Wanda's eyes opened and she stared at the ceiling. There was the loudest noise in her ears, like someone screaming. But no one else was around—she was lying in bed. It was her screaming. Wanda closed her mouth and the noise stopped. That night, she had a new nightmare. She had been forced to watch her sons' death. It was horrible to just be stuck there, watching, unable to say or do anything.
Wanda lies back down, hoping to get more rest. No such luck. She feels so exhausted, but how will sleeping help her if she would just have more nightmares? She starts crying. She misses Vision, misses Billy and Tommy, misses Pietro, and misses her parents. She even misses Westview, that semblance of an ordinary life that she had created and been forced to destroy. The sadness presses in upon her chest, and she doesn't know what to do.
Then Wanda remembers, yesterday it was helpful to keep busy, reading the Darkhold and learning new spells. She will try that and hope that she feels better. It will at least be a distraction from these awful feelings. Maybe she will even try to learn some of the spells from the Scarlet Witch chapter. Just the thought of learning those spells gives Wanda a thrill of excitement.
Wanda pushes the covers down to the end of her bed before climbing out. She waves her hands in front of herself, and red light emerges from her fingers, making the bed and carrying her robe over to herself. Wanda isn't hungry yet, so she decides to start learning spells right away.
It took Wanda a while to choose which spell to learn, but she eventually decides on a spell that would let her breathe underwater. She had always wanted to learn how to swim, and this didn't seem like a spell that could backfire badly. If it didn't work, she could just fly out of the lake. Before she went into the lake, she would also need to cast a spell that would keep herself warm. She had never gone swimming in a lake before, but she was almost certain it would be a brisk temperature. Especially up here in Norway.
Wanda walks outside while bringing herself the Darkhold using her powers. She walks to the lake, smiling at the flowers she grew the day before. Wanda sits on a rock and begins reading the spell that would keep her warm.
"Cale mea." The words feel strange in her mouth. Wanda still isn't used to speaking Latin. As soon as she speaks the foreign words, she feels a warm tingle run down her spine, spreading warmth throughout her body. It appears to have worked! Now Wanda just has to cast the spell that will let her breathe underwater.
That spell is trickier, but Wanda has never had trouble with any of the spells she tried to cast before, so she isn't worried.
"Spiro aqua." Wanda felt something change in her chest. Her chest squeezes, as if a giant rubber band is wrapped tightly around it, and she can't breathe. Wanda clutches her chest, trying to breathe in, but no air would go in or out. She started feeling dizzy and fought to keep herself upright. She needed air to breathe, but there was none.
She just needs to make it to the water and she will be okay. But black had started creeping around the edges of her vision and she couldn't hear anything due to a loud buzzing in her ears. Wanda is going to pass out. No. She will make it to the water. She has to. After taking a few woozy steps forward, Wanda remembers her powers. She puts her hands facing the ground and shoots up into the air. Too high. Way too high. She can see for miles and miles, the beautiful landscape of Norway, but the lake looks as small as a dinner plate beneath her. She slowly lowers herself closer to the water, until the world goes dark.
Wanda can't see a thing. Everything is dark, and when she stretched out her hand it looked an odd green colour. Where is she? Then she remembers—she is in the lake. She had cast the spell before she was ready to get into the water and nearly passed out trying to reach the lake in time. She had zoomed way too high into the air, and somehow been lucky enough to land in the lake instead of in a forest on one of its banks. She lights up her hand with a red light, which looks quite eerie at the bottom of the lake.
Wanda lets out a squeal of excitement, muffled by the bubbles streaming out of her mouth. She did it! She was breathing underwater! Wanda peers around her, trying to discern her surroundings. She had been curious about what could be in the depths of this lake ever since she had moved here. That had only been a few days, but it was still really exciting to find out the answers to her questions.
