Silence Is Deafening

Longing

The screams. Oh, how the screams echoed. Up the walls, into your mind. Over and over again. Just screaming and screaming and--

Shaking. That's the first thing you felt when you woke up. You'd been screaming again. The hands around your shoulders were none other than the Winter Soldier's. You knew it must've hurt to touch you like he was; it always did when people touched you. You sat up from the place you'd been sleeping and stared into his dull blue eyes.

The cameras in your padded cell had long since been fried by your outbursts; that was the only allowance towards these interactions. You only got to stay here if you had been recently toyed with: otherwise they would've just stuck you in cryo alongside the Winter Soldier.

He took your hand and pressed it to his heart. You could feel his heartbeat, and you willed your own to match his, slowing your breathing.

It never became any easier to deal with these nightmares, always about the same thing: thousands of minds screaming in your own, neverending until you woke up.

His own muzzle prevented him from speaking, but he tilted his head slightly, as if to ask if you were okay now.

You nodded, the silence from the permanent headphones imbedded in your ears taking over your mind.

He stood up and walked back to the corner of your sleeping quarters where he had been watching you for so long now. It had felt like forever, the time you and him had spent in this room, in complete silence. You wondered what it was like to hear the sounds this place made. You barely ever heard things, unless they turned off your noise cancellers.

Today was the day The Winter Soldier would go on another mission, and you would go through more torture-resistant therapy.

Sometimes, you wondered if they just enjoyed hearing you suffer.

×

As the doctors attached you to a new machine, you could hear something within your noise cancellers. A dripping sound. It felt as if the sound was dripping knives into your skull, over and over again.

They were saying something between one another. All you could get out of it was the words "test" and "long". A long test? You tried to move, but the restraints against your arms and legs would not budge the few inches that they usually would allow.

You realized what was going on.

This machine wasn't going to do anything to you, it was designed so you couldn't do anything.

The dripping noise persisted for what seemed like hours.

Go away, go away, go away...

You opened your mouth to scream, but the restraints kept your jaw from opening. You wouldn't hear it anyway, so who cared if you screamed?

Were they afraid of a little pain?

You closed your eyes and sunk into that water drop. Every crash, you felt. Every ripple, you danced with.

Drip. Drop.

Drip. Drop.

Drip. Drop.

Drip...

The silence returned as if it'd never left. You found comfort in the silence. The restraints disappeared. You opened your eyes, but there was no Winter Soldier to bring you back to your cell. There was the doctor: Doctor Volkov. You knew his name well from when they first took you away, all those years ago. Had it been years? You felt like years was the appropriate term but--

"Scream."

You nearly flinched at the sound of his voice, but did not speak. His voice sounded like what you imagined a rat's squeak to be.