Chapter 3
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Emilia absently watched the news while shovelling food into her mouth, the woman gave her a fairly large amount. For sure more than her money's worth. Even if it was kinda bland. The news was only briefly interrupted by the conversational woman, adding her take on the happenings to the reporter's. By the time she finished her meal, she decided that she had too little information to conclude what the hell was going on. Her top ideas were an 'elaborate prank', 'I am going crazy' and 'I have been transmigrated to Marvel'. The last one is mostly there for an absurd fallback option if all else fails. Short of a superhero beating up an alien in front of her she wasn't willing to believe that one. She was a rational and logical girl, she assured herself. She got that from her mother, if only she also got her ambition and drive. She didn't from whom she inherited her apathy and laziness, which was her only personality flaw if you asked her. Maybe she could be a bit bolder and outgoing but that was a choice, not a flaw, she often assured herself. "Uhm, a do-o you-u have any idea where I could spend the night? I'm kind of lost," she cursed her stutter at the start of the sentence, no she decided to stutter, to make herself seem more miserable. Well, she felt miserable, which was amplified by the wave of concern and befuddlement that the matronly women gave off in response to her question. The woman seemed to ponder for a moment before she replied, "You know what dearie, if you want I will let you stay the night in my guest room for only 10 bucks. It's been collecting dust ever since my children left the house." "I only have Euros," Emilia fiddled with her hair in embarrassment. "That will do too honey, " the woman smiled, " so would you like to stay the night?" "Yes, I would like that, thank you," said Emilia, she was still confused about her day, but she felt overwhelmed by the events of the brief day and whatever that pain was, it was anything but restful sleep. She felt starved and exhausted, her stomach only stopped protesting during the dinner and now she felt the overwhelming need for a bed and a long night of sleep. Without much further discussion, Emilia was led up a narrow stairway and into a small room, after a moment the woman returned with bedsheets, pillows and other bed stuff. After giving the woman her promised 10 euros she was left alone for the night, she was even promised breakfast the next day. Only throwing the sheet on the mattress and the pillows she lied down and covered herself with the warm blanket. She promptly passed out as soon as she laid her head on the pillow. She awoke the next morning reinvigorated and full of energy, her previous headache and muscle ache must have vanished while she was asleep. She carefully folded the bedding while focusing on her 'telepathy' to check that she wasn't just imagining it in her delirious state yesterday, any drugs should have worn off by now too. As she focused she felt like she was in the middle of the ocean during a storm, incoherent thoughts crashed into her mind without pause and conflicting emotions were intent on pulling her to the depths of the ocean. She lessened her focus in a panic, the thoughts quieted to barely 'hearable' murmurs. Emilia released a large breath she didn't notice she was holding in. Her absent headache started mounting again, but it abated rapidly unlike yesterday. She heard her stomach grumble at her as her headache became barely noticeable like the murmurs. After making sure that she memorized all symptoms she had she absently left her room and made her way to the restaurant section to collect on her promised breakfast. Unlike yesterday there were a bunch of people in today, it seemed like they were on lunch break after a glance at the hanging clock. She has slept past noon. Hopefully, the woman she assumed to be Jackie would still serve her breakfast even if she was late. As she made her way to the counter Jackie also noticed her, "Go take a seat somewhere dear, I will be with you in a minute," she said briefly before returning her attention to the man she was talking with before. Unlike Jackie, the man didn't even glance at her, just like Emilia was doing with all the other customers. She found an empty seat in the corner and quickly sat down on it, she could see the whole restaurant from there, it was good. Soon Jackie arrived with a breakfast equally bland as the dinner yesterday, she quickly returned to taking orders from actually paying customers. This left Emilia to once again get lost in her thoughts as she ate. This morning she noticed something quite weird, well two things, she didn't have her glasses and she failed to notice it previously. She should barely be able to tell that the things on the menu were text and not just black lines, but here she is, reading the news banner rolling by on the bottom of the small tv, which is on the opposite end of the room. After considering all possible causes for this