Power Within Her

Childhood

There is only so much of my past that I truly remember; whenever I try to think back, the scattered memories flash through my mind and never make any sense. No matter how much I wanted to remember the past, the same glimpses are all I ever see; my mom's smiling face, my dad, holding me to his chest, and my brother throwing snow in my face. Even though I can't remember anything from my past, I am so desperate to feel those emotions again; the safety, warmth, love, and security that only a family could ever provide. Hydra tried to rename me, so I had no remnants of my actual family, but it was the one thing I had left; Nikolina Volkova.

The only thing I feel now is hate and anger; all I am is dark, callous, and cold—a shell of my former self. Hydra made sure of that; they made sure I would obey without a second thought, never questioning. To be Hydra's perfect weapon.

Attention. Cold. Three. Bravado. Black. Needle. Sixteen. Obedient.

Eight words are all that it takes to turn me into a monster. Eight words Hydra uses to control me. Eight words I hate hearing. I have complied with eight phrases since Hyrda took me at five years old. A child- but I was the child of two people who Hydra wanted dead. The two experiments were able to escape, or so they thought. My parents never truly got away because Hydra always had eyes on them.

It has been almost 20 years since Hydra took me; Hydra had a plan, and they made me the main subject. Hydra craves power, and to gain control sometimes, the unthinkable must happen. My parents were the only two successful experiments to come out of Hydra's lab; my mother's darkness solidification and my father's terrain manipulation. With my parent's power running through my veins, it was inevitable that I was born different, and that is what Hydra was counting on, what they were waiting to happen.

My powers are variations of both my father's and mother's; telekinetic and darkness manipulation. So basically got the overall spectrum from which my parent's powers stem. My powers began to show themself when I was a little over one, which Hydra was hoping for. As I began to grow, so did my powers; when I was little, I could move a toy only a couple of feet, but I started merging the darkness with my telekinetic powers by the time I was five years old. My parents did everything they could think of to keep me from using my powers, and to keep me safe, but they couldn't. They couldn't save me; no one could. Hydra was coming for me, and there was nothing that anyone could do to stop them from taking me.

They succeeded; Hydra killed my family and took me away to be their little lab rat.

Hydra began experimenting on me, extracting powers from me to make more human weapons. Being so young, they took the opportunity to send me to the Red Room to be taught how to kill efficiently. First, seeing the place where ballet dancers were twirling and jumping along to the music, I was entranced, wanting nothing more than to be like the girls I saw. How wrong I was; the classes still haunt my dreams; hearing the eerie music and feeling my skin getting struck with the wooden stick that drew blood. No mistakes were allowed, no stumbling, no showing pain, and no weakness.

What I thought would be my dream of becoming a ballerina turned into a nightmare shaping me into an assassin. The countless hours of dancing taught us patience and to endure pain, memory, and fluidity in our movements. By the time my tenth birthday came along, I was fluent in at least 16 languages and could take apart any weapon and reassemble it with my eyes closed.

Attending the Red Room didn't mean that Hydra stopped experimenting on me; oh no, it just signified that I couldn't fight back as much due to exhaustion from dancing and fighting. Black Widow and the Winter Soldier were the ones to train me in combat, stealth, and espionage. When I got older, and my figure began to fill out, Natasha taught me to use my body to manipulate and distract men, making every inch of me a weapon. My body took an hourglass shape, my height reaching 5'3", and my skin color darkened slightly from a light brown to a rich caramel color. My hair is the one thing I take pride in and comfort in, never letting anyone touch or cut it; my ebony hair with natural highlights now reached my hips and had a slight wave to it.

The first mission I ever went on was with the Winter Soldier. I was 11; it was a track-and-kill mission to test how my skills have come along. I remember having to lay in the snow in the middle of December in Russia at 1 in the morning, sniper rifle set in front of me and the Winter Soldier staring at me, waiting for my finger to pull the trigger. I can still remember the scope pressing against my eye; out of the corner of my eye, I see the signal to shoot. My finger begins to press the trigger when I pause, the target standing there with a look of peace on his face as he looks to the sky, letting the snowflakes land on him.

"Shoot." The one word that made my heart clench and my breathing become harder. I look to the soldier, silently begging him not to make me kill a person, "Shoot him, now. I will not tell you again." The words send fear through my body, my eye looks through the scope, and I take aim; I pause again and hold my breath. I didn't even register that my fingers had pulled the trigger; all I could see was his body lying on the ground with a pool of blood coming from his head. A tear slips my eye, and I look to the soldier, "You never cry. It is a weakness." I wipe the tear away at his words and hand the weapon back to the soldier, hands shaking violently. "Come on. It is time we head back."

I guess the Winter Soldier told Hydra and the Red Room that I hesitated and cried because I was placed in the torture chamber for the first time. The beatings taught me no matter how much something hurt, to show no pain, but the worst part was when innocent people were placed in front, and my captors told me to kill them. Whenever I hesitated or showed any form of emotion in my eyes or body language, I received beatings. After a while, I stopped hesitating, stopped feeling anything.

Once my emotions stopped, my powers continued to develop meant that I had a whole new set of training; to hone my abilities and reach the highest level possible. Not only could I kill with my body or a weapon, but now I could kill with my powers. My favorite way to kill was to use the darkness to place people in their worst nightmare, and worsen their fear before I would telekinetically start squeezing their lungs until they were crushed and no longer alive.

That's how I got my name, well, my nickname, "Death's daughter." My codename, however, is Kali after the Hindu goddess whose name means 'she who is death.' That name could not have been more fitting; everywhere I go, everything I do brings death and destruction; what I would give to get out of this life, away from killing, to have a family, and live in peace. To be known as Nikolina Volkova.