Wanda jumps backwards, in what appears to be slow motion because of the dense water. She spots a creature swimming closer to her. It looks different than any creature Wanda has ever seen before. She uses her arms to swim a little closer to the creature. She can see its smooth grey nose inching closer to her. It is more than half as long as she is tall, which surprises her. Wanda hadn't realized that lake fish could get so big. Maybe it's because she's at the bottom of the lake.
She continues slowly swimming forward, hoping to get a better look at the creature. Maybe it will let her touch it. She imagines that it would feel very slimy, but that somehow made her even more curious to feel its scaly skin. But as Wanda got closer, the fish quickly swims away. Wanda sighs in disappointment. She must have scared it away. She ought to have known that would happen—these fish can't be used to humans, living at the bottom of the lake.
Wanda decides to explore the bottom of the lake before figuring out how she will breathe air again. She is almost certain that if she swims up to the surface and attempts to take a gulp of air, she will feel that horrible drowning sensation again. At least she will be in the lake, able to go back under the water immediately.
The other spell she cast—to keep her body warm—must have been working as well. She can feel the cold of the water, but it feels far away. Like it can't quite touch her. Wanda uses her powers to propel herself through the water. It feels amazing to have water rushing over her arms, face, and legs. It was so refreshing to have this new experience.
Wanda looks around under the lake, seeing rocks, sand and silt, and many different types of underwater plants. Soon, she got too close to a longer plant and her foot got tangled in it. She hates the feeling of being stuck, and tries, unsuccessfully, to yank her foot out of the knot of seaweed. After a few moments, Wanda summons a great burst of power and shoots across the lake. Somehow, her foot was still tangled in the seaweed, but it had uprooted and she had pulled that across the lake too. Why wouldn't this plant just let go of her! She uses her powers to rip it off of herself, and she is finally able to calm down. There was just something about being touched while in the water that just creeped Wanda out.
Wanda knows that she needs to change the spell in order to breathe air again. Spiro aqua. That was the spell to breathe water. She will have to say the Latin word for air instead of saying aqua. They must have had the counter spell in the book, but Wanda just can't recall it. She tries to remember what the Latin word for air is, but she isn't sure if she saw it in the book.
There was only one thing Wanda could think to do—try to use the English word instead of the Latin word. Wanda swims closer to the surface, so close that she can see the fluffy white clouds in the blue sky, warped from the layer of water on top of her.
"Spiro aer." The word 'air' came out differently than Wanda had meant to say. That was strange. Wanda opens her mouth to breathe in, and a mouthful of water enters her lungs. She uses her powers to lift herself out of the water and hovers above the lake, coughing until all the water had exited her lungs. She lifts herself back to shore. That sure was an adventure!
Now that Wanda is out of the water, she realizes that she is completely soaked. She uses her powers to suck all the water out of her clothes and return it to the lake. Next time she tries this—and there will definitely be a next time—she will try to find a spell that will make her clothes waterproof.
She checks the Darkhold to see if there was a counterspell. Nope, there was nothing near to this spell except for the description and incantation. She guesses that this spell was meant to curse enemies, so the counterspell isn't necessary. Next, Wanda checks the dictionary. Was it possible that she had actually guessed the Latin word for air? That would be hilarious.
She pages through the beginning of the book, and there it is. English - air, Latin - aer. Wanda laughs, hardly able to believe her luck. That's why it had sounded funny coming out of her mouth—she must have unconsciously adjusted the English pronunciation to Latin.
Now that Wanda is out of the lake, she can see the sun higher in the sky, and she feels the insistent nagging of her stomach telling her she is hungry. Wanda walks back to the cottage, feeling the fresh morning breeze on her face.
Over the next few weeks, Wanda learned many more spells. One spell allowed her to conjure concentrated balls of power, almost like bullets. Another spell allowed her to become invisible, and another allowed her to create portals. She remembered seeing Dr. Strange create portals in The Battle of Earth, but hers weren't quite the same. She could make an object a sort of portal, so when someone touched it, they would be transported wherever she wanted. In her opinion, these types of portals were better than his. Although, she did learn how to create his types of portals too.
