BLACK WIDOW

immure

immure
(v.)
to seclude, to confine, to shut in

•••

"What was that?" she asked simply.

Natalia couldnt think of a way to reply that wouldn't anger the woman, so she decided to use her words against her. "I was not broken, Madame."

Madame looked upon her in merciless disgust, her lips forming a thin line. "We shall see," was all she said to Natalia as she turned on her heal and lead the Winter Soldier out of the room.

Nalalia didnt know what was going on until she turned around and saw two off the men who assisted in training and did mediocre jobs such as toting out the lifeless broken bodies of young girls who had lost their souls to the Red Room. The large men dressed in black carried heavy metal clubs and looked ready to do exactly what Natalia feared.

One stood on either side of her and took her forcifully by her elbow and shoulder, to discourage any escape and lead her to the very room she remembered from two years ago. The room where she witnessed the horrifying execution of Anastasia.

And it was then that she knew this was it. She had known other girls to have be taken out of the race due simply to incompetence or getting on the nerves of Madame B. But instead, she was taken further back into the white room where within a circle, there were two poles with latches on them- built in hancuffs for eaach wrist.

With no fighting, she let them attach her to the prison, and readied herself for what was to come.

As the larger man readied his club and reared back for the first blow, Natalia closed her eyes and thought back to the sights, smells, and pleasures of that christmas eve with James, knowing that she will not die now. She will see him again. They didn't bring her here to kill her immediately. All she had to do was put on a srong face and get lost in her memeroies.

And there was the first one. A hard thrash upon her back, left an immediate bruise. Natalia's head fell back in reaction to the pain. Hit after hit, she could feel her body become mor and more feeble. And just when she though they may be done, they swtiched their weopon of choice from a club, to a whip and began striking her on her thighs and back, slashing through her clothes and into her skin.

She could't stop the screams that spilled from her bloodied mouth or the blood that poured from her open wounds. She could stop many things. But she could not stop the fact that she was human, even though the Red Room didn't see it that way.

And just when she thought she couldn't take any more—just when she was in so much pain that she couldn't move—when every part of her body was bloodied and bruised, they started over again with a new type of torture.

They removed her hands from the captivity of the bars and cuffed them behind her back, bringing her to over to a new area of the room that she hadn't yet gathered the strength to observe. The was a small five by five tub of water. Already unable to find a steady breathing pattern from the pain and injury inflicted upon her back and chest, and eyes spotting from the immeasurable pain and exhaustion, a hand wrapped angerly around her neck and shoulder as they forced her under water.

Natalitia hadn't even been aware enough to take a breath before this ordeal, therefore all she could do was pray they woud bring her up quicky. She was too weak to fight back And Just as she was about to pass out, spots filling her eyes, she was brought to the surface, allowed to breath in some much needed air. her hair blocked her eyes, bur she could feel the men lowering her back into the water, trying harder an harder again to break her.

But she would not be broken. Not by Hydra and not by the Red Room. And after proving that to the two guards as they plunged her weak body into the water again and again, she was put on her knees, so that a hard clobber to her head would finally render her unconcienious, releasimg her from the pain only momentarily.