2 Chapter 2

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(General P.O.V)

Ash wrinkled his nose in disgust after emptying his lunch on the floor of the office. What had just happened? He could have sworn he died. The Chitauri had attacked...oh god The Chitauri had attacked!

A sudden touch and he flinched away in shock.

"Can you understand me?"

Anthony asked the boy who had just clashed through the clear glass and landed on their floor.

"My name is..."

"Anthony."

Ash whispered softly, a strange look of confusion on his face.

The man looked at him in surprise before his eyes were drawn to his name tag. He sighed in relief. The boy had read his name tag.

"Can you stand? You look like you hit the ground pretty hard."

Anthony asked him, surveying his body for any injuries.

Ash could hear some of the people in the crowd mutter about the impossibility of his situation. They were calling him a freak and this time he did not fail to see how they were all avoiding him, apart from Anthony and the deaf woman, Linda. And they were both going to die.

Ash quickly got up to his feet amid protests from Anthony. He needed to warn them. He opened his mouth and closed it. Would they believe him? No. Not if he told them aliens were about to invade. With one hand tightly holding his towel, he gulped and looked around.

He spotted a table and pushed through Anthony and Linda to get to it. The office workers gave him a wide berth while looking at him suspiciously.

Ash reached the table and climbed on top of it.

"Be careful. Don't..."

The elevator dinged open and a few security guards and 2 cops came out. Their gazes were immediately drawn to Ash.

"There is a bomb in the building! You all have to escape!"

He shouted loud enough for everyone to hear.

For a second nothing happened and then commotion hit them all. Screams of panic sounded out as people begun running towards the stairs and others, the elevator. The security guards tried to stop the flow of people and failed. One of them was speaking on the radio about the bomb threat.

The two cops on the other hand begun making their way towards Ash.

"Come down here quickly!"

Anthony reached up and helped Ash land on the floor. The middle aged man steadied him before throwing a serious look Ash's way.

"Is what you said true?"

Ash nodded. Anthony said nothing except for signing to Linda and saying 'we gotta go' before then grabbing Ash by his wrist and rushing towards the staircase.

Unfortunately the building rocked and Ash slipped after the towel was caught by the corner of a desk. He tripped and fell down in a tangle of limbs. Anthony tried to help him up but a slight buzz sounded out followed by a scalding hot feeling through his chest. Ash looked down and saw a hole where his heart and lungs had been.

Looking up, he saw Anthony's eyes widen in shock, before the ceiling fell down on him. Crashing his body just like Ash had seen before coming back to life. Time seemed to slow down. They say when your death is close, your life seemingly flashes before your eyes. Nothing like that happened.

Instead, Ash became almost too aware of everything his senses were picking up on. His skin was cold, his fingers tense, his nose picked up on the nauseating smell of burnt flesh, his tongue tasted blood, his ears heard the hum of energy weapons from the Chitauri weapons and his eyes landed on the office clock which showed 10:47 in the morning.

The world tilted as Ash felt his body lose strength. The last thing he saw was the fear in the eyes of Linda before a Chitauri soldier landed infront of her and split her body into two parts...then nothing.

Taking large mouthfuls of air, Ash scrambled to his feet even before he could fully register where he was. It was happening again! It had happened before but now the events were playing out exactly the same with no notable difference.

The crowd of office workers surrounding him, the cubicles, overturned furniture, papers, shattered glass on the ground from where he had broke through and...oh god, the Chitauri! They were coming! He held on to the urge to vomit and stood up quickly.

"We gotta get out of here!"

"Whoa! Whoa calm down son."

Anthony grabbed him by his shoulders as Ash swayed on his feet. The motion messing with his balance.

The towel fell to the ground, leaving him in a pair of boxers, followed by a gasp that rang out of the women present. A few curses as well. Anthony quickly grabbed a jacket that was slung over a nearby seat and placed it on the boy's shoulders.

The action proved to be just what Ash needed to snap out of it.

"We need to leave before they come!"

He grabbed the towel on the ground, quickly fastened it onto his waist, grabbed Anthony's and Linda's hands before pulling them towards the staircase.

