[center][h1][color=GhostWhite][b]N O M A D[/b][/color][/h1][/center]
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[i]'New York, 1932. I was tiny back then: shorter and skinnier than just about everybody I knew. Timid, too. Kids liked to pick on me so I didn't have a whole lotta friends. Had Buck, though, and he was trouble enough for the both of us. Parents were taking me to Coney Island that weekend and I convinced 'em to let Bucky come along. We were s'posed to spend the whole day there, but the weather took a turn just after lunch.  Mom and pop wanted to head back, but we weren't ready yet. Hadn't been to the beach yet, and Bucky loved the beach. Wasn't much of a swimmer, myself, but I would'a done anything for Buck...so the two of us slipped away first chance we got.

Weather was bad enough that they'd closed the beach off for the day. Said the water was dangerous. We didn't think it was worth gettin' in trouble for nothing, so we worked our way 'round to the pier where they usually offered boat rides to tourists and old folks. They were closin' that down, too, but not as tight: nothin' the two of us couldn't slip by. I still remember starin' down into those choppy depths and thinkin' it could'a been twenty feet down or the deepest part of the ocean and I wouldn't known the difference; it'd swallow me up either way.

Buck offered me fifty cents if I jumped in first. I said he was nuts. He said he'd be in right after me. So I took a running leap off the pier and fell for what felt like a year before I hit the water. It was scary, but I was proud of myself for doin' it- then a wave hit me like a truck, and I went under. My heels were over my head before I knew what was happening. Didn't even have time to hold my breath.

I remember my chest burning. S'strange thing, burning underwater, but that's the best word for it. Try as I might to hold what little air I had in my lungs, I only lasted a few seconds before I inhaled. Every moment of it crawled by, refusing to just get it over with. I've been beaten, stabbed and shot more times than I can count, but that day always stands out as the worst of it. I've never felt so helpless. S'not like I can stem the blood loss or punch out the sea. You're helpless for every slow, agonizing moment of it.

Buck didn't lie, though. He went right in after me.'[/i]

New York, now. Whenever now is. Steve stood at the edge of of the Empire State Building's spire, looking out after the vast ocean stretching to the horizon in every direction. He kept one hand wrapped 'round a thick, metal cable so he didn't go blowing away in the wind. It was hard to wrap his head around where he was, even after the fast guy explained it. This was surely New York, but not [i]his[/i] New York? And it wasn't the future, either, or maybe it was- but not really? His head hurt just thinking about it.

It wasn't fake seemed to be the point to take from all this. Everything that happened in that twisted psycho-circus full'a spacemen was the real deal, not Steve losing his marbles. And this was a real New York full of real people, who'd met as grizzly an end as he could possibly imagine. The scale of it was incomprehensible. The tallest building in the world was up to its antenna in water. That could only mean that [i]everywhere[/i] looked like this. The entire damn planet was flooded. This was ripped right out of the pages of Genesis, just...without any ark this time 'round, if the martian and the freaky child were to be believed.

"...And the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh." He muttered to himself, nary above a whisper. Then he gave a small prayer for the dead and looked to the rest of that strange group of people. 

The boy had taken a dive to confirm their suspicions and scrounge up what supplies he could find. It was no duty for a child yet he seemed weirdly nonplussed about the whole thing. Steve thanked him and ate what no one else did- his body was far and away more efficient than a peak human's. He could live off that last meal he'd eaten for a few more weeks before things got dicey. Still, even super soldiers had to eat and drink eventually.

Try as he did to stay focused on the task at hand, his mind wandered. All five of them were from different worlds...realities. Each seemed wildly different from the rest according to what conversation they'd shared in the few hours they'd been stuck together up here. He wondered if there was anything they all had in [i]common.[/i] For as different as they were, there was plenty he recognized from their stories, too...seemed like no matter what world they were from there was always a New York, for example.

Steve cleared his throat and spoke up against his better judgement, looking to the fast man from the future that seemed to know so much. He asked that little, terrifying question that'd been chewing at the back of his mind: "Do we always lose the war?"