The Time Stone, Third Edition (Extended Version)

The next morning, Mercedes awoke to the loud knock on the farmhouse door of the Hernando residence. She got up and walked to the living area and peeped across the room to the front door. She did not realize she was still holding the green pentagonal emerald. She saw that three men in dark suits and sun glasses were talking to Juan Carlos and his mother.She kept her distance and tried to overhear their conversation, but did not hear anything and one man removed a weapon from his breast pocket, pointed at Juan Carlos and his mother and fired a beam of concentrated red energy into them vaporizing them on the spot. Mercedes hears their screams and gasped. The three men look up and saw her and pointed at her. She jumped down the few feet to the ground floor and instantly ran out the back door. She hopped in the jeep parked outside and drove off. She drove and drove, wiping back the tears after seeing her new fiancée murdered before her. “Damn you!” She snarled out to herself as she drove past the city limits, closer and closer to the U.S.-Mexican border.She didn’t realize the three men were not following her-- no one is following her. She looks beside her and saw the emerald object and the trouble it caused, but also the adventure it brought them and success in defeating a very powerful beast. She drove forward and passed the border, riding into the desert of the United States of America.