RED ASSASSINS ▹ NATASHA ROMANOFF [EDITING]

[12]

I opened my eyes. They were wide with fear. It must have been one of my horrible nightmares again. I hated them, and wished that they would slowly die off after a couple of months, but they never did. They haunted me, day and night. My past demons.

I opened my eyes wearily and looked at the calendar hung up on the wall beside my bed. There was a big red cross on one of the days. It was on the 13th of May.

The Graduation Ceremony. The test. It clogged my whole mind. I counted the number of days left. 7 days to go. It was only a week later.

During the Graduation Ceremony, we would need to go through a series of tests. This was to prove our strength, guts and will. It was to prove bravery, and to prove that we would protect Russia. There were mental and physical tests, all of which were extremely demanding and grueling. They came by surprise. After the graduation ceremony came the program we hated the most.

The sterilization process.

They said that getting us sterilized would benefit us greatly. Not now, but in the future. Ivan believed that killing and assassination was far more important and crucial than raising a family.

I woke up from my thoughts and headed to wash up, then to class. The same routine everyday. In class, Madam Shostakova played a movie. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

I used to watch it back in Stalingrad, when I was young. But the movie played here was different. It was of Snow White, but the videos were full of subliminal messages including "Kill", "Fear" and "Pain". These brainwashed us, something that we were not aware of.

From time to time during these classes, I would try my best to shut my eyes. However, the music and sound effects of the movie could not stop the emotions and messages to flash through my mind. They had settled down and remained there ever since.

I walked out into the open, the glaring rays of light shining into my face. My cornea felt as though it was on fire and burning. I took my respective place in the training grounds and lined up in front of Ivan. He was holding a box of firearms, mainly pistols. I grabbed mine out when it was my turn in the queue.

Madam Shostakova, together with Mr Vasily, hauled out a group of rough and brutal looking men. Their hands were bound together by thick, fraying ropes. Here in the Red Room Academy, we used real people as target practice. The government had granted permission to let us shoot down men who had to be killed. They put them to good use, but it was a far more painful death that one would not want to anticipate.

I stood up and a heavyset man was shoved in front of me, a few meters away. I lifted up the pistol, and pulled the trigger after taking a precise aim. My aimings were always accurate, an they never failed me. Thus, Madam Shostakova was always happy with me when it came to target practice. I was sort of a star student, if that was what you called it.

Bang! The bullet whizzed through the air, hitting the man straight in the chest. It was my second killing this year. He slumped down onto the ground, and into a crimson pool of fresh blood. This time, I wasn't going to break down. My life in a nutshell was just to Kill, Assassinate and Spy. This was what the Red Room had made me into.