This is an odd little piece of alternate universe that just sort of happened. The characters belong to Marvel, the weirdness belongs to me.

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He is heavy, but I hide beneath him anyway, hoping he will not crush me as he conceals me. I stick my face into the folds of his coat, sucking in air with panicked gasps. As I struggle breathe, to save my short life, I am consumed by the scent of death.

I hold his cold body to my own, as if I could warm him with the ice in my heart. Between the water lapping at my chin and the fear consuming my soul, I have little warmth to offer.

It was my fear that killed him. I feel him stiffen and begin to drift, his dead weight too much for my little arms. I don't want to let him go, as if with enough time and regret I could undo what I have done. He starts to slip away and I can't help myself. I grasp, grab, grope. My short nails tear at his uniform, then his flesh, hoping to snatch him back from the chill of death.

He's gone. The gentle ripple of water is the only sound I hear as he starts to float aimlessly. Except, of course, for the constant baying of the Hounds. I am alone again.

I know it is my own fault. He reached out to me, offered me help, hope, protection. I killed him for his kindness.

He tried to help be out of the pool, attracted by my noisy thrashing as I tried to climb back to dry land. I was stunned, not thinking clearly. Everything swirled around me, like a funnel, narrowing my focus until all I saw were those eyes. I struck him with the full force of my small fists, battering him and using his surprise as leverage to pull him into the pool. I had the advantage, even though he is so much larger than I: I had fear. Lots of fear, filling me like a whirlwind, creating a damage path I cannot escape. He got caught in the tempest and it was the end of him.

Even as I felt his struggled gulps for air, I reverted to my basest, street-honed instinct: If you cannot run, you must hide. I pulled him down, like an ocean undertow, using his body as a shield, as if that would make a difference against the Master of Shadows. It took me a while to realize why he stopped fighting me. Now that I know, I know I will never forget.

His body starts to float away from me, leaving me exposed, bobbing in my dark corner, pretending to hide as I hear them close on me. I tie his trenchcoat to the grate of a drain, hoping his corpse will not float up and give me away. I scramble out of the pool, trying not to kick him.

There is no more time for confusion or deception. Now I must run. My would-be protector lies at the bottom of the pool and with any luck he will stay there. At first, I thought he meant to capture me, but he didn't have the hunger of a hound or the vileness of some other predator. There was kindness in those demon eyes as they fluttered closed a final time.

Shaking with cold as a breeze blows through me, I head away from the house, out into the night. I run on frozen legs, my hair plastered in my eyes which are stung by chlorine and tears. I cannot stop, pause, breathe. I must run on, plowing though the surrounding forest like a gale. I leave the sound of snapping branches in my wake and leaves fly up from around my feet. I must escape the shadows that seek to crown me queen.

There is a sudden, like the eye of a storm. A Hound brusts from the trees beside me and sinks its claws into my back. I am small, wiry, a street urchin with nothing to live for accept life itself. I twist like a dust devil and there is nothing left for it to hold onto.

I cannot run forever but the Hounds can. They surround me. There are no windows here for me to leap from. There is no place to run, no where to hide, nothing but the snarls of my attackers. Terror captures me, tosses me on a wind, blows my barriers away.

Something in me snaps and I remember that I am already a queen, Queen of the Winds. I turn and face the shadows, my eyes crackling with white flame. My hair is a crown of clouds around my head, my eyes are lightening, my voice is thunder. I am Storm.

I don't have to run. I don't have to hide. I don't even have to kill. The forest trembles under my assault, the sky spitting out rain and wind and hail on my command. Trees bow, bend, break. The Hounds tumble like weeds.

I just blow it all away. Far away, until the shadows retreat from the brightness of my lightening, until the Hounds' howls are deafened by my wind. Until there is nothing at all that I have to fear. Except what I hide inside myself.