happening she released a frustrated huff. Realizing that one of the top contenders was the 'I got turned into a mutant' idea. Showing how little she understood what was happening to her, now without the overwhelming confusion and pain of yesterday she felt extremely frustrated by this. She Hated not knowing things, even more, if those things were happening to her, she hated when she didn't understand why things happened to her. Like why didn't Jessica want to be her friend in middle school, why wasn't she invited by anyone to parties in high school or why the hell were her only romantic encounters the results of dating apps? Not that any of those lasted. She hated all of those questions with passion. The last was even more as she came to realize that it mattered little to her whether her romantic partner was male or female, shouldn't that double her chances? Then why did her sister who was 2 years younger than her have far more experience in romance than her? She dismissed those nonsensical thoughts, reconsidering what she needed to do today to narrow down her hypothesises. First would be trying to call a few people she knew, that would quickly decide whether she was in the same time or dimension. Eliminating her dumber ideas, and maybe even solving all of her problems if she could reach her mother. The kidnapping idea had several holes in it but still was the most plausible explanation. After asking Jackie where could she borrow a phone from she quickly gave the younger girl her phone. It was one of those stocky old phones that would break the asphalt if you dropped it instead of the phone itself breaking. She first dialled her mother's number, trying older numbers with each failure. When the last one she knew her mother used back in 2007 also returned a "...this number doesn't exist please try again" the panic Emilia felt was only barely masked by her forcing her expression to remain neutral. She went over a bunch of other numbers, her father's, her sister's, and some of her friends. Some picked up but it was always a different person, not the ones she knew on the other end of the line. Emilia blankly stared at the phone that was warning her that after a few more calls and she would be flagged as a spam caller. She gave back the phone and briefly thanked Jackie for her hospitality before departing, she needed to walk a bit, she needed fresh air and a quiet place to think. As she walked without direction her frustration mounted with each hypothesis that she discarded, each loud car that went by also didn't help. Neither did the muted thoughts and emotions she sensed from the pedestrians and drivers. Frustrated drivers radiate their anger, frustration and underlying depression accompanied by thoughts about all how they would like to beat the other driver to death. Another radiates the same anger and panic, with thoughts about how he will lose his job for being this late. Her fellow pedestrians weren't much better. One was considering which one of the others should she pickpocket to be able to pay for her next batch of drugs. Another, this portly man in his fifties was lamenting that Emilia was so old, he would have considered drugging her if she was younger. That last one left her both utterly disgusted and furious, all of her built-up frustration was suddenly focused on the man. Emilia didn't want him to walk, so he stopped. She didn't want him to breathe either, so he stopped breathing. She didn't want a man like him to live. Emilia only realized what she has done once his body collapsed on the sidewalk and a nearby passerby screamed "Someone call an ambulance." In shock, she tried to appear as casual as she could while she hurriedly walked past the gathering crowd of onlookers. She only breathed a sigh of relief once she rounded a corner. The waves of panic and shock that she now realized were not her own disappeared with the greater between herself and the source. Without those, she didn't feel anything herself, maybe a small flash of satisfaction, following killing a man. A Human. Holy shit, she probably killed that man, didn't she? You can't hallucinate death into someone. He died precisely when she wanted him to. She felt a brief resistance to her final 'order' she just now realized but it was crushed without her even noticing it at the time. Was she always this heartless? Shouldn't she be disgusted with herself and throwing up in a corner right now like the heroes of the novels she read before did after their first kill? Compared to them her biggest concern was her newfound cruelty. Revising her actions, she slightly regretted killing that man. Who knows, are there other people like her? Wouldn't they be with the police to look for crimes committed just like this? For the first time since making up that stupid idea she wished that she was in the Marvel universe, then she wouldn't have to worry about law enforcement arresting her. That was the dumbest thought she had today, while the government didn't have any telepaths and neither did SHIELD as far as she knew