HADES // T. STARK DAUGHTER // MARVEL I.I

5 ~ PRISONER ~ 5

*** EDITED ***

It's been six months since I was kidnapped. Six Months. It took my father. . . it took him how many months to escape Afghanistan? With all the resources he had, how come he hadn't found me yet? Was he even looking?

Every day seemed to be a new level of hell. Every morning they would strap me down onto that awful table in that torturous room and make these godforsaken serums course through my body, burning my skin from the inside out. It felt like liquid fire in my veins, burning and mangling and shredding. Once I woke up from the inevitable blackout that came with the ever-increasing pain, I would be shoved into yet another room, one of the four prisons I had been in for the past six months.

That's where the fun began.

The three girls I had been confined with for the past six months were always there, waiting, sparing, hurting each other and me for the praise of the monsters calling themselves Hydra. That's what I called them in my head, all of them; Monsters, Monsters, Monsters. Because they couldn't be human. No human could mercilessly torture us. Could hurt us until we passed out from pain. Could bring us to the brink of death and smile. I heard a young boy's voice next door to me when I was still recovering from my morning. The walls were thick, but I felt as though he was right next to me, crying out in pain that only someone like us could imagine. I heard him stop screaming yesterday and it never started again. Nobody knows if that's good or bad. He has to be dead, yes, but I don't know if that's better than the pain or not. Most of the time, it feels like a better option.

Nobody's coming to save us. So why should we just lay there day after unimaginably painful day, crying out for someone that's never coming? Why isn't anyone saving us? Don't we deserve to be saved?

It was better when we were fighting. It gave us a chance to do something, even if we weren't hurting the people who deserved it. But whenever one of us was better than another, if we didn't punch with the same force, or dodge with the same speed, they would drag us away. It happened to me only a few times, but each was always so much worse than the last.

The first time it happened I thought it was one of my dreams. The ones I got in the dark cell I was first stuck in for so many weeks. The ones where I feel everything trying to get me, and everything hurts so much I don't even feel myself moving, thrashing. But, no, it was all so real. The dreams where I'm not in any physical pain, but I'm hurting from my very being, because I've become something nobody should ever become.

*

"Hades? Are you okay?" Zeus asked, waving a hand in front of my face. My head snapped up and I ran a hand over my head, rubbing the peach fuzz that had replaced my matted hair.

"I had a dream. . . but it was, I don't know. . . " My voice felt hollow and airy, the thoughts not making any sense, but that was normal now.

The girls shared a look and I sighed, wishing I had just kept my mouth shut and made up some lie. "What did you see?"

I thought about it, trying to retrieve all of the details. It was hard, like everything having to do with my brain at this point. I couldn't even recite prime numbers to myself before falling asleep now. "New York . . . it was . . . in flames. . . and my mom was there. . . but she died, I think . . . and I-I was. . . I was hurting people . . . but not touching them?"

"Hades, that wasn't a dream. I'm sorry, but-"

*

It meant the mutation worked. It meant I was never leaving. It meant I couldn't go home. I was too dangerous now.

But nothing happened. Not for a while at least. Not until he showed up.

He had the same buzzed hair that now matched mine and that scar right below his eye. His smirk was ever present, he even wore that threadbare green hoodie- the one that was buried in the bottom of my closet back in Miami. He had the same sharp jaw and was still lanky, but strong after years of football. But when he spoke, it wasn't those assurances he would whisper when mom didn't show up, or one of the stupid jokes he spouted when I had nightmares.

He would look at me like I was some kid caught with my hand in the cookie jar. "Come on now, Ray-Bans, give up already."

"You're never going home, Ray."

"I will."

"Deal with it bubba, you brought this to yourself. You weren't strong enough. You never were."

"Strong enough to stay."

"I was always taking care of you and now, look where you ended up. You couldn't even last a few years without me."

He was right.

"You're nothing, Ray-Ban's, nothing. You'll never be good enough, never be good. Not when you're here- Hydra -you're Hydra now. You're a mistake. A lab rat. A monster."

I'm a mistake, I am. A lab rat. A monster. Hydra.