Prologue
My teachers have taught me since I was seven years old that it all started with Project Insight. Three large-scale Helicarriers rose into the sky and cleansed the Earth of, what we call, its Undesirables. More than three million people died that day.
Now, before you say anything, I can't remember anything before I was seven years old. I don't remember what my life was like, what my favorite TV show was, what kind of game that I liked to play during my school hours, or if I even went to school before that, for that matter. All I can remember, however, is that my uniform had me embroider a patch over my heart, that had a red skull with six tentacles underneath stitched into it.
All I can remember is raising both my arms with my hands in tight fists to salute our true leader Johann Schmidt, or the Red Skull, informally, while we would shout in unison "Hail Hydra!".
They remind us on a daily basis that our Hydra-driven society serves to establish and protect the natural order of life. And anyone who thinks otherwise will more or less likely be publicly executed by one of the Helicarriers. Truth be told, I've heard it's a mercy killing compared to what would happen to you if the Elite Police Force found out about you, or worse, the Winter Soldiers.
They say that freedom is our greates enemy. They say that people are too dangerous and unintelligent to be entrusted to make decisions for themselves. They also refuse to teach us about the past. They like to call the times before Hydra established its presence as our peacekeepers and as our Super Power, the Forbidden Tales. They tell us that it's more of a work of fiction than actual events that happened.
I've never known a world before this one. I've never known this thing called "freedom".
That is, until I stumbled upon an old film reel that depicted a man in a uniform that had an 'A' printed on the front of his helmet, and a shield that had rings on its edge and a star in its center.