this could attract other kinds of troubles. She always considered Marvel Earth unrealistic, if there were superpowered individuals being heroes or supervillains would be their last option. Wasn't electro-kinesis for example a power with extreme monetary potential? Just make it hard to make Isotopes or even work as a damned one-man electricity generator. Beating up a dude in a spider costume was utterly moronic while having that power, even more, perplexing is losing said weirdo. After rounding another block Emilia found herself gaping at the verdant forest being hidden by buildings on each side. Wasn't this Central Park? With newfound energy, she made her way carefully into the park and sat down on a bench mostly hidden from the rest of the park by bushes and trees. She was lost. One of the numbers she called before was the University of Vienna. Surprisingly it was even picked up by who she wanted to pick it up. Depressingly the apathetic man on the other end of the line notified her that no 'Emilia Novak' has been admitted to the University currently. Following this, the increasingly depressed girl briefly thanked him and hung up. She couldn't reach anyone she knew, the University she attended for the last 4 years had no record of her, plus either everyone was obsessed with 50 years old comics or she was tossed through dimensions and arrived 16 years before and into this nonsensical, apocalyptic shithole that did it's best to murder anyone inside it. She wouldn't take it as certain until she has seen Tony Stark in person or his famous speech in which he should admit that he is Iron Man. It was 2007. The events of the first Iron Man movie which kickstarted the cinematic universe played out in 2008. After that thought, she vowed to not rely on any knowledge she remembered from the movies, even if she was where she thought she was the Marvel universe was a multiverse. Who could tell in which universe she was out of the infinite possible ones? If life hated her then she was in the comic universe. She didn't know much about it, only some facts she remembered from videos she watched while bored at 2 am. Well, the cinematic universe didn't have the X-men or the mutants in it. Fuck. What was she then? She could still be a mutant, maybe they were hidden in the cinematic universe, held back for a later movie where they would come out of hiding. There were worse possibilities. All of them could have been hunted down by the government or one of their secret organizations. She knew Shield collected superhuman individuals, along with many other organizations. None of the organizations she remembered were doing it out of the goodness of their hearts or out of concern for the wellbeing of mutants. Maybe she was an experimental telepath, if they could make a telepath they could already have one that could have fabricated all of her memories. That was a depressing thought. Sadly it seemed more likely to her than getting transported to another dimension mostly intact. According to Occam's Razor, the simplest answer is usually the best one. She has been making her hypothesises according to that rule. There wasn't a simple answer here. Maybe hundreds of actors were paid to fool her, and several blocks of New York were repurposed for it. Yeah sure. Nobody watched things like the True Man show anymore. It was almost as nonsensical as her dimensional ideas.
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Emilia absently watched the news while shovelling food into her mouth, the woman gave her a fairly large amount. For sure more than her money's worth. Even if it was kinda bland. The news was only briefly interrupted by the conversational woman, adding her take on the happenings to the reporter's. By the time she finished her meal, she decided that she had too little information to conclude what the hell was going on. Her top ideas were an 'elaborate prank', 'I am going crazy' and 'I have been transmigrated to Marvel'. The last one is mostly there for an absurd fallback option if all else fails. Short of a superhero beating up an alien in front of her she wasn't willing to believe that one. She was a rational and logical girl, she assured herself. She got that from her mother, if only she also got her ambition and drive. She didn't from whom she inherited her apathy and laziness, which was her only personality flaw if you asked her. Maybe she could be a bit bolder and outgoing but that was a choice, not a flaw, she often assured herself. "Uhm, a do-o you-u have any idea where I could spend the night? I'm kind of lost," she cursed her stutter at the start of the sentence, no she decided to stutter, to make herself seem more miserable. Well, she felt miserable, which was amplified by the wave of concern and befuddlement that the matronly women gave off in response to her question. The woman seemed to ponder for a moment before she replied, "You know what dearie, if you want I will let you stay the night in my guest room for only 10 bucks. It's been collecting dust ever since my children