winter's child

Don't Touch

I sit on a boxy, stiff couch. It looks more like a decoration than a piece of soft furniture. My mind replays the horrific scene in front of me like a movie, over and over.

I rub my eyes. I close them. I cover them. I still see it. My frozen body. My mother reaching for me desperately. The pitiful bomb. The thick dust. The suffocating silence. He bloody, crushed features. Her hollowed out eyes. My echoing, hopeless scream.

People walk past me, disrupting my vision for seconds at a time. I don't make eye contact. I don't look from my spot on the wall. My new mother comes and sits next to me. She touches my hand and I flinch away.

At first, someone would try to touch me every so often. Every time, I jerked pale, small limbs away, folding into myself. After a while, they gave up, hope still lingering in their eyes and hands.

Eventually, a man with soft features and glasses comes to me and says, "Tanya, you are going to see a doctor. We want to make sure you are okay."

He is a welcome distraction from the terrifying movie of my memory. I follow him into an elevator. We go to another level and step off. Everything is white and windowless here. He opens a random door, and we enter. He motions for me to sit on a chair. I do.

He leaves the room. I turn and find two people in the back. One has a white coat and the other is the red haired woman. She gives a small smile and a wave. I stare back at her, wanting to show compassion, but I can't. Something feels wrong; my body no longer listens to me. It listens to the part of me that was left trapped beneath the rubble with my mother.

The white-coat man comes to me. He prods me with cold metal. It stings my skin, but I comply. He pulls out a needle and my body goes tight. Where I came from, you avoided needles at all costs. They were rarely sterile and would just make you more sick.

The woman comes to me and holds my hand, "It's okay, Tanya. It's fine," she reassures. It doesn't help.

My cardigan is pushed down just a little and my dress' shoulder up a touch. The doctor is about to push it into my shoulder, when I jerk my arm back. The sharp silver tip, cuts my arm, leaving a wet, red line. The man's papery, balding skin folds into a frown as he gathers cotton to stuff it with.

I feel like a doll: being stuffed with fluff, being told things that I don't know if they are true, not being in control of myself.

The doctor's voice is as dry as his skin when he says, "Close your eyes."

I clench them shut, hoping it will block out the pain of what they're going to do to me. I heard rumors of an evil organization that experimented on people, trying to make them into the perfect monsters. HYDRA, they were called.

I think I was one of them.

My breaths come relentlessly, clogging my throat. Finally, I split out, "Please! please don't make me a monster!"

Frustrated hot tears pour down my cheeks. The doctor pulls away from me, confused. My new mother motions for him to step out. I'm choking as she asks me, "What do you mean?"

"You're-you're Them... I don't want to be a monster!" I shout.

"Who's 'them'?" she asks, worry lining her eyes.

"The monster-makers! HYDRA!"

She lets out a soft breath, "Oh Tanya, what happened? What did They do to you?"

I am silent, not knowing what I'm allowed to say, but I eventually croak, "I know people die and people go missing. And I hear whispers that They did it."

"Tanya, we're not HYDRA," she says with a small smile, "I can't tell you what we are yet, but I can promise we are not HYDRA. They did this to me."

She lifts up a small part of her shirt. There is a puffy line running across her stomach. My small fingers touch, not even wanting to know what type of pain she's gone through.

With an anxious look, I pull up my ruined tights. Even, long scars line my legs. Then I pull off my thin jacket. The same scars are on my arms. I walk over to the sink and scrub at the bomb embedded dirt. Finally, I sit down in front of her, scars exposed on my legs, arms, and hands.

Her lips tremble as she asks, "Do you know what they did?"

I shake my head no, and for the first time in two days speak fully, "I sometimes see flashes of white lights and silver table. There was a chair that hurt my mind. I just remember my mother coming to sneak me out about a year ago. She said, 'I'm sorry I did that to you...' I-I think she gave me to Them."

She wraps me in hug. For the first time, I put fragile arms gently on her back. She brushes delicate fingers through my hair, whispering, "It's okay now. It will all be okay."

It's nighttime now and I find myself in a calming bedroom. It is lightly colored and the furniture looks a little old fashioned, but in a good way. My new parents sit on the mattress laid on the wood floor for me.

"Tanya can you tell me what happened to you?" the man asks. I'm not quite ready to call them mother and father yet.

"It was a long time ago," I say weakly, "It was HYDRA. They... did things to me. I only remember flashes of things and a chair that hurt and trials. I think they wanted to make one of their monsters. My mother came for my when I was littler. She said after we escaped, 'I'm sorry I did that to you...' I-I think she gave me to them." Silently, I show my scars again.

He sucks in a deep breath before saying with a heavy voice, "I was one of them. I was one of Their monsters," I clench my fists instinctively, as my chest tightens, "They did the same things to me. And it worked. But I escaped. It took decades, but I made it out. I'm free from Their control, but they permanently scarred me."

When confusion twitches over my face, he points to his metal arm. The arm I touched like it was human. The arm that guided me away from the city of dust and death. The arm I trusted to protect me.

Maybe one day I can escape what they did to me.

But not yet.

After a long, understanding silence my new mother shuts off the light. I slip into the sheets on the mattress as they go into their fluffy bed. After a few minutes I hear them whisper outside my door, "I didn't realize they experimented on children."

The woman responds, "They did the same thing to Wanda. She was older, but still a child. I see a little bit of her in Tanya's eyes."

Questions flit through my sleepless brain, Who's Wanda? What did they do to her? What did they do to me?

Finally, I fall into the black void of sleep, only to have my mind opened up to even worse things. Vision dance across my closed eyelids. I see men in white coats cutting open my skin and putting things in. I see them puncture me countless times, inject an infinite array of substances into my tiny body. I see myself in a padded room, arms chained around me, as scream, pulling with white, crackling strength out of the chains. Then I see the chair. I see myself sit in it, heavy breaths as they clamp something around my head. Then, black. I sit up in a panicked sweat.

I look around, scanning, waiting for someone to come drag me back to the chair. I don't know why, but my body moves without direction, as I climb on to their bed, curling into myself at their feet. I hope they will protect me. I hope they can.