Chapter 34: Awakening

When Yumhee teleported to the abandoned science facility in the middle of nowhere, a dome of electricity appeared together with her, stretching for miles, causing the abandoned building equipments to explode and the buildings caught in fire. In the middle of it is the hunched over body of Yumhee, hands digging on the soil, screaming agonizingly, sending waves of sounds strong enough to produce small tremors.

"You're not worthy to wield such power. You don't even know what you're really capable of." A female voice echoed around her, a soft but authoritative one brimming with confidence.

The voice startled Yumhee enough to stop another scream and halt the blue electric energy from expanding farther. Yumhee knew that the voice is coming from within her, talking inside her head. She new that it was the thing fighting her for control, overwhelming and devouring her from the inside. She doesn't know how she knew but she just do. Whatever it is the Hydra has injected her with, it is sentient and intelligent enough to converse with her.

"Being such a weak human, it's a miracle you've lived this long with so much power inside of you." The female voice taunts further while Yumhee tries her best to suppress the pain to understand what she's saying, looking for any important information that can help her with the predicament she's in right now.

"Who and what are you?" Yumhee finally asked.

"I have no name human. Names don't matter to beings like us. But if you must know, I came to existence from one of the Infinity Stones, the most destructive of all, the Space Stone." the female voice answered pridefully.

"I don't understand anything that you're saying right now. I don't know anything about Infinity Stones or Space Stone." Yumhee felt exasperated with her answers which only made things more incomprehensible for her. The more she talks, the more questions she has. And with the excruciating pain coursing through her body, she doesn't have the energy or patience enough to do a thorough interview of whatever being living inside of her. Gritting her teeth for the umpteenth time, she asked the most important question at the moment. " What's happening to me?"

"You're dying." The female voice answered casually as if they were only talking about the weather.

Instead of the fear and agony the voice was expecting, Yumhee was infuriated. "Obviously I know that. But I'm asking the 'how'.".

The female voice hummed like she was impressed by her audacity to speak to her like so. "Well, unlike what you're thinking right now, I'm not fighting for control of your mind and body. You die, I die." The voice paused for a second, giving Yumhee the time to absorb the information. "The power inside of you is acting up because it no longer believes you're worthy of it. Right now, it's unleashing it's full potential which your body can't handle. But due to your enhanced regeneration which was further amplified by the experiments, it's plan of tearing you from the inside and releasing the power back to the universe is taking a rather long excruciating process."

"You mean you're acting up!" Yumhee angrily retorts.

The female voice just hummed to her accusation. "I understand how you arrived to such conclusion but sorry to disappoint you, I don't have much control over the power residing in you. Although I'm a part of the Space Stone's consciousness, I'm just a miniscule fragment of it. The most I can do is explain to you what it feels or thinks. I act as it's voice. Awakened only when need be."

"Then what caused this? Can I do anything to quell it's anger?" Yumhee is now sprawled on the ground, her strength not enough to support her weight.

"Your emotional and mental instability for such a long time is what caused it." The voice took a serious tone. "Such a state and having so much power isn't really a good combination. So you can see why it doubts you." The voice became softer and more gentle. "I understand that you're still mourning for your lost love, for your son and for yourself. And so does it. So it gave you time to heal. But as time went on, there were no positive progress in you. It started to doubt your worthiness. And when you started to suppress the power, suppressing it...it got angry." A wave of silence engulfed them for a moment. "You have to understand that your state directly affects the state of the power inside of you. It may be just an insignificant fragment of the Space Stone, but it is enough to cause destruction big enough to level a whole country."

Yumhee closed her eyes when it started to get heavy. "I'm sorry." The apology came as a whisper but the genuine sincerity wasn't lost. Feeling herself succumbing to the eternal darkness, for the first and last time, she asked a favor from the voice. "I understand and I accept my punishment. But the people here had just gone through the horrors of war. They don't deserve another misfortune caused by my ignorance and incompetence, especially when they are innocent. I ask that the only casualty will only be me." A small smile appeared on her face when the female voice answered affirmatively.

The blue electric energy that created a force field around her crackled, the small tremors became a bona fide earthquake. The destruction limited inside the force field. Yumhee felt the violent winds lifting her body up. Before she finally succumbed to the darkness, she heard a boom loud enough that it sent waves miles away. Then there was nothing but silence all around. Like the incident never occurred.

What Yumhee didn't see was that the activities inside the force field stilled for a second, then the energy exploded like an arrow being released from it's bow. But instead of dispersing into the atmosphere, it created a bubble then shrunk to encase Yumhee's suspended body like a cocoon. Protecting her for a decade until someone discovered her existence.

The next time she opened her eyes, she was greeted by unfamiliar faces. Before she can feel relieved for still being alive, the people around her brought apprehension instead.