left the house." "I only have Euros," Emilia fiddled with her hair in embarrassment. "That will do too honey, " the woman smiled, " so would you like to stay the night?" "Yes, I would like that, thank you," said Emilia, she was still confused about her day, but she felt overwhelmed by the events of the brief day and whatever that pain was, it was anything but restful sleep. She felt starved and exhausted, her stomach only stopped protesting during the dinner and now she felt the overwhelming need for a bed and a long night of sleep. Without much further discussion, Emilia was led up a narrow stairway and into a small room, after a moment the woman returned with bedsheets, pillows and other bed stuff. After giving the woman her promised 10 euros she was left alone for the night, she was even promised breakfast the next day. Only throwing the sheet on the mattress and the pillows she lied down and covered herself with the warm blanket. She promptly passed out as soon as she laid her head on the pillow. She awoke the next morning reinvigorated and full of energy, her previous headache and muscle ache must have vanished while she was asleep. She carefully folded the bedding while focusing on her 'telepathy' to check that she wasn't just imagining it in her delirious state yesterday, any drugs should have worn off by now too. As she focused she felt like she was in the middle of the ocean during a storm, incoherent thoughts crashed into her mind without pause and conflicting emotions were intent on pulling her to the depths of the ocean. She lessened her focus in a panic, the thoughts quieted to barely 'hearable' murmurs. Emilia released a large breath she didn't notice she was holding in. Her absent headache started mounting again, but it abated rapidly unlike yesterday. She heard her stomach grumble at her as her headache became barely noticeable like the murmurs. After making sure that she memorized all symptoms she had she absently left her room and made her way to the restaurant section to collect on her promised breakfast. Unlike yesterday there were a bunch of people in today, it seemed like they were on lunch break after a glance at the hanging clock. She has slept past noon. Hopefully, the woman she assumed to be Jackie would still serve her breakfast even if she was late. As she made her way to the counter Jackie also noticed her, "Go take a seat somewhere dear, I will be with you in a minute," she said briefly before returning her attention to the man she was talking with before. Unlike Jackie, the man didn't even glance at her, just like Emilia was doing with all the other customers. She found an empty seat in the corner and quickly sat down on it, she could see the whole restaurant from there, it was good. Soon Jackie arrived with a breakfast equally bland as the dinner yesterday, she quickly returned to taking orders from actually paying customers. This left Emilia to once again get lost in her thoughts as she ate. This morning she noticed something quite weird, well two things, she didn't have her glasses and she failed to notice it previously. She should barely be able to tell that the things on the menu were text and not just black lines, but here she is, reading the news banner rolling by on the bottom of the small tv, which is on the opposite end of the room. After considering all possible causes for this happening she released a frustrated huff. Realizing that one of the top contenders was the 'I got turned into a mutant' idea. Showing how little she understood what was happening to her, now without the overwhelming confusion and pain of yesterday she felt extremely frustrated by this. She Hated not knowing things, even more, if those things were happening to her, she hated when she didn't understand why things happened to her. Like why didn't Jessica want to be her friend in middle school, why wasn't she invited by anyone to parties in high school or why the hell were her only romantic encounters the results of dating apps? Not that any of those lasted. She hated all of those questions with passion. The last was even more as she came to realize that it mattered little to her whether her romantic partner was male or female, shouldn't that double her chances? Then why did her sister who was 2 years younger than her have far more experience in romance than her? She dismissed those nonsensical thoughts, reconsidering what she needed to do today to narrow down her hypothesises. First would be trying to call a few people she knew, that would quickly decide whether she was in the same time or dimension. Eliminating her dumber ideas, and maybe even solving all of her problems if she could reach her mother. The kidnapping idea had several holes in it but still was the most plausible explanation. After asking Jackie where could she borrow a phone from she quickly gave the younger girl her phone. It was one of those stocky old phones that would break the asphalt if you dropped it instead of the phone itself breaking. She first dialled her mother's number, trying