Chapter 20


They told her one simple word.

Neutralize.

Avora listened to the girlish screams erupted from the darkness. It didn't come from her. She could feel the thumping of a pulse against her finger tips. Her hands coiled over soft flesh and cracked bones. A heart beat. She felt a heart beat merging with the skin of her clammy palm. She listened to the struggling breaths, and felt the coldness of death ensnare her as resistance faded with a programmed command ingrained in her mind. Neither connection or emotion fussed in her. She had been given a chance to let loose as all entangling thought focused on one word. Kill. She could see the shadow of a body pinned against the pale light streaming the frosted windows, it' was somber and once served as a purpose of contentment, however, it became a shade of her new world—a monotonous gray caught in the divide of light and darkness.

The first glimpse she had caught of her prey was a running line of blood seeping into the cracks of the solid ground underneath her. Desolated brown eyes scanned over the red with murderous intent. She couldn't fight the impulses. It felt like raw carnage had been devouring her from the inside out. She wanted to depart from the shadows at the same time her vision was swimming in numb daze. She heard the harsh voices, sort of like lecherous chants of hunger waiting to become satisfied.

All sounds wandered through the rages of storms in her obscured mind and untamed instinct ravaged through all part of her small body. Blood roared in her ears, skull pounded and she enclosed her arm over a neck. Muscles had locked with bone. It was a test of trial and error. A session to allow her mind, body and spirit to fully accept the serum without the obstruction of her emotions. How could she make sense of what transpired around her? She was forced in submission through enduring stages of brutal compromise against her body. At those exact moments of having reaction against the automate process, as she tried to clutch at some of the distant memories trying to emerge from the gaps of her mind, Avora had become aware of the snarls of aggression emanating from the rawness of her throat.

Feelings her hands were visibly shaking against clammy flesh, the compulsion to kill overtook her, the thoughts of her past drifted further she clenched her teeth hard. The murmur of a plea formed in breathless syllables and drove her into a swirling vortex of pure red. That was the only color that coated over her tears as white hot pain that had been blazing in her head for the moment the needles pierced her skin had jaded into a chastened pulse across her temples and poignant agony was no more than twinge. However, everything was contrasting into vicious and fractured diverse.

Her body began to convulse as she recognize the words they had registered in her brain. Kill. She blinked, and tried to fight against the hold placed over her, tear blurred their faces and she couldn't react the touch. A wool fabric smothered over her lips, clogging her airways, each inhale drove a savage impulse deeper in her straining her. It was a smell of fresh blood, and it was suffocating her- distortions of faces became washed in crimson. Her head was cloudy, and she couldn't function her muscles to protest. She felt a warm and trickling sensation creep over her legs. Her dark eyes snapped down for a moment as the floor ripped apart, and she saw was a heap of shackled bodies drowning into the thickening chasm as the world crumpled into pieces. She felt everything. All the pain and sickness knotting in her stomach. They were butchering her on the inside, allowing the serum to guzzling the warmth-blood was turning into ice.

"It won't last," The Director said in a softer tone, his hand stroking down her neck. "Once your body summits to the pain it become immune to it..."

Avora closed her eyes, preparing herself, the bile in her stomach roiled. She shook her head, matted strands whipped against her pale cheeks, and she wanted to feel discontented from the imposing heat of a body pressed against her chest. It was another victim of HYDRA's inhumane methods, a abomination of failure who had been required for termination. "I don't want to do this..." Avora cried, tears streaming hotly down her gaunt cheeks. She it was wrong. Her eyes stung. The tears wouldn't stop their descent. She couldn't stop them. They were flooding down her face at disorderly and alarming rates, moistening her skin and washing away the smears of blood. "I want to go home..."

"Enough, crying." He chastised against her whimpering pleas. He tugged violently on her hair, jerking her head to the side, almost slamming her face into his knee. "You are showing me that weakness still exists in you, Avora. Prove to me that you can be strong and I will allow you freedom to go outside."

