It hurt.
Something struck me, and my entire body paralyzed. Floods of unfathomable torment ran down my spine, causing each muscle in my body to contract as though it had stunned me with one billion volts of lightning. My back curved up at an unnatural edge, my arms and legs shook. A minute ago I'm crossing the highway to work, thinking through how I had been having these torments lately and how I can't sleep, and the following thing I know, everything went dark.
He was still conscious, yet dimly.
It soon ended what appeared like an eternity inside a void.
It was hot, yet cold. Not the first thing I would have felt after having a nightmare, but that will do. The light, blinded by a fog of some sort, covered me and my surroundings, but at least my senses were returning.
Until they didn't.
I couldn't move at all. It felt like I was in one place one minute, and in another the next. Floating in a void. I think. I felt like I was everywhere and nowhere, yet it was a strange feeling. What could be worse than floating in the dark for eternity? Nothing. After a countless period, I thought and wished about what if I had a form in this void? What would I eat? Could I laugh, dance, or even talk to someone? Even though my social skills were terrible, that was still an option in my head.
I sighed.
The fog around me and the light that blinded me soon ended. Only darkness remained. As I suspected, I was in a void with countless moons, stars, and planets.
Why? How? It didn't matter. All I wanted was to take shape once more, and I did.
I don't know how it happened, but sooner than expected I had taken shape. Now I stood on what looked like an immense sphere with a curve, like a planet, but smaller. I looked down, and lavender-colored armor covered my lower body. My gloves had claws. No. They were my nails? I closed my fist tightly, and like an instantaneous reaction, I had to open my hand since I bled. But it wasn't blood coming out of my hand, but crimson fire. But the fire didn't burn, I didn't feel pain. I checked my face and I couldn't believe it. My eyes, mouth, ears, and nose gone. My head was some kind of skull made of an unknown material that wasn't bone, and emptiness filled me.
I squeezed my hands, dropping tiny drops of flame to the ground as I walked to the edge of the sphere, but there was nothing beyond where I was, I just circled the sphere and arrived at the same place where I had bled. Everything seemed so small in this new body, comparable to my normal height, almost six feet, but I never thought that height would mean nothing in this reality. I couldn't see anything, no matter how high I jumped.
Am I in hell?
Not quite.
"Who's there?" At that moment, I discovered I could finally speak, but that voice that answered sounded so close.
How dare you speak to me like that, thief! Body-snatcher!
"Who are you? What do you mean by, thief?"
You idiot. You don't have to talk out-loud to talk to me. I am in your head, or better put, you are inside my head.
You're telling me I am inside you?
Correct.
Sorry, but I don't understand how is that my fault.
I know. It's mine.
What?
I kind of tried to bring your soul to my Dark Dimension after you died and kind of mess up.
What!? Why would you do that!?
YOU WANTED TO LIVE FOREVER, YOU INCREDULOUS CHILD!
I didn't ask for this.
Well, now we are stuck as one.
What do you mean?
I kind of made you an avatar of me, and I ended up giving everything to you.
Why would you do that?
...
Hello?
...
You felt lonely. Didn't you?
NO, I DO NOT!
Yes, you are. We are one and I can read your mind, remember.
Shit.
It is okay to admit that.
Do you want me to kill you!?
If you do that, you'll die too.
We will never know until we try.
Go ahead. I am already dead, am I not?
...
Do it.
...
You can't, can't you? You feel sorry for me?
That is nonsense, child. I do not feel emotions. I'm simply incapable of doing anything at the moment. Just a passenger.
I see. And who are you, anyway?
I am the creator of the Dark Dimension, Dormammu.
Haha, Wait, what?
I am the devour of worlds, kid! Don't make fun of me!
Is not that. Also, I am not a kid; I was a twenty-seven-year-old man when I died.
Every single mortal in the known multiverse looks like a child to me, I am over millions of years old.
Mmm. That is why the surroundings look familiar. I am stuck in the MCU, which is just a word for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which means the multiverse is real. Cool.