She even adjusted the spell allowing her to breathe underwater, so she could breathe both water and air. She loved this spell and used it almost every day to see the different creatures and plants that lived in the lake by her cottage. Wanda even made a map of the bottom of the lake. It was a beautiful lake with bright blue waters, mountains all along the shores, and evergreen forests. There were many islands in the lake, but Wanda liked the island with her cottage the best.
Wanda was working through the Darkhold, adjusting spells for more ordinary purposes, and learning more and more about the Scarlet Witch each day. She still had nightmares every night and missed her old life more than anything. She missed Vision, her sons, and having an ordinary seeming life with her loved ones. She tried her best not to dwell on the past, mostly by keeping busy.
But since Wanda was so busy and still having nightmares, she was exhausted. Busy days and sleepless nights were not a good combination. It was becoming harder and harder to keep the emotions at bay, and she missed having someone, anyone to talk to.
Wanda looked for and experimented with spells in hopes to find one that could ease her loneliness or stop her nightmares with no luck. Even the rune for happiness—she had discovered it on one of her first days at the cottage—left her feeling much worse once the rune faded. After a few uses, Wanda had decided that the horrible feeling afterwards just wasn't worth it.
On this day, Wanda came across a spell that might work, with a few modifications. The spell was in the mind control chapter of the Darkhold, and it used runes marked on the walls of her bedroom that would hopefully keep her mind empty during the night. Usually, the spell would be used to control people, but since it was Wanda controlling herself, she thought it might work to stop her nightmares.
Wanda had a feeling this would be the spell that worked, so she worked all day studying the elements used in each of the runes and determining what needed to be adjusted. It was trickier to adjust runes than spells, because she needed to know what parts of the rune corresponded with certain aspects of the effects.
Wanda sits outside, taking apart the rune to figure out how she should change it, when something large swoops down and rips the paper out of her hands. She looks up quickly, putting her hand over her eyes to cover the sun. She spots what stole her paper—a large, dark bird, carrying her work in its beak. What would a bird want with her runework?
Before it gets too far away, Wanda shoots a red stream of magic toward the bird. She carefully surrounds the paper with magic before yanking it away from the bird. After a few moments of struggling, she has the paper in her magic's grasp and it zooms back to her. Wanda sighs in relief as she closes her hand around the paper. She uses her powers to repair the paper, watching as the rips stitch themselves back together.
Wanda sees something flash in the corner of her eyes. There is a small, dark body of the bird falling from the sky. Why is the bird falling? She knows she didn't hit it with her magic. Almost instinctively, Wanda raises her hands, using magic to catch the bird in a red net of light. Once the body hits the net, she lowers it to the ground in front of her.
The bird doesn't move, as it lays limp on the grassy ground. Hesitantly, she touches the bird, wondering what happened. The bird stays still. She even tries sending a shock into it with her powers, but nothing works. How can the bird have died?
Later that day, Wanda digs a grave for the bird and lays it to rest. She can't stop wondering, was everyone around her cursed to die? Wanda knows that after the events of today she will have even worse nightmares than usual, so she will work extra hard in hopes that the runespell will work that night.
Wanda was so engrossed in her work that she didn't realize how late it was until she noticed she was squinting to see the page in the fading light. Wanda flicks the light on with a wave of her hand and a warm yellow light fills the room.
By now, Wanda had figured out the right design and she was just practicing drawing it a few more times. After a couple minutes of drawing on the paper and waving her hand in the air, Wanda feels ready. She quickly walks to her bedroom and takes a deep breath. She can do it.
She pushes the red energy out of her hands, moving it in the pattern she practiced, but something feels a little off. The rune looks right, but she's not sure it will work. After debating with herself whether to leave the runes up, she decides to give it a go. After all, what is the harm? If it doesn't work, then she will just have her usual nightmares.
Wanda looks at Vision, on his knees a few feet away from her.
"Wanda, you have to do it. Now. We cannot let Thanos win."
