Violet | Bucky Barnes

One | Lyla

They kept me caged up.

I couldn't see any sunlight, windows were non-existent here, wherever here was. I was surrounded by near darkness, it ate up the whole room in its entirety. It was just me, although I couldn't be sure who I was. Confusion fogged my senses as the dim UV light, my only source of reality, flickered high above in my prison.

I awoke again in a haze, still unable to remember how long I had been here, it was like time didn't exist anymore. I groaned at the harsh smell surrounding me, I held back a gag and thought hard, trying with every ounce of energy I had to recall memories of how I came to be here in this hell hole. Nothing, just a fog inside my mind. I tried to bring my hands to my temple but they would not move. Spent, I blacked out again.

★

As the days and months slowly wore on, I regained some sense of self.

I wasn't allowed out of my cramped cell, although small I was able to touch both walls if I stretched my arms out. Three of the walls were made of damp, musty concrete that crumbled if you looked at it, heavy metal bars at the front kept me tightly locked in, rusty chains hung over my only exit, a solid padlock that could only be opened with a special type of key, held them together. There wasn't a bed in this diminutive room, just a worn spot on the dirty floor with a scrap of musty, ragged material to cover myself, it failed to keep me warm. My clothes were old and tired, rags that barely clung to my bruised and broken skin, my bones protrude through the paper thin membrane.

The air around me smelt like rusting metal and burning, it hurt my nose. I scrunch my nose up as the scent suffocated me. Looking down I saw there were thick, heavy metal cuffs encapsulating my wrists, they glowed blue, then purple. I could feel them draining me constantly, and were the source of the burning smell, my wrists were charred. I felt bile rise to my throat.

Reality faded in and out. I couldn't tell what was real, my mind felt foggy. I felt hollow, floating, like I was on drugs. An internal scream echoed inside my pounding head.

I couldn't protect myself. I couldn't protect them. I watched them die in front of me, my mother and sister, it was all my fault. Tortured. Broken, ripped apart.

The nightmares haunted me constantly. I couldn't block them out. I couldn't escape. My fingers clawed at my skull as I tried to force out the memory. My wrists snagged against the cold hard metal encapsulating them, the flesh puckered, causing me to cry out in pain. I tried with all my might to muster up as much strength as I could, but I was too weak. A low mournful sound escaped my lips as I slumped on the rags beneath me, my knees clanging against the stone cold floor, more bruises would form over my already purple flesh.

Over time I became someone else. Feral. Almost a shell of the person I used to be, I knew that, I knew I was never this person, even if I couldn't remember who I truly was. The cuffs binding my wrists sent purple, electrical bursts coursing through me, up my arms, down my body, all the way to my toes at regular intervals, burning the flesh at my wrists further with every burst of energy.

They were draining my powers... using them against me, that I had deduced, they had done something to me, changed me.

My captors visited occasionally, clipboards in hand, muttering in hushed tones and a foreign language I did not recognise. Occasionally one would enter my cell, gun in hand and inject me with an unknown solution. It knocked me out for days and the fog would materialise again.

✧

One day, for some strange reason I do not know, the cuffs came off, it perplexed me. I had to sit for a moment in wonder. I flexed my hands and fingers in front of me, the burning stopped when the cuffs came away. I relished in the freedom, even though my digits hurt like hell when I moved them, bones cracked at creaked where they shouldn't. I felt my energy replenish almost immediately. I felt alive.