Destiny »« Bucky Barnes

PROLOGUE

1955

The sky was dark, lights dim and flickering on the side of the narrow, winding mountain road that crossed the borders between Altai and Gorno-Altaisk. She didn't know where the lights were coming from – only that they were there. Just the thought of it frightened her, even only at seven years old.

If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that Siberia was one of the worst places to be in the middle of winter.

"It's alright, мой маленький кролик. We're almost there," the driver whispered, casting one glance towards her daughter in the darkness, snow ploughing the windshield, the windows, the tyres. It seemed the weather was using all its best efforts against them, determined that fate had another plan in store for them.

The little girl had never believed in fate, but destiny was a concept that terrified her.

"Mama," she called, voice failing her halfway as it drifted in and out, or perhaps it was the howling wind, screaming obscenities as it scratched and hissed and stole her voice right out of her throat in an attempt to force its way into the tiny car. "Mama, I'm scared. I want to go home."

"America is too far away, мой маленький кролик. We'll just have to make our way back to the hotel."

"Still in Russia?"

"I'm afraid so." The woman's voice was tight, strained, as if forcing herself to stay strong for her child. Forcing herself to keep her eyes on the road, rather than turning and engulfing her into a tight hug then and there. Forcing herself to concentrate, as if just her thoughts can speed up the car, teleport them home, something, for a child's cries of fear are quite possibly one of the worst things in the world.

It's the same old story, in the end: terror, comfort, then a disaster that changed the life of an individual forever. An origin story that formed them into who they would become.

Fate? Or destiny? She wasn't quite sure which it was.

All she knew is that there was something dark in the road, and the moment the headlights fell on it, she was paralysed.

A scream tore through her throat as her mother swerved violently, tires seizing up against the ice under them, and suddenly she wasn't in control. The steering wheel was still, but the wheels controlling the car were not, shifting and squealing and screaming in protest, but not nearly as loud as the passengers the car contained. Not nearly as loud as the unsteady palpitations of the girl's heart as it pulsed in her ears, blocking out sound, leaving her numb.

Numb. Just for a few seconds.

Then the collision.

Evelyn Grace was always sure of one thing: she was going to die alone. However it was, whenever it was, she wouldn't let anyone be with her. Her father died, and she was there to see it. And it was painful.

She was determined not to let anyone else be there.

But when the little girl's eyes closed, an uncontrollable fear seized in her chest. Her mother. The mother she couldn't leave behind. The mother whose arm was thrown out against the girl's chest in a feeble attempt to protect her. The mother who, as the girl's eyes were forced open and turned in the direction of the driver's seat, would not move.

And the girl was sure this was death.

Not death, as in her body shutting down, heart ceasing to work, limbs failing to move despite the excruciating agony deep in her chest before it all dips into the world's careless nighttime whisper.

Not death, as in the fading away of her memories, one by one, flashing before her eyes in painstaking detail, reliving every touch, sound, smell, before it all becomes a torn dream.

Not death, as in the permanent, irreversible cessation of all living functions; an irreversible, universal process that renders forty-two percent of the world's population chilled to their very core at the thought.

Death. The sight of her mother with her eyes flickered shut, her lips slightly parted, her cheeks still lightly dusted pink from the frozen wasteland outside chilling her bones; it all caused an unceasing pain deep in the girl's chest, one that tore her open; for despite the blood running down from her mouth, from a gash hidden in her hair trailing its way down her cheek, from her nose, she was still everlastingly beautiful.

She'd always believed death in movies and books were unrealistic. Deaths always resulted in choking and last gasping sentences and the steady flatline chorusing the melody of death's own little infinity, didn't they?

So why, she couldn't help but question with all the agony in the world, was her mother laying there, irrevocably silent, eternally beautiful, yet causing so much pain without a single noise?

No. There had to be a mistake.

Her head was screaming. Her body was numb. Yet somewhere deep inside her chest, she knew she was still in danger, and that she had to get out.

"Mama," she whispered, reaching out for the woman's hand as her red hair fell into her eyes. She pushed it away forcefully, only to realise it came away sticky with blood. A trail of it crossed her cheekbone, and only after she touched it did it start stinging, like when she cut herself with a sharp knife while dealing with lemons to make a surprise for her mother.

Her mother still wasn't waking up, and with every attempt to shake her awake, the girl grew more and more desperate. An eternity passed in the form of a second, and another, and another. Still nothing.

Evelyn's mother once told her that time was precious. Everyone only gets one life, and it's short. She was raised to seize her existence, to make the most of everything, just so she could appreciate the little bit of time she had left.

A human has never been closer to death than at the very moment they're in, and every second they get closer and closer to the end.

The little girl thought she was there already the moment a shadow crossed her window.

At first she thought it was her imagination, just like the limp body in the seat beside her was her imagination, but when a sudden clashing grated against her ears, when the desolate snow sent its minions to attack, forming goosebumps on her sickly pale, frozen skin, she knew it was real.

Her car door was gone, pulled away from its hinges, and she was transported back to her room in America, back to her bed, back to when she was four and terrified of the monsters in the closet.

She was always so sure that they were there, just waiting with all the patience of a thousand lifetimes, waiting for her to let down her guard and close her eyes, and then they'd creep out and their wrinkly, cold fingers would circle around her body–

And she'd scream, just like she is now, sure the monsters in the closet were ready to get her, sure that the cold biting at her skin in just a hundred other forms of pain was her heart being torn out of her chest, but it was, for it was left behind in the car with her mother–

And no matter how much she screamed, no matter how she pleaded, the storm stole her voice away once more. Besides, there was no one left to hear.