older numbers with each failure. When the last one she knew her mother used back in 2007 also returned a "...this number doesn't exist please try again" the panic Emilia felt was only barely masked by her forcing her expression to remain neutral. She went over a bunch of other numbers, her father's, her sister's, and some of her friends. Some picked up but it was always a different person, not the ones she knew on the other end of the line. Emilia blankly stared at the phone that was warning her that after a few more calls and she would be flagged as a spam caller. She gave back the phone and briefly thanked Jackie for her hospitality before departing, she needed to walk a bit, she needed fresh air and a quiet place to think. As she walked without direction her frustration mounted with each hypothesis that she discarded, each loud car that went by also didn't help. Neither did the muted thoughts and emotions she sensed from the pedestrians and drivers. Frustrated drivers radiate their anger, frustration and underlying depression accompanied by thoughts about all how they would like to beat the other driver to death. Another radiates the same anger and panic, with thoughts about how he will lose his job for being this late. Her fellow pedestrians weren't much better. One was considering which one of the others should she pickpocket to be able to pay for her next batch of drugs. Another, this portly man in his fifties was lamenting that Emilia was so old, he would have considered drugging her if she was younger. That last one left her both utterly disgusted and furious, all of her built-up frustration was suddenly focused on the man. Emilia didn't want him to walk, so he stopped. She didn't want him to breathe either, so he stopped breathing. She didn't want a man like him to live. Emilia only realized what she has done once his body collapsed on the sidewalk and a nearby passerby screamed "Someone call an ambulance." In shock, she tried to appear as casual as she could while she hurriedly walked past the gathering crowd of onlookers. She only breathed a sigh of relief once she rounded a corner. The waves of panic and shock that she now realized were not her own disappeared with the greater between herself and the source. Without those, she didn't feel anything herself, maybe a small flash of satisfaction, following killing a man. A Human. Holy shit, she probably killed that man, didn't she? You can't hallucinate death into someone. He died precisely when she wanted him to. She felt a brief resistance to her final 'order' she just now realized but it was crushed without her even noticing it at the time. Was she always this heartless? Shouldn't she be disgusted with herself and throwing up in a corner right now like the heroes of the novels she read before did after their first kill? Compared to them her biggest concern was her newfound cruelty. Revising her actions, she slightly regretted killing that man. Who knows, are there other people like her? Wouldn't they be with the police to look for crimes committed just like this? For the first time since making up that stupid idea she wished that she was in the Marvel universe, then she wouldn't have to worry about law enforcement arresting her. That was the dumbest thought she had today, while the government didn't have any telepaths and neither did SHIELD as far as she knew this could attract other kinds of troubles. She always considered Marvel Earth unrealistic, if there were superpowered individuals being heroes or supervillains would be their last option. Wasn't electro-kinesis for example a power with extreme monetary potential? Just make it hard to make Isotopes or even work as a damned one-man electricity generator. Beating up a dude in a spider costume was utterly moronic while having that power, even more, perplexing is losing said weirdo. After rounding another block Emilia found herself gaping at the verdant forest being hidden by buildings on each side. Wasn't this Central Park? With newfound energy, she made her way carefully into the park and sat down on a bench mostly hidden from the rest of the park by bushes and trees. She was lost. One of the numbers she called before was the University of Vienna. Surprisingly it was even picked up by who she wanted to pick it up. Depressingly the apathetic man on the other end of the line notified her that no 'Emilia Novak' has been admitted to the University currently. Following this, the increasingly depressed girl briefly thanked him and hung up. She couldn't reach anyone she knew, the University she attended for the last 4 years had no record of her, plus either everyone was obsessed with 50 years old comics or she was tossed through dimensions and arrived 16 years before and into this nonsensical, apocalyptic shithole that did it's best to murder anyone inside it. She wouldn't take it as certain until she has seen Tony Stark in person or his famous speech in which he should admit that he is Iron Man. It was 2007. The events of the first Iron Man movie which