From Present to Past - The Tigris Series Book 3

Chapter Ten

I couldn't focus. I couldn't move. I couldn't smell.

The only thing I could sense was the cold, bitter atmosphere through the fog and the dark blurs, and the sound of my own trembling, heavy breaths. My chest heaved as I frantically scanned my surroundings, but my movements were slow. Sluggish, like I'd been drugged. Dark figures surrounded me, shifting around as if they were working on something around me. I tried moving my arms, my legs, anything; but, my body felt heavy, anchored in place. One of the figures leaned towards me, and through my blurred vision, I could make out a pair of large, round glasses.

"You will be magnificent." the familiar German accent cooed, sinisterly, the echo of his voice sounding as if he had spoken from a distance in a tunnel. "The perfect weapon. . . for Hydra."

My breaths came out in gasps as my vision cleared enough to make out Zola's malicious, smiling face. I wanted to scream, to bark at him to get away from me, but my mouth would move and my vocal cords were stiff, making my breath catch in my throat. My heart felt as if it would pound itself right through my rib cage and muscle and out of my chest, yet my body was too stiff and heavy to tremble in the potent fear and dread that consumed me.

My head suddenly snapped back with a sharp gasp, and a shock hit my brain like a tidal wave. My screams echoed in the atmosphere around me, sounding just as echoey and distant as Zola's voice had; only this time, the longer the screams lasted, the closer it sounded it was, as if it was charging at me like a speeding train. Just as I thought my ears would bleed, it faded away, giving way for images to flash in my mind of different moments in the depths of my memory. The training grounds of Hydra's facility in Siberia, watching my hands move on their own as they beat down three of hydra's men in a brutal fashion, nearly killing one until a metal hand grabbed my wrist, urging me to stop. The Captain's office, watching him circle me like a predator stalking his prey as his words echoed in the back of my mind, and his fingers running through my black ponytail.

"You've done so well, my dear." he muttered with a sinister, cruel smirk. "No nasha rabota zdes' yeshche ne zakonchena."

But our work here is not finished yet.

Another shock hit my brain, triggering another flash to a hand on my throat, holding me down on a hard surface with the Captain's enraged snarl in my face, yelling words and promises of cruelty and endless pain in Russian, with droplets of his saliva spraying it my face as he bared his teeth inches from my face, squeezing my throat. He squeezed harder, sending me to another flash of my dark, rarely used room, my body lying limply in my cot as my blurred vision slowly panned towards the open door, watching a figure walk out of the room as my hand shakily reached out to it. I could make out the light in the hallway reflecting off of a metal arm as the figure reached the doorway, leaving me alone in the cold, dark room, and my arm fell back down to my side, weakly as my vision blurred even more.

Before my hazy vision could fall into darkness, another shock hit my brain, and suddenly I was in the midst of a spar. I was getting hit and thrown around left and right, and no matter how badly I wanted to fight back or protect myself, I couldn't move; I wasn't allowed to move. Laughter echoed around me as rough, calloused hands lifted me off of the ground, spinning me around to face the tall, muscular and tanned man, my vision blurring in and out to only barely make out his short hair and crazed eyes, his expression scrunched in an enraged, yet excited snarl. He snapped his head forward, head-butting me harshly in the nose, then threw me against the wall with all of his super-strength with a roar. I hit it with a loud thud, crashing down to the ground with a pained huff. My vision blurred even more, slowly going in and out of focus as my eyes slowly trailed around at the many figures that stood around the surrounding open training room. My eyes stopped on a figure in the shadows, catching the sight of a feminine physique and reddish-brown hair that fell down to her mid-back, her eyes glowing a subtle red as she looked back at me with her brows slightly pinched together as if she was disturbed. My hazy eyes lingered on her, a sense of confusion piercing through the anguish and pain; she wasn't part of the memory.