Mind Full of Roses // Peter Parker

1: Prologue

Today was going to be different. Today, I will change the course of history. I will make Dreykov and the Red Room proud.

Synchronised footsteps echo down the white corridor from the multiple rows of girls. Their faces devoid of any emotion, but if you where able to look hard enough, you would be able to see the slightest glint of doubt in their eyes.

In the Red Room, doubt is a sign of weakness. And weakness gets you killed. I should know, I have the scars on my back to prove it. Instead we learn to hide any emotion, cover it with a mask that doesn't crack even when you think you are alone. Because you're never alone.

Even now, walking down this corridor, flanked by guards, the small shine of the camera catching on a light reminds you of the fact that you're always being judged. They tell us it's a way to weed out the weakness, but it's hard to keep reminding ourselves that when a guard goes to our dance practices and pulls out a still pirouetting girl from the pristine lines. But that's how we survive. Hope, luck and practice.

Instead of going to our dance classes, twirling for hours on end while being under the watchful of Madame and her stick, today some of us where taken out of breakfast early. We got escorted down identical corridors and into the one that we're in now.

No one dares to make a sound and I swallow down my loud breaths, tired from the many stairs that we had to take to get down to this level. The red walls quickly got replaced by white concrete as we went further to the bottom, where the labs are.

I walk in silence, staring at the back of the black haired girl in front of me. Even though it's easier to not get attached to anyone, this girl in front is the only one that I would trust to save my food if I was permitted to go to the toilet. Hazel and I aren't what you would call friends but we're close enough to be able to repeatedly sit next to each other at meal times. Our conversations rely heavily upon our timetables for the day but on a day like this with uncertainty stained in the air, it's nice to have a familiar face.

The small mutter of guards behind me breaks the evenly spaced tap of our rubber soled shoes on the tiled floor but I don't dare to even turn my head an inch. Instead I keep staring at the dirty hair that blocks me from seeing our destination.

The line front line stops so suddenly that I almost walk into Hazel. But I don't. That's a mistake that I can't afford to happen. A loud creak echoes down the long hallway behind me but I keep my eyes trained forward. The front line starts again and we follow, keeping formation.

We enter a small cloakroom, pegs line the wall with white clothes hanging from them. Without so much as a nod from the guard standing by the closed door, we slowly walk down the rows to find our numbers.

19472. The number that I've been assigned with since I can remember. My name, Roselyn, isn't as memorable as a number is. They tattoo it in the crease of you elbow when you first join the Red Room. Apparently it's a new procedure since the two escapees. Natasha Romanoff and Yelena Belova.

I stand in front of the peg and start taking of my black shoes and socks, along with my black leggings and black tunic. I replace it with a baggy white tunic and trousers. I fold up my old clothes neatly and place them in a pile on the bench before turning around and waiting for some more orders.

Once everyone has changed, the guard points to a door that I hadn't noticed before. It's oddly thick metal making a loud scraping noise as it opens. We file in and go back in our original rows once we enter the new room.