Saving Bucky (Bucky Barnes x Reader)

Chapter 85 - Nightmares

You step lightly down the pitch-black hallway - keeping one hand on the cement walls to guide you blindly forward.

It's cold.

"Bucky?" you callout into the dark, squinting, trying to see to the end of the hall. There has to be an end. It can't go on like this forever. "James!" you cry out, pulse racing as your breathing grows panicked, and you step further into the dark. You can feel it - the dark - dripping down your neck. Licking your face. It's everywhere, and nowhere.

You move faster, one foot in front of the other as you wade through its ink. Step. Step. Step. But there's no echo. No sound. Not even from your own footsteps.

*Snap* *Click*

You freeze as a low hum vibrates the walls and tickles the pads of your fingers pressed against it. Up ahead a light - painfully white - shines through the right side of the wall.

"Buck?" you call out timidly, frightened, as you take another step towards the light in the distance. You approach it slowly, until you stand before it.

You gasp at the sight of your own face looking back.

It's a mirror.

In it you stand unrecognizable. Bright, red lipstick is smeared across you lips and jaw as dark black eyeliner drips down your face like melted wax. Cuts and scars cross your cheeks weep a sickly, yellow fluid. It drips down your chin, dripping onto your hands as you raise them to caress the scars on your face. It smears your makeup further, staining your fingers black.

Your gaze flits from your hands back to your reflection.

But you're smiling.

"Stop," you whimper, staring into the mirror at the reflection of yourself as it starts to laugh. "No, p-please stop," you beg of your manic reflection, frozen in terror as blood-red tears spill across your black-stained eyes.

*Snap* *Click*

The light goes out. The laughter fades into silence.

You're left again in darkness. Heart pounding in your throat, you reach for the mirror. The moment your fingertips touch the glass, light bursts forth from it once more. But this time you don't see yourself. Instead you see into the room beyond.

A single metal chair.

"NO!" you scream as a woman with long, white hair stands over a body you recognize. Your own. "Stop!" you shout, banging your fists on the mirror. But the woman doesn't stop. She draws a dagger and circles behind your body until she hovers above your face. She lifts her head and stares directly at you -her eyes completely black.

"No! Don't!" you scream as she raises the dagger over your limp body on the table. "STOP!"

Her smile widens. Stained teeth, pointed at the tips, snarl back. She opens her mouth to speak - her voice a rasping whisper.

"Wake up, Y/n."

~ ~ ~

"Y/n?"

A familiar voice calls out from somewhere close.

"Y/n, wake up. Hey...it's okay, you're okay."

You bolt upright, panting heavily as tears leak from the corners of your eyes. A hand grabs your shoulder and you let out a frightened shout, swinging blindly at the dark mass sitting on your bed.

"Y/n, stop," the familiar voice whispers as a warm hand catches your wrist mid-air. "It's me!"

You inhale sharply as Steve's blue eyes come into focus in the dim light of your room.