Hey everyone! I managed to get another chapter finished today for this story. It seems to be a lot easier for me to write this one because I already had the main plot points of my character's past written down for a character reference sheet. I'm enjoying writing this already! XD Anyway, enjoy!

It had been several years since the day I was brought into the world, but the day I had witnessed a murder through my innocent, infant eyes still haunted my dreams. I was especially disturbed now that I was six and could better understand the world around me. Unlike most children at my age, whose eyes gleamed with happy and energetic life, my big eyes were forever clouded by fear of the murderous old man. However, the nice woman who had held me that fateful day, who I later learned was named Anya Desyatkov, had taken care of me in my early years. Sadly, she could not take care of me forever. Soon, I'd have to be trained by the very man I feared, the old man, or the Headmaster of the Hydra base we lived in, as Anya had explained to me when I had asked her where we were.

The base itself was located only a few miles away from the city Moscow, but well hidden, as I've been told. No one has infiltrated or attacked the base in almost one hundred years, and I was told that Hydra had a big influence over a lot of Europe at this point in time, where a second world war had raged. However, despite the war I didn't understand, it was not the outside I feared. What I feared was the inside. The people here were cruel and harsh, not including sweet Anya, and I soon learned that if I were to survive, I had to keep quiet and submissive, even when insults were constantly being spat at me by the workers at Hydra.

The only person I trusted was Anya. It turned out that she was a nurse who worked in Hydra for a few years, still fairly new to the place herself, to help heal the soldiers and scientists who were constantly developing advanced weapons for the war. She volunteered to look after me when I was created because she wanted to know what it was like to be a mother and couldn't have a child of her own due to infertility. Not to mention, she told me that if she hadn't volunteered, that I would have been put under the care of Marusya Abalyshev, who was a "horrible old hag" as I heard Anya once call Marusya under her breath.

Anya was in the middle of telling me about the outside world, for I was forbidden to set foot outside, when we heard angry voices faintly down the hall, getting closer and closer ever so slightly. She widened her eyes and looked at me, "It's time."

I looked at her in confusion, but I was slightly fearful from the serious tone in her voice, "Time for what?"

"You are considered of age to them. He's going to take you."

"The Headmaster?" I asked fearfully. We never used his real name, it meant disrespect if we did. Anyone disrespectful to him ended up dying, like the blond man I had seen get shot in my infancy.

"Yes," she said quietly, and then added quickly when the voices got closer, "Now, I want you to listen to what I have to tell you at this point very carefully. Are you listening?"

I nodded, my eyes as wide as an owl's.

"Good. He's going to train you so that you can serve Hydra. You'll have to do everything he says, exactly as he says it, or else he'll punish you, understand?"

I gulped and nodded, my eyes starting to tear up. Punishment around here meant torture. I remembered hearing screams down this very hall once, late at night, and wondered if the Headmaster had dished out some punishment then. "But, I-I don't want to leave you, mother." Despite the fact that I knew now that she wasn't my mother, I always considered her to be.

Anya looked at me with her gentle eyes and pulled me into a tight hug, "Hush now, dear child, it will be all right." She held me so that she could look me in the eye, "Now, wipe those tears away and take a deep breath."

I sniffled softly and then complied, stopping the flow of my tears, if only for that moment. I knew they would shed again later.

"There's a good girl," she said softly, gently tucking my long, dark brown hair behind my ears, "Be brave, child. Hopefully this will all be over soon." She gently kissed my forehead in a motherly fashion and soon, the voices stopped on the other side of the door and roughly pounded on it. Anya stood up and walked up to the door, slowly opening it. I hid behind her fearfully; I didn't want to go with the two men who waited on the other side.

"We're here for Project Z," a tall, muscular man said, referring to what I was called. The Headmaster had failed to give me a name when I was born and continued to call me by Project Z, the name they had used when I was being developed in the laboratories.

Anya nodded and hesitated a moment, it was obvious that she really didn't want to give me up yet. "Are you sure she's ready?" she asked, "I mean, she is still only six."

The other man, much shorter, but just as muscular glared at her, "We're under strict orders from the Headmaster to fetch her now, at this point in time. Hand her over."

"But what if she's not ready?" she protested.

"He doesn't care if she's ready or not, her training starts today. Hand her over now," the short man repeated, his voice more harsh and forceful this time.

Anya sighed and looked to me sadly, gently pushing me towards the two men. I whimpered pitifully and held tightly onto her hand, refusing to let go. "You must go, child," she said softly.

I shook my head, my eyes closed tightly, "N-no. I don't want to!"

"You must," she repeated softly.

I sighed and opened my eyes, hugging her tightly and then looking at her for one last time before slowly walking towards the two men. They looked at me scornfully before leading me down the hall, walking with me in between the two to make sure I didn't make a run for it. I ignored their disappointed looks; I was too busy worrying about what would happen to me now that I had to face the Headmaster.