Holly Greene was, for the entirety of her life, ordinary. And she was quite genuinely happy with that fact. She wasn't considered beautiful, though in her Prom photos she qualified for 'pretty', but was mostly plain with gray-blue eyes and dark blonde hair that was a shade away from being brown. Her grades in school were fair thanks to dutiful note-taking and study. After graduating she moved from Middletown to a tiny apartment in Queens to attend community college, much to the fretful dismay of her mother and gruff but warm praise of her father.
The first two semesters was spent taking general classes without thinking too much about what major to enroll in, and halfway through the third found her flirting first with English and then meandering to Library Sciences after English Romances filled up and the only thing that fit with her schedule was Information Ethics.
The week after classes started she submitted a change of major form to the office of registration.
Holly was sorting a stack of books needing shelved at her part time work study at the school library when a new cast came on the small TV they kept in the back room. Glancing up when another work study student turned up the volume, Holly found herself gaping and transfixed by the spectacle.
Strange borealis ribboned across the blue noon sky, a backdrop to the spectacular destruction of a small town in New Mexico by what looked like some kind of giant, silver - and honestly, downright medieval looking - Iron Man . The cameraphone video jittered badly as swaths of lightning cut suddenly across the scene, a brief flash of a man and bright crimson, and then the clip ended. The station cut to a pretty Asian reporter behind a desk who explained that the footage shown was claimed by the government to be a controlled military exercise acting out a potential attack on US soil.
Ever the conspiracy theorist, the young man Holly barely knew but traded quiet nods with in passing immediately grabbed his flip phone - "Stark and Jobs have all kinds of fucking GPS trackers transmitting to the government all the time!" he'd said vehemently when questioned for his choice in technology - and began typing furiously into it. The station began to run the clip again, but Holly was already turning back to her work, not sparing it a second glance.
Three days later, the Chitauri invaded Manhattan. From her secondhand sofa she sat, transfixed and not entirely believing, at the TV as news crews documented the chaos. Her mother called and begged her to leave the city, even though Holly and her father both tried to reason that it was safer to stay put.
"You call us if anything changes, Hollygirl," her father said, gruff to hide his concern in front of his family when Holly said she had to go, that Mrs. O'Hare down the hall was calling the other residents.
Holly promised she would, said she loved them both, and wrapped up even more tightly in the blanket her mother had knit as a graduation present while the destruction continued on the TV.
In the aftermath of the devastation, and the revelation that Earth was not alone, Holly suddenly found herself in a world that changed literally overnight. She suddenly found herself classmates with mutants, and news reports of costumed 'heroes' and criminals became a normal occurrence. She even owned a Captain America coffee tumbler now.
Somehow, superheroes had suddenly come to life, but the quiet reality was that she and everyone else had simply been blind to them before.
The abundant greenery of Queens had begun to stain with yellow and red, chill winds plucking at leaves and litter and biting at cheeks. Summer had broken and given way to Autumn finally, and Holly found herself grateful for the respite (her apartment had no air conditioning and the fan merely pushed the stale, hot air around).
The reconstruction of Manhattan had wrecked havoc with the general flow of life for most the city, and Holly had been left with half her classes cancelled. To fill the time she picked up a part time job at a coffee shop near her apartment, and for the first since moving she'd found herself with the free time to get to know the neighborhood.
About halfway between home and work was a massive oak tree that seemed to lord over a tiny park. When the oven-like summer heat of the apartment became too oppressive Holly had taken her homework and found solace in its ample shade, and was reluctant to give up the habit when the weather chilled. She was close to the park now, the yellow-tinged oak visible above the trees that lined the sidewalk, and decided that she'd finish the rest of her half-eaten lunch there rather than wait until home.
There wasn't a bench, the park too small to warrant even an old and splintery wood one, so Holly leaned her back to the rough bark of the tree. She'd begun to nibble at half of a ham and swiss sandwich when she saw a black and white bird hopping along the grass nearby, stopping every few inches to poke and claw at the ground before moving on. It took several minutes for Holly to realize it was a magpie; a bird entirely unheard of in the city, let alone this far east.
She began to fumble in her bag for her phone, intending to take a photo, and her thumb nearly pressing on the shutter when she noticed the bird had paused and was scratching quite enthusiastically at a bit of dirt. A glitter emerged under its ministrations and her curiosity was sparked.
"Tsst tsst," she hissed with her tongue, but the bird ignored her until she pulled off a piece of sandwich and tossed it nearby. The magpie took the bait and fluttered over to inspect and greedily peck at the bit of food.
Holly poked carefully at the dirt and something sparkled brilliantly under the toe of her boot, so she crouched down and gingerly began scraping away at the hard earth. She nearly gave up, ready to call it a bit of broken glass, when the glittering thing suddenly came loose under her fingers.
Streaks of mud marred her prize, but couldn't hide the breathtaking beauty of the crystal that lay in center her palm. It seemed to sparkle with an inner fire, brilliant rainbow-like light dancing within the smooth facets and warm to the touch despite the chill prison it had been freed of. It reminded her of something she had seen, not long ago, and staring into the fluttering, shifting depths of unearthly light seemed to pull her down into them.
A shrill chattering and sudden pain in her palm ripped Holly from the trance, the hot pain in her chest as she gasped making her realize she'd forgotten how to breathe. The magpie screeched at her again and lunged for the crystal in her bloody hand and she instinctively clutched it tightly, grimacing as the earth ground into the wound and a jolt ran up her arm and all through her body.
"Stupid bird!" she cried, stumbling back and falling on her backside as the magpie lunged once more in a flutter of feathers, glittering black eyes fixed on her. "Stop!"
At once the bird dropped to its feet on the ground, wings still half-spread and feathers puffing out in agitation, but it didn't advance. Holly found herself staring into its eyes, clutching her hurt hand to her chest and feeling suddenly cold all over. Shivering violently, she stumbled to her feet and backed away, but the magpie kept as still as if it had suddenly become stone. Only the sleek black head moved to track her as she edged away, around the oak, and when she felt concrete beneath her boots did she turn away and run.
Her lungs were screaming and her ankle hurt when she tripped on the stairs up the apartment building landing, and didn't stop until her door was slammed and locked tightly at her back. Shaking so badly with cold that Holly fell to her knees, and her guts wrenched so agonizingly she fell in a heap with barely a whimper. The radiant crystal, forgotten in blind panic, burned like bitter ice in her hand but she couldn't feel her fingers enough to let it go.
Holly's breath began to billow white in front of her eyes as her teeth chattered uncontrollably. A brief wash of warmth in her mouth and spilling over her lip; she'd bitten her tongue, but the pain didn't register to her sluggish nerves, and in an instant the bright drops were frozen to her cheek. Darkness began to seep at the edges of her vision, tears freezing on her lashes as the world faded quickly around her. There was a dull rushing in her ears - my heartbeat, came a whisper from far away inside her - that began to stutter and slow.
I think I'm dying.
The thought wracked her with a shudder, tears freezing before they could fall and clouding her already darkening sight. No, I don't want to, she thought, distant and foggy. Help me. Please, God, no.
As the last of her sight sank into frigid blackness, Holly thought she heard someone answer.
"I'm afraid there is only myself."