Everything is black, but she can still feel the walls of the small room, boxing her in, confining her. The air does not move, save the meager disturbances caused by her regular, mechanical breathing. Sounds from the outside are muffled by the concrete and metal which encases her.
Outside, there is darkness. Inside, there is emptiness.
Everywhere, there is nothing.
She did what she was supposed to do; what she knows was right. She had always known that she might be arrested in the process. She never considered what might happen after that.
After that, there was... nothing. No more reasons, no more causes. No more purpose. Just these four walls, and the door with the small opening which food is occasionally pushed through.
She only eats it because not to do so would require a conscious decision on her part. Everything she does, she does on autopilot. She eats when they give her food, she washes when they take her to the showers, she sits in front of the glass when Kate visits.
Mostly, she lies in her cell and stares at the nothingness.
Sometimes she tries to recapture the feeling that she is a part of something great, something significant. With every attempt, that feeling slides farther away.
Her part has been played. She has served her purpose. The only thing still expected of her is to die.
She hears the clang of the gate as the guard steps into her block. She listens to his footsteps.
...nine, ten, eleven, twelve.
He stops at the end of the corridor, right outside her cell. One, two, three seconds as he turns around, and then he walks back.
nine, ten, eleven, tw--
Wait.
No twelve.
No clang of the gate as he leaves.
Marie Warner sits bolt upright.
She doesn't know why. She knows that there is no reason to believe that the reason for this irregularity isn't something completely mundane.
And yet, she knows that it isn't.
She becomes aware of the sound of her breathing, faster than it has been since she first felt handcuffs around her wrists. She hears blood pumping through her ears, and realizes, as if for the first time, that she is alive.
The door to her cell opens, and despite the blinding light she does not blink, but instead stares with burning eyes at the figure who stands silhouetted before her.
Yelena.
Memories pour into her mind, filling the emptiness with colors and smells and the echoes of long-forgotten sensations.
Yelena's hair, full of sand, honey-brown grains in raven-black strands...
"She's just a freelancer. We need her for her knowledge and expertise. Don't trust her." Said by countless people in countless ways, yet none tempering Marie's fascination with this strangely exotic woman; the only other American, the only other female, yet still so inexplicably different from Marie herself.
The way just the arch of her eyebrows makes her want to melt.
The way her lips feel on her skin.
The way she says "I'm leaving" with no trace of regret, and how that only makes Marie yearn for her more.
Her picture in the newspaper years later, the words "Nina Myers", "arrested", "life sentence".
And now, Yelena takes her hand, pulls her wordlessly towards the door.
"How?" Marie blurts. "Why?"
Yelena smirks, the way she always did. "I lived here almost year. I need you for a job."
Marie clutches her hand harder, and they go out into the corridor, and into the light.
The End