Wasting My Young Years || Bucky Barnes (Book 1)

Chapter 2

SATURDAY, JULY 15th, 1989. 0712 HOURS

Pain.

Physically, mostly. Mentally will soon be there. At least once those swollen, green eyes open in a desperate manner. That might have to wait, though. Instead, she lets her bare, scraped up legs tuck underneath her ripped up dress and her slender arms be her guide in her almost blacked-out state.

Coldness.

Frigid temperatures raise the hair along her pale skin. It cascades around her shivering body, sending chills straight up her spine to chatter her few adult and many baby teeth that are left. Mind the one missing in the front. That just fell out last week. Her body draws itself closer together on the concrete floor.

Darkness.

Everywhere. With her heavy eyes finally opening slowly, the only light that shows is the flickering one just above her. It swings gently, yet not even a breeze is present. Everything is still but her breathing and the swaying light.

Silence.

Except for her low, struggling breath that grows a little more each time as soon as reality begins to hit a little harder. It discomforts her. It frightens her. It's terrifying, to say the least. She remembers, though. Her still developing brain remembers everything: the man with the metal arm, the car fire, her parents....

Her body comes fully alive when a clink is gathered at a nearby door she hadn't yet seen until a dark light appears through, yet it's bright enough to hurt her beady orbs. In fact, it's not even close to being bright in any way. She wonders how long she's been asleep to be this sensitive to the light. Yeah... asleep. This has to be a nightmare. Her mommy got them, too. She remembers running to her room late at night to see her daddy hugging mommy close, soon her little legs taking her to her parents and hugging her, too.

That's right. This is a nightmare. It's gotta be. It has to be. She needs it to be.

She begins to cry again. She's weak; she's hurt; she saw her parents on the ground, red spiraling around both their heads. What else is there to do for a girl who has seen and felt so many emotions in such a short amount of time?

At one point, she was singing and dancing. The next, she was being gripped by metal snakes and tormented with fire eyes from a man in a red hat.

Two pairs of hands pick her up by both her arms. This time all flesh. Not what the other man had. Not that... thing. For some reason, Clara tries to move her legs, but they are like jelly beneath her. Her arms. Even her head. It's as if her body shut down completely on her without her control or without her say. But her silent, pleading, worthless cries echo through the halls nonetheless.

The men stay quiet, not one spilling any kind of sound, although the stomps from their boots are enough to hurt her suddenly sensitive ears.

The men in black uniform continue to walk down the many halls, speckles of light bulbs here and there, always consistent. From the corner of Clara's vision, a different man unlocks a door that leads to another room in the huge building. She doesn't remember ever entering this building in the first place.

Brilliant, white light spills out of the room as if a heaven that isn't even there guides her through golden gates into the arms of angels.

Only the golden gates is a large metal door. Only the angels instead wear white lab coats and grip her roughly.

She is walked in, the feeling of the bitter cold ripping at her when she feels her dirtied, possibly bloody dress peel from her body and she's left in nothing but her undergarment. And she can't do anything but allow it because her body won't tolerate anything else from her but her weeping filled throat and red eyes.