EXECUTIONER'S SONG. ❪ Steve Rogers ❫ ✓

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Every morning, one of the Red Room instructors would enter the room and unlock the handcuffs that tied each girl to her bed. It was for safety measures. Some girls who had been taken in by the Red Room were ungrateful and would attempt to run away. They never got far.

Darcy Petranova was always awake before an instructor entered each morning. It wasn't that she didn't trust them. It was because she trusted them that she was always awake beforehand. They taught her to always be alert, and that was what she was doing. She learned to always be up on her toes, figuratively and psychically. Girls who overslept would get punished or die. Darcy learned it the hard way, having to watch an instructor shoot the girl in the bed next to her one morning.

It was hard being the only person of color in the facility. She was prone to teasing and bullying from other girls whenever instructors turned their backs on them, but she didn't let it get to her. The Red Room only took her in because she was an orphan who could easily infiltrate Asia without questions asked.

She didn't know who she really was, but she didn't think about it because she couldn't remember. Her life began in the Red Room, is what was drilled into her mind.

Darcy and the other girls in the room got dressed for the day. Once each girl was dressed, they lined up based on their weekly charts which were determined from strongest to weakest. The girl at the end of the line was an easy target, but so was the top girl. Darcy was the top girl. Every girl was jealous of her and yearned for the opportunity to kill her during combat.

They walked to the cafeteria in a single file line with matching footsteps at an exact tempo. They grabbed a tray with a beat in between each girl, walking forward to let the lunch ladies plop food in. They only got a piece of bread, milk, and half an apple for breakfast.

Where they sat was up to them. The instructors were there, eating their own lavish food in front of them in order to bait them and tease them, reminding them what awaited them after graduation.

The instructors were always watching. Darcy knew that, but it didn't stop her from handing Clarice, the girl at the end of the line - the weak one -, a piece of her toast.

Once breakfast was over in only ten minutes at maximum, they would go out into the courtyard with their first instructor for combatant training with each other.

"Line up, face to face," Instructor V commanded.

The girls did as told, splitting in half to each have an opponent.

"Darcy, Clarice."

Darcy knew she shouldn't have given Clarice a piece of her own bread. She was sorry for Clarice, knowing her fate. She was visibly shaking, and the Red Room had no use for girls like that.

Darcy stood in front of her with her hands behind her back, carefully watching her. She learned to never underestimate any opponent, no matter how weak they seemed.

"Begin."

Clarice dove for Darcy, which was her first mistake. Darcy side-stepped her and brought her fist down onto her spine. Clarice's stomach smacked onto the ground and she rolled away, scrambling away from Darcy. Darcy grabbed her shirt and pulled her up, wrapping an arm around her neck before turning so they could both face their instructor.

Their instructor nodded, and Darcy twisted the girl's neck and she went limp in her arms. She was a small girl, so the weight was nothing for Darcy.

The instructor gestured to one of the guards who walked over and took Clarice's body from Darcy's arms. Darcy stepped back into line, waiting for the next fight.