kickstarted the cinematic universe played out in 2008. After that thought, she vowed to not rely on any knowledge she remembered from the movies, even if she was where she thought she was the Marvel universe was a multiverse. Who could tell in which universe she was out of the infinite possible ones? If life hated her then she was in the comic universe. She didn't know much about it, only some facts she remembered from videos she watched while bored at 2 am. Well, the cinematic universe didn't have the X-men or the mutants in it. Fuck. What was she then? She could still be a mutant, maybe they were hidden in the cinematic universe, held back for a later movie where they would come out of hiding. There were worse possibilities. All of them could have been hunted down by the government or one of their secret organizations. She knew Shield collected superhuman individuals, along with many other organizations. None of the organizations she remembered were doing it out of the goodness of their hearts or out of concern for the wellbeing of mutants. Maybe she was an experimental telepath, if they could make a telepath they could already have one that could have fabricated all of her memories. That was a depressing thought. Sadly it seemed more likely to her than getting transported to another dimension mostly intact. According to Occam's Razor, the simplest answer is usually the best one. She has been making her hypothesises according to that rule. There wasn't a simple answer here. Maybe hundreds of actors were paid to fool her, and several blocks of New York were repurposed for it. Yeah sure. Nobody watched things like the True Man show anymore. It was almost as nonsensical as her dimensional ideas.
Emilia absently watched the news while shovelling food into her mouth, the woman gave her a fairly large amount. For sure more than her money's worth. Even if it was kinda bland. The news was only briefly interrupted by the conversational woman, adding her take on the happenings to the reporter's. By the time she finished her meal, she decided that she had too little information to conclude what the hell was going on. Her top ideas were an 'elaborate prank', 'I am going crazy' and 'I have been transmigrated to Marvel'. The last one is mostly there for an absurd fallback option if all else fails. Short of a superhero beating up an alien in front of her she wasn't willing to believe that one. She was a rational and logical girl, she assured herself. She got that from her mother, if only she also got her ambition and drive. She didn't from whom she inherited her apathy and laziness, which was her only personality flaw if you asked her. Maybe she could be a bit bolder and outgoing but that was a choice, not a flaw, she often assured herself. "Uhm, a do-o you-u have any idea where I could spend the night? I'm kind of lost," she cursed her stutter at the start of the sentence, no she decided to stutter, to make herself seem more miserable. Well, she felt miserable, which was amplified by the wave of concern and befuddlement that the matronly women gave off in response to her question. The woman seemed to ponder for a moment before she replied, "You know what dearie, if you want I will let you stay the night in my guest room for only 10 bucks. It's been collecting dust ever since my children left the house." "I only have Euros," Emilia fiddled with her hair in embarrassment. "That will do too honey, " the woman smiled, " so would you like to stay the night?" "Yes, I would like that, thank you," said Emilia, she was still confused about her day, but she felt overwhelmed by the events of the brief day and whatever that pain was, it was anything but restful sleep. She felt starved and exhausted, her stomach only stopped protesting during the dinner and now she felt the overwhelming need for a bed and a long night of sleep. Without much further discussion, Emilia was led up a narrow stairway and into a small room, after a moment the woman returned with bedsheets, pillows and other bed stuff. After giving the woman her promised 10 euros she was left alone for the night, she was even promised breakfast the next day. Only throwing the sheet on the mattress and the pillows she lied down and covered herself with the warm blanket. She promptly passed out as soon as she laid her head on the pillow. She awoke the next morning reinvigorated and full of energy, her previous headache and muscle ache must have vanished while she was asleep. She carefully folded the bedding while focusing on her 'telepathy' to check that she wasn't just imagining it in her delirious state yesterday, any drugs should have worn off by now too. As she focused she felt like she was in the middle of the ocean during a storm, incoherent thoughts crashed into her mind without pause and conflicting emotions were intent on pulling her to the depths of the ocean. She lessened her focus in a panic, the thoughts quieted to barely 'hearable' murmurs. Emilia released a large breath she didn't notice she was holding in. Her absent