky material below her hands before but couldn't make sense of the situation even after opening her eyes. Her gaze travelled over her surroundings, as her still sluggish mind tried to make sense of what she saw. It wasn't such an inexplicable sight that would warrant such a reaction otherwise, it was a simple alleyway, with trash bags along the side and a flickering lamppost peaking over the edge, giving some illumination to her surroundings. This was all good but she was in her dorm in Vienna when she collapsed, she couldn't have sleep-walked outside into a shady alleyway in that state. She stood up with great effort, still feeling like she was both hungover and had muscle ache in every single one of her existing muscles. She was slowly hobbling towards the flickering light at the end of the alley as she considered her situation. She was sure her dorm room was locked and the hallways were watched by security cameras, plus she didn't remember hearing anything unordinary so she probably wasn't attacked by someone, maybe poison? But why would anyone bother to poison her in her dorm and drop her in this alleyway afterwards presumably unharmed? That halted her thought process, was she unharmed? She didn't wake up in a bathtub filled with ice cubes so probably her organs were still in their original place. Maybe she was kidnapped and now she was being released after someone paid her ransom. She didn't know if her mother had any enemies or was that famous that she would be targeted so far away from her home. But all that was just hypothesise, nothing was certain as of now. She needed to find out where the nine hells she was now. As she made it to the end of the alley while immersed in her thoughts she returned her attention to her surroundings. The road it opened to was a small two-lane one, with barely anybody walking around in the middle of the night as it was. Maybe she wasn't passed out for more than half a day then, at least she could hope she wasn't kidnapped as she thought. Even in the open, trash in and outside of bags littered the sidewalk, while some cheap-looking cars were parked haphazardly on both sides of the road. She looked around, searching for any signs or landmarks maybe indicating where she was. The houses were old, some looked like they were built centuries before. Not like those in Vienna she was used to at all, most buildings there were older than some countries and looked as good as some decade-old buildings. She searched for any writing or road signs around the road, she quickly found a graffiti depicting Captain America in a less than quality on the side of the building she was leaning on for support, wherever she was at least they had comics here. Then she found a sign with the name of the road she was on, it read "Rivington Street". Well, that didn't bode well. How the hell was she transported to England, or even the USA? Road Signs in most of Europe tended to be written in the local language, barely any were in English. With a push she separated from the wall, slowly getting a handle on walking without support. Her head was still pounding and each step took effort but both were slowly getting better.She single-mindedly focused on only the next step, so she jolted a little when words seemed to directly enter her mind, *She must be crackhead* along with a wave of disgust that washed over her. She snapped her head up from the walkway, searching for the source. She didn't find any for a moment and another string of 'words' entered her mind *She must be high as hell, I should avoid her* followed by another wave of emotions. This time trepidation with a tinge of fear. She finally found who she deduced should be the source of the 'words' she 'heard'. It was a gangly man, now in the process of crossing the road. His intention was clear, he didn't want to go beside Emilia on the same walkway as they were headed in the opposite direction. His steps became hurried as he seemed to notice her gaze as it locked onto him. He soon disappeared along a corner and Emilia lost sight of him. This time the steadily mounting waves of discomfort and fear that were washing over Emilia in waves abated and gave way to a wave of relief and soon the emotions ceased. Emilia felt extremely perplexed by this and also confused. She stood there in the cold night staring at the corner that the man disappeared behind. "What the hell" she muttered, wondering whether the drugs or sedatives the imaginary kidnappers used on her were making her hallucinate even now. She dismissed that idea. Too unlikely. Plus the emotions she felt were quite distinct from her own, the 'words' she 'heard' were often fewer words and more thoughts. Yes, that was right, thoughts, ideas and emotions. Was her father right after all? Did she open her third eye because of those drugs or is she just having mental trauma from the pain? Maybe it was a combination of the two. She always silently dismissed her father's lectures about spiritualism before, trying not to hurt his feelings but also not taking them to heart. It just didn't make sense, there was no proof, spiritualist-, Buddhist- or martial arts monks were often shown in the media making fools of themselves while trying to prove these kinds of things. But this could be different she would need to experiment with it after getting back to college, maybe they would still let her present her thesis to the committee even if she was out of the original deadline. Although it took some self-convincing she again started walking down the sidewalk. Her mind still whirling with ideas about what happened so far in the short time since she found herself here. As her eyes were fixated on the ground just in front of her feet she noticed a discarded newspaper thrown beside a trash bin. She quickly picked it up, intent on finding out the approximate date while wondering who even bought newspapers anymore instead of reading news on an app. "2007 March, 27th", she read aloud to make sure she saw it right. It could be a memento to someone, that they just found fitting to throw away. That was far more likely than her travelling back in time more than 16 years. She was about to throw it into the bin when her gaze caught the headline on the front page, it earned another "What the hell" from Emilia as she gazed at the handsome face of Tony Stark that stared back at her from below the headline reading 'Tech Mogul Tony Stark says he could get humans onto Mars in a decade'.
