Callsign: Princess // Ghost x Reader/oc

19

TW: torture, indirect reference of SA.

There are three things I'm permitted to give under torture.

My name. My rank. And my service number.

Anything else — I'm ordered to hold off as long as I can.

Nobody can withstand torture forever. That's why we're not trained to do so. We're trained only to delay. To hold out as long as possible. Usually, until someone like me can make it in time for an extraction.

But an extraction's near impossible at this point.

We've made no radio contact with base. We've given no sign that we survived. Even if they managed to find the cabin by some sheer stroke of luck, and deduce with technology that we'd been there, they'd never know where we've been taken. I don't even know which facility this is.

And with the blindfold covering my eyes, I have no way to find out.

I calm my breathing before I can truly panic. Sensory deprivation — I've trained for this. I've lost my sight. But I can still hear, can still feel. A burning sheet of slick ice covering rock beneath me. I try to move, to shift, and feel the bite of a metal cuff at my ankle. The rattle of a chain. The vice grip of rope binding my wrists. I lift them as much as I can, and my palms slap against jagged rock at my side.

I'm in a cave.

I swallow. My ears strain for any further noise, but there's nothing. I could call out for Ghost. But that would mean alerting my captors to the fact I'm conscious too. And I need to buy all the time I can get.

I ignore the voice in my mind that tells me, even then, it won't be enough.

***

Someone shouts a string of words, bare inches from my face. I flinch. Before I can respond, an endless torrent of ice water douses me all over.

I gasp in shock, my heart thundering against the walls of my chest. Everything screams in pain at the cold. I cough, I splutter. My arms begin to tremble.

A barked string of words in a foreign language once more. I still can't see anything. I don't know how many people are with me. I don't know if Ghost is in the vicinity.

"Callsign Princess," I stutter, forcing the words through numb lips. "Air Force. Serial number six-four-one-two—"

This time, a hand grasps my head, ripping hair from my scalp until I scream. I'm forced forward, my head shoved into water, thick chunks of ice clanking against my skin.

I hold my breath. I allow my body to go through its natural responses — then I begin to control myself.

Forced dissociation.

My mind needs to escape. Some soldiers are specially trained for this — like forced multiple personality disorder. They're broken until they can compartmentalise well enough to forget the torture happened at all. I've extracted more of them than I can count.

I'm not so lucky. But I remember my own training. I run through the lyrics to a song in my mind — nothing I'm fond of or attached to. Just a distraction.

My scalp sears in pain as they pull me free. I cough, I shudder.

This is only the beginning.

***

They know I speak English. And yet they make no solid attempt to communicate.

My stomach sinks as I realise one of two things are happening. They're trying to humiliate me, to break me, before even beginning their line of questioning. Or they're using this as a display, an exhibition to try and make another soldier talk.