headache started mounting again, but it abated rapidly unlike yesterday. She heard her stomach grumble at her as her headache became barely noticeable like the murmurs. After making sure that she memorized all symptoms she had she absently left her room and made her way to the restaurant section to collect on her promised breakfast. Unlike yesterday there were a bunch of people in today, it seemed like they were on lunch break after a glance at the hanging clock. She has slept past noon. Hopefully, the woman she assumed to be Jackie would still serve her breakfast even if she was late. As she made her way to the counter Jackie also noticed her, "Go take a seat somewhere dear, I will be with you in a minute," she said briefly before returning her attention to the man she was talking with before. Unlike Jackie, the man didn't even glance at her, just like Emilia was doing with all the other customers. She found an empty seat in the corner and quickly sat down on it, she could see the whole restaurant from there, it was good. Soon Jackie arrived with a breakfast equally bland as the dinner yesterday, she quickly returned to taking orders from actually paying customers. This left Emilia to once again get lost in her thoughts as she ate. This morning she noticed something quite weird, well two things, she didn't have her glasses and she failed to notice it previously. She should barely be able to tell that the things on the menu were text and not just black lines, but here she is, reading the news banner rolling by on the bottom of the small tv, which is on the opposite end of the room. After considering all possible causes for this happening she released a frustrated huff. Realizing that one of the top contenders was the 'I got turned into a mutant' idea. Showing how little she understood what was happening to her, now without the overwhelming confusion and pain of yesterday she felt extremely frustrated by this. She Hated not knowing things, even more, if those things were happening to her, she hated when she didn't understand why things happened to her. Like why didn't Jessica want to be her friend in middle school, why wasn't she invited by anyone to parties in high school or why the hell were her only romantic encounters the results of dating apps? Not that any of those lasted. She hated all of those questions with passion. The last was even more as she came to realize that it mattered little to her whether her romantic partner was male or female, shouldn't that double her chances? Then why did her sister who was 2 years younger than her have far more experience in romance than her? She dismissed those nonsensical thoughts, reconsidering what she needed to do today to narrow down her hypothesises. First would be trying to call a few people she knew, that would quickly decide whether she was in the same time or dimension. Eliminating her dumber ideas, and maybe even solving all of her problems if she could reach her mother. The kidnapping idea had several holes in it but still was the most plausible explanation. After asking Jackie where could she borrow a phone from she quickly gave the younger girl her phone. It was one of those stocky old phones that would break the asphalt if you dropped it instead of the phone itself breaking. She first dialled her mother's number, trying older numbers with each failure. When the last one she knew her mother used back in 2007 also returned a "...this number doesn't exist please try again" the panic Emilia felt was only barely masked by her forcing her expression to remain neutral. She went over a bunch of other numbers, her father's, her sister's, and some of her friends. Some picked up but it was always a different person, not the ones she knew on the other end of the line. Emilia blankly stared at the phone that was warning her that after a few more calls and she would be flagged as a spam caller. She gave back the phone and briefly thanked Jackie for her hospitality before departing, she needed to walk a bit, she needed fresh air and a quiet place to think. As she walked without direction her frustration mounted with each hypothesis that she discarded, each loud car that went by also didn't help. Neither did the muted thoughts and emotions she sensed from the pedestrians and drivers. Frustrated drivers radiate their anger, frustration and underlying depression accompanied by thoughts about all how they would like to beat the other driver to death. Another radiates the same anger and panic, with thoughts about how he will lose his job for being this late. Her fellow pedestrians weren't much better. One was considering which one of the others should she pickpocket to be able to pay for her next batch of drugs. Another, this portly man in his fifties was lamenting that Emilia was so old, he would have considered drugging her if she was younger. That last one left her both utterly disgusted and furious, all of her built-up frustration was suddenly focused on the man. Emilia didn't want him to walk, so he stopped. She didn't