Freedom. It sounded inaccessible to her. For that ability to live without darkness fade as smoldering abhorrence slithered in her veins. Avora knew there was no escape from this world, and her body was adapting to the change and her innocence had dissolved, regardless of her defiance she obeyed the command when the cold muzzle of the gun pressed against her skull. She knew the safety had been taken off by a sound of a click rattling across her temples, and yet, she didn't blanch away from the scene as the Director's shadow mocked her with chance. Her life was hanging in the balance of his hands. All she knew was she needed to stay alive, even though blood would stain her hands. It became necessary to do what she was told without hesitation or compliance.

"If you fail to complete the task and try to fight your emotions. We will not hesitate to harm you. Insubordination cannot be tolerated." His voice was firm and hand clutched tightly over the gun. He gave her a hard look and with an abrasive tone he uttered out the instructions. "Do what you have been born to do, Avora," he stared down at her pale face, watching her body grow rigid with conviction. "Take a life."

Suddenly upon an rabid impulse of response to her superior, Avora's eyes darkened into a vacant shade, "By your command, father," she returned with no emotion in her voice. She waited for her permission to act. Then, while releasing a enraged snarl of contempt, allowed the other girl to roll onto the floor before pounding her skull with vicious blows and wrangled the neck once more. Choking noises of whistless pleas emerged from the paling lips. She didn't care. All that flooded in her mind was impulse to kill. She stared up at Avora afraid of her end.

"Finish this runt, Avora." The Director commanded with a edge of hostile intent. "Do not hesitate, my child."

She violently forced the girl's head backwards, twisted and waited for the ugly snap of detached bones. She couldn't let go of the lifeless body. She couldn't pull herself away. The taste of blood grew insatiable. She wanted more. More.

The girl's body dropped to the floor and operative sentinels dragged the corpse away. She couldn't scream. The red, bright and lucid flooded over her vision. She slammed her fists into the floor, scraping her knuckles. The sensation of cold steel of a gun resting over her cheek vanished with pooling heat a the weapon discharged emptiness out of the chamber; it jarred Avora's senses to become awakened by the mindless haze of delirium.

Avora snapped her livid brown eyes viciously opened, burning with hunger and tears. She forced herself to avert her gaze, and tried to get her bearing as blotted images of red coated over her vision. "You have done exceptionally well, child." The Director said with an impressive edge in his love. He gestured a hand to Madame HYDRA who limped closer to the child with hardened malice. "Tell me what did you feel?"

Gasping with a heavy pitch of breath, Avora managed to blanch an inch back from Madame HYDRA. Her skin prickled as a shooting pain eruption in her veins. It was inside her. The mixture of instability and blood thirst flooded in her veins like rushing torrents of molten lava. Oozing and devouring. The Director was there, standing behind her. and his intimating, and fatherly presence sent feverish chills running down her spine. "I—I..." She hesitated as a dry sob threatened to emerge from the back of her throat. She felt her soul clawing against the sickness as she panted out silent seething breaths. "I felt nothing.."

They were playing with her head.

Her life was in the possession of HYDRA.

Finally, Avora looked up and there was no beauty in her brown eyes, just pure fused mania. She was transformed into a monster. HYDRA beaten her to the bone until she felt nothing. She became cold as winter's ice. "...just a pulse."

She locked her eyes on the gun, it only a second for her to ram her fist into his knee, and seize the weapon with fast reflex of movement. Her carnal instincts were arising. Drawing out heavy intakes of breath, she tasted the blood wash down her throat, and then she pointed the silencer pistol at a operative adjacent from the door. A rueful smirk crossed her lips and she imagined pulling the trigger and feeling the shock waves of power vibrate through her bones. Her face became emotionless, because it was programmed inside her to show no expression. Just vacancy. She pulled the trigger without looking at her target, and listened to the bullet explode and body dropped to the floor.

The Director asked her how she felt.

She looked down at the gun, and answered, "Dead."