BUCKYNAT: WILDEST DREAMS

Chapter III: A Door

The next day, I wake up early, despite going to bed late. There were nightmares again, but they weren't too bad. I've learned to live with some of them now. It's only once or twice a week when they get really bad. At six O'clock, I'm supposed to have an hour long session of ballet. I hate it. But I have to do it or else people will suspicious and I'll get....punished. 

The ballet is torturous. I'm not bad at it, per se, I just find it extremely boring. We don't even do good stuff like jumps or spins. It's just an endless lull of pointing one's toes and then bending one's knees. It's tough to see how doing it will ever help with our agility like they say it will. After the ballet, I eat breakfast, which is just a small bowl of porridge as it always is. Straight after breakfast, I have to listen to a report of a mission gone well and then a mission gone wrong. We're supposed to take notes. Then, I'm to read files on the person I need to kill in two weeks time. I am an insanely fast reader, so the files don't take more than half an hour to read. I have to eat lunch, then, which is only a sandwich. At one O'clock, I have group training with six other agents. First it's target practice, then it's martial arts, and then it's a lesson on stealth. I knock out everyone in the group easily despite them being the highest level of agents and me being much younger than them. 

By five, I've got the rest of the day free. I say that I'm going to take the time to read files, but little do they know I've actually finished reading them already. I'll be doing something else entirely with my free time. I'm going to find the man with the smile. 

I start on the ninth floor, where most of the men's quarters are. It says the name of whoever's room it is on the door, and since I know his name, I shouldn't have much trouble finding his room. It's a long process, since it's a very large building with very large floors. Even after one hour of searching, I still haven't found him. A couple minutes later, I'm done with the ninth floor and still haven't found him. From there, I go to the tenth floor, knowing that there are no men's quarters below the ninth floor. The tenth floor has other rooms in it as well, which makes searching harder. 

Once I'm done with the tenth floor and still  haven't found his room, I begin to get worried. Maybe I should just leave this whole thing. It's not worth it. I think to myself while heading to the eleventh floor, Yes, he smiled, and yes that smile has tied me in to wanting to know more about him, but that smile could also kill me. Rebellion is stupid and frankly, hopeless. Plus, I don't even know what I want out of this. I realize. Still, my feet continue to march up the stairs. I can't stop. I'm being reckless, doing what I'm doing. Lying about my actions and breaking into file rooms. So what? The red room is just jail with spies. No one here has a heart . If I get caught, I'll get killed, but going on like this will kill me anyway. Or at least take away the human part of me, if there is any left. I think. I stop for a second, take a deep breath, and then open the door to the eleventh floor. 

I search the entire floor in hopes of finding his name on a door. I don't. Just as I'm about to leave, something strikes me as strange. I walk a little further down the carpeted hallway to find a skinny, wooden door. I open it. It creaks. I quickly step inside and close the door. There's a very small hallway with tiled floors. I follow it. There's a single flight of stairs going down. Eventually, I'm led to a secret part of what I presume is the tenth floor. There are doors, just the same, except they are made of metal. The entire place reminds me a bit of a mental asylum. It's a bit unnerving. However, the doors have the names carved into them, just like the previous ones. I scan them for his name as I walk. At the very end of the corridor, in a secluded area, I find the very last door. I read the name carved into it's metallic surface. 

James Buchanan Barnes