I will absorb every single one into my Dark Dimension, and you will help me do it, kid!
No.
WHAT!?
I am now you, and you can't do anything to me. So you better enjoy the ride because is going to be a wild one.
You little shit!
Why play the hero or the villain when you can be a God?
HAHAHA! WHAT A FOOL YOU ARE!
What are you saying?
The human mind is always so childish. Hehehe. I will enjoy this.
If there's something you're not telling me? I can always read your mind and find out if you don't tell me.
Enough! I shall return at the appointed time - when all is in readiness. And see that it is - if you value your miserable life - or your precious immortal SOUL!
Hey, where the hell are you going? How am I supposed to use your powers?
I don't know. You're a God, remember? MUAHAHAHAHAHA!
Great, now what?
I searched my surroundings as the voice inside my head left me. Unaware of the untainted power I now held, I snapped my fingers and in the distance, an insignificant planet the size of a moon exploded. Dormammu was right. I held the power to control the Dark Dimension as I pleased. When the dust cleared, something familiar floated in the distance where the size-moon-planet was located earlier. A structure that I had seen before in the Thor movies.
The ruins of Asgard after Ragnarok lay here in the Dark Dimension, floating in the void. Dormammu, you cheeky bastard.
There was only a small mountainous terrain left with golden structures which were now broken by the fire giant, Surtur. Speaking of him, Surtur was nowhere to be seen.
Okay. How do I get there from here?
I thought no more and walked as far back as I could and ran with all my strength and jumped. It was impressive at first. I thought I had made a tremendous leap, but I was just floating in the void of space, somehow I was levitating. Flying wasn't that hard it was like being an astronaut in space. Or as they show an astronaut to be in the movies at least. The surrounding debris was of broken pieces of celestial bodies. If I had had my human senses, I would have been sneezing as I was allergic to dust. After a slow walk, if you can call flying a walk, I touched solid ground again.
The surrounding land contained the evidence of a great explosion and fire. At the end of the edge of the floating island, or what's left of it anyway, in a corner lied a piece of the headpiece of the fire demon. The Crown of Surtur destroyed and only a piece remained. The piece that remained was the horn of the crown which I picked up from the ground and at the moment of doing so, it melted and contracted into ashes.
I could have made a sword out of that If I knew how to control Dormammu's transmutation abilities. Oh, well. Lose some to win some.
Further out in the distance there was a column of rock covering something. I went over to the site to check it out and to my surprise, there was a black sword below the column. I grabbed the sword up and as I withdrew my hand with the sword, a hand broke through the stone and grabbed my arm with superhuman strength.
"That's mine-" declared a woman with long unkempt hair covered in a mix of dust and ashes of the ruins in front of me. The explosion had torn apart her dark green clothes with small black details as she had many cuts all over her body and was bleeding. I used a bit of force and she let go of my arm. She seemed to be weak, off-balance.
"Don't make me laugh," I couldn't stop myself from bragging, "the Goddess of Death facing her mortality?"
"I'm eternal. I am immortal. I will never die." She raged as she got up.
"As long as Asgard is alive." I demurred.
"W-Who ... who are you?" She hesitated to continue to gloat, it seemed, as she became unsure of what to say.
"I am Dormammu, the destroyer of worlds. You will bow before me or die." I crowed in Dormammu's intimidating voice, of course.
"Never." The Asgardian insisted.
She pulled out another sword from her body and threw it straight through my chest armor. It hurt a little. I couldn't feel the pain, but I felt a tingle, I never thought to live in an RPG world, but this was the closest thing to it. Living in another world with godly power at my disposal, and none of the responsibility, maybe being a Warlord wasn't so bad. I removed the sword from my chest and fire came straight out of my wound, but my armor regenerated again. She fell weaken to the floor and with one quick swung I lowered the sword and use all my effort to struck my enemy. Oh, she was immortal, right, I forgot.