want him to breathe either, so he stopped breathing. She didn't want a man like him to live. Emilia only realized what she has done once his body collapsed on the sidewalk and a nearby passerby screamed "Someone call an ambulance." In shock, she tried to appear as casual as she could while she hurriedly walked past the gathering crowd of onlookers. She only breathed a sigh of relief once she rounded a corner. The waves of panic and shock that she now realized were not her own disappeared with the greater between herself and the source. Without those, she didn't feel anything herself, maybe a small flash of satisfaction, following killing a man. A Human. Holy shit, she probably killed that man, didn't she? You can't hallucinate death into someone. He died precisely when she wanted him to. She felt a brief resistance to her final 'order' she just now realized but it was crushed without her even noticing it at the time. Was she always this heartless? Shouldn't she be disgusted with herself and throwing up in a corner right now like the heroes of the novels she read before did after their first kill? Compared to them her biggest concern was her newfound cruelty. Revising her actions, she slightly regretted killing that man. Who knows, are there other people like her? Wouldn't they be with the police to look for crimes committed just like this? For the first time since making up that stupid idea she wished that she was in the Marvel universe, then she wouldn't have to worry about law enforcement arresting her. That was the dumbest thought she had today, while the government didn't have any telepaths and neither did SHIELD as far as she knew this could attract other kinds of troubles. She always considered Marvel Earth unrealistic, if there were superpowered individuals being heroes or supervillains would be their last option. Wasn't electro-kinesis for example a power with extreme monetary potential? Just make it hard to make Isotopes or even work as a damned one-man electricity generator. Beating up a dude in a spider costume was utterly moronic while having that power, even more, perplexing is losing said weirdo. After rounding another block Emilia found herself gaping at the verdant forest being hidden by buildings on each side. Wasn't this Central Park? With newfound energy, she made her way carefully into the park and sat down on a bench mostly hidden from the rest of the park by bushes and trees. She was lost. One of the numbers she called before was the University of Vienna. Surprisingly it was even picked up by who she wanted to pick it up. Depressingly the apathetic man on the other end of the line notified her that no 'Emilia Novak' has been admitted to the University currently. Following this, the increasingly depressed girl briefly thanked him and hung up. She couldn't reach anyone she knew, the University she attended for the last 4 years had no record of her, plus either everyone was obsessed with 50 years old comics or she was tossed through dimensions and arrived 16 years before and into this nonsensical, apocalyptic shithole that did it's best to murder anyone inside it. She wouldn't take it as certain until she has seen Tony Stark in person or his famous speech in which he should admit that he is Iron Man. It was 2007. The events of the first Iron Man movie which kickstarted the cinematic universe played out in 2008. After that thought, she vowed to not rely on any knowledge she remembered from the movies, even if she was where she thought she was the Marvel universe was a multiverse. Who could tell in which universe she was out of the infinite possible ones? If life hated her then she was in the comic universe. She didn't know much about it, only some facts she remembered from videos she watched while bored at 2 am. Well, the cinematic universe didn't have the X-men or the mutants in it. Fuck. What was she then? She could still be a mutant, maybe they were hidden in the cinematic universe, held back for a later movie where they would come out of hiding. There were worse possibilities. All of them could have been hunted down by the government or one of their secret organizations. She knew Shield collected superhuman individuals, along with many other organizations. None of the organizations she remembered were doing it out of the goodness of their hearts or out of concern for the wellbeing of mutants. Maybe she was an experimental telepath, if they could make a telepath they could already have one that could have fabricated all of her memories. That was a depressing thought. Sadly it seemed more likely to her than getting transported to another dimension mostly intact. According to Occam's Razor, the simplest answer is usually the best one. She has been making her hypothesises according to that rule. There wasn't a simple answer here. Maybe hundreds of actors were paid to fool her, and several blocks of New York were repurposed for it. Yeah sure. Nobody watched things like the True Man show anymore. It was almost as nonsensical as her dimensional ideas.