Ash might have been confused the first few times, but what he had no doubt about was that the two of them were kind hearted people. There wasn't a lot he could do to save everyone, but he would ensure that Linda and Anthony at least made it out.

"Hey Kid!"

Anthony stopped in place and refused to budge.

"Where are you taking us?"

Ash blinked, realizing he hadn't really told them much.

"No time to explain! What is the fastest way out of here?" He stated urgently, uncaring of all the people who were looking at him like he was crazy. Some of them had their phones out, recording the scene.

Before Anthony could answer, a loud crash sounded out as the remaining windows of the floor were smashed into and swarms of Chitauri landed inside the building. The slaughter begun in earnest. Cue the panic. People started screaming and trying to escape towards the two exits.

Ash sprung into action, pulling on the arms of the two people who had shown the most concern for him when he had arrived.

"Let's go! Let's go!"

He yelled as he shoved his way through the staircase door.

"We can't just leave them..."

Anthony tried to say but Ash was having none of it. He used all his teen body strength to pull the older, fatter man down the stairs. They had only just made it to the third row of stairs when they heard the door above them get destroyed by blue energy weapons and a slam.

The three paused to look behind them and Ash's eyes made contact with the Chitauri. His body froze as the alien snapped and roared at them before taking the stairs down three at a time.

"Come on! Run!"

Anthony pulled up infront of the two, tugging on their arms while they made their escape.

Heart pumping as loud as it positively could, Ash's feet slapped on the cold concrete, slightly behind Linda as they ran down the stairs. He could feel that the Chitauri was rapidly gaining on them.

At the speed they were running at, they would barely make it to next floor down before they were attacked, let alone the ground floor. Anthony knew that, so when they reached the next floor down, he immediately pointed towards the access door at the head of the next row of stairs.

"In there! We can block the door!"

Anthony told Ash and Linda. Ash gave a distracted nod. The Chitauri had just landed on the stairs directly behind them.

Ash heard the buzz of their energy weapon and knew they wouldn't make it. He used his other hand to pull Linda and Anthony down to the ground.

"Duck!"

The energy beam passed above their heads and hit Anthony from behind. He had been too late to duck. No blood splashed out at first, the heat from the gun had left a cauterized wound through his chest. Anthony fell without a word.

Ash saw the kind hearted man die for the third time and it was no less traumatizing as the first time. Linda opened her mouth in a wordless scream as she gasped in pain at the loss of her friend.

Ash could hear the Chitauri behind him chitter with clicks as it slowly walked towards them. Screams and loud sounds of heavy battle could be heard even through the concrete walls. The Battle of New York had officially begun. The building was rocked with tremors from time to time.

All that faded from Ash's mind. All he could hear was the laugh of the Chitauri behind him. This time however, instead of fear, the ice cold feeling that went through his veins was pure rage. He waited up until the Chitauri was a few paces behind him.

The same thing that had happened before he previously died, activated on it's own. His senses grew to an unimaginable level as he begun to comprehend everything. The slight rustle of Linda's clothes as her body was rocked with shuddering cries, the smell of blood from Anthony's body that was lying in a pool of it's own blood (the blood having seeped out through the cracks in the cauterized wound), the slight light from the door before him and finally his sixth sense tingled with the presence of something behind him.

The alien took one more step and Ash whirled around, hooking the towel he unstrapped from his body and then going for it's legs. He wrapped it around the alien's feet and grabbed both ends with each of his hands. Then he heaved, pulling on the towel by suddenly standing up.

The Chitauri squealed in shock as it's back hit the frame of the stairs and fell with his upper body, letting go of it's weapon before sailing over to the open section between the staircases. It was a long drop to the bottom.

Ash was about to pull away when the Chitauri's grey hand grabbed onto his borrowed jacket. The incident had forced Linda to look up. The late 20's intern had wide open eyes.

She bore witness as the young boy who had saved her instead of running away after Anthony had been killed, smile at her kindly just as he fell off the side of the stairs.

"It's alright."

He mouthed.