She shakes her head, knowing what Vision means, but not wanting to do it.
"It shouldn't be you, Wanda, but it is. It's not fair, but it has to be done."
"No, no! I can't do it." Wanda covers her face with her hands.
"You can, Wanda. I believe in you." Vision begs.
Wanda slowly puts her hands up and starts pushing red tendrils of power into the mind stone set in Vision's head.
"It's okay, Wanda. You could never hurt me." Vision starts to become weaker, obviously dying, as Wanda uses more effort to destroy the yellow infinity stone. Across the clearing, Thanos walks over to Wanda. Just before she can use one of her hands to hold him off, the scene changes. That's odd. Normally, Wanda is forced to watch the death of her loved ones in full.
Wanda looks at her surroundings. She is in an open area, with pieces of rubble of various sizes all around her. She can see what must be hundreds of kilometres in every direction, but no one is around. The bleak wasteland stretches out indefinitely, with no change anywhere. Wanda is used to being alone by now, but something feels off. Even when she was in her cottage in Norway she could sense the presence of other people, even though they were hundreds of kilometres away.
Now, Wanda feels like she is alone. Completely alone. She pushes out her senses, watching as a circle of red light expands around her, until she can't push it any farther. No one. There was no living thing left on Earth. How did this happen? She looks down at herself and sees the red costume of the Scarlet Witch on her body. Could this have happened… because of her? Wanda would never do anything that could have this kind of effect on the world, would she?
Wanda senses something coming down from the sky and raises her head, scanning the atmosphere to see what it is. For a quick second, she feels a rush of relief. It seems to be some sort of person floating down. Hopefully they know what happened, and they can tell her. The person is dressed in white and has a gold aura around them. They look almost angelic. Wanda can't bring herself to look away.
As soon as they are within earshot, they speak in the smoothest voice Wanda could imagine, but it is somehow harsh at the same time.
"Wanda! Do you see what happened here?"
"Who are you?" Wanda asks, a hint of wonder in her voice.
"That does not matter. Do you see what happened here?"
"Yes, but what could have done this? What caused this much destruction?"
"You did this, Wanda. It's all your fault." The words seem to echo a thousand times in her ears. Wanda tries to cover her ears but the words only get louder. She screams as the words pierce her brain like thousands of knives.
As the volume reaches a crescendo, the words stop. Her ears still ringing, Wanda has sunk to her knees on the ground.
"No, I didn't! I-I couldn't do this! Please tell me this isn't real." She repeats to herself, It's just a dream. It's just a dream. It's just a dream.
The words begin again.
"You did this, Wanda. It's all your fault."
They repeated over and over, as the creature seemed to multiply until there were hundreds of figures chanting the words around her.
"You did this, Wanda. It's all your fault."
The first being came closer towards her.
"The world is destroyed because of you."
That was the last straw.
"No!" Wanda screamed until her throat hurt, shutting her eyes tightly closed and slamming her hands over her ears. "It's not true. This isn't real!"
When she slowly opened her eyes, she wasn't in the wasteland anymore. She looked around and saw vast amounts of open space surrounding her on all sides. She must have been in space, but there were no planets, no stars, nothing. She spun around as best as she could and spotted the white creature approaching her once more. She tries to blast it away from her, but it just floats right through the red tendrils of light.
"This is your future. A warning for what you may become."
It touches one of its appendages to her shoulder, and she sees herself on Earth once more. She watches, helpless, as red light bursts out of her, destroying every living thing on Earth except herself. The Earth had become the wasteland she had just been on.
Wanda feels herself zooming back into her cottage, and she knew she was waking up. Her dream form reentered her physical form, and she immediately woke up, trembling in fear. She hears a faint splash coming from outside, but ignores it, still trying to process what just happened. The runes didn't work. Instead, she had a dream even worse than any of her previous dreams. But what if it wasn't just a dream? What if it was actually her future? Wanda vows she will do anything she can to prevent that from happening.