From the grass below
To the skies above
Past the seven seas
Beyond the lumiescent stars
I cross my heart
That I will soak the earth
With every drop
Of your
blood
Due to her re-exposure to color, Natasha' head throbbed more than ever. Her brain felt numb and her resilincey was weakening. She tried to shake off the feeling, but it stayed in the pit of her stomach, steadily growing. The guards left her alone for several hours, or at least long enough for her to fall asleep upright, her head resting gingerly against the bars. The sound of thunder echoed through the stone building, and lightning lit up the horrors within, wakin Natasha up. A minute later, a guard dragged her out once more. What little energy she had left abandoned her within the first few steps. She staggered along, clinging to the walls in a desperate attempt to stay upright. She struggled for nearly an hour towrds the next torture chamber before her knees gave out and she slumped to the floor, bracing her hands out in front of them. Her hands, still bloody, the result of the needles they used on her hands during the whitewashing, screamed in pain when they came in contact with the cold, damp, rough ground. She could hear the rushing of the rain outside, the storm growing stronger by the second. Natasha was dragged to her feet and pushed forward. Another few minutes of excruciatingly painful walking brought her to the door taht she had seen when she had first been brought in. The one with the flickering lights. The guard in front of Natasha opened the door with a swipe of a card, and she was thrust into the darkness. The door slammed behind her, and she heard the distinct clicking of the door deadbolting itself shut. She grasped at the oblivion around her until she found the wall and sank down to the cool floor. She arched her back against the walll and tried to stretch out her cramped muscles. For the first time in days she was free from rusty chains and small cells. It would be so easy to escape, they would eventually have to let her out, or check on her, and that's when she would make a run for it. No sooner had the thought enetered her mind, the door opened and shut quickly once more, before Natasha could even get to her feet. A person entered. The lights flickered on, revealing an elderly doctor, with a shock of white hair and a long white lab coat. He sighed, as if he was actually sad to be here with her. When he looked at Natasha, the sad look in his eye increased and shook his head. "I don't like what they have done to you, Natalia. You deserve better. Someone as brilliant and as powerful as you doesn't belong here." He spoke with a lilting accent that she couldn't exactly place, and he looked at her with admiration in his watery blue eyes. She stared back coldly, his poor attempt at complimenting her had failed miserably. "You by far are the most interesting thing I have ever studied. I have watched you ever since you joined the Red Rooms, Natalia. I was the one who recommended youto the Vice Chairman for the Black Widow Program. You are the Black Widow because of me. And to see you weak and dying, and far from the unstoppable machine that you have become, it angers me so. No, you don't deserve any of this. So when I heard that they had found you again, you can't imagine my excitement, my Natalia was coming back! But they didn't tell me what they planned on doing to you until they started, and by then it was too late for me to convince Razin to reconsider. Razin is very interested in your brain, Natalia. I have worked my entire life to keep it out of his hands. But that power is out of my control now, Natalia. So it pains me greatly that I have to become part of your torture. But just know that I am relishing every moment we will share until your final breath. Watching you will ease my pain and bring me peace." He looked at her hopefully for a response, but she didn't reply. She vagely remembered his face among the crowds of scientists observing her during her training; his neck had been craning to get a good look at her. The doctor sighed and shook his head. He left the room, but quickly returned with a black box. He opened it and pulled out a clump of long wires with electrical receptor pads on the ends. He attached two to either side of her bruised and bloody skull, and then placed the other two on her chest, on either side of her heart. The wires ran down her back and along her sides, and plugged into the black box. The box itself was now lit up like a Christmas tree, and emitted a tiny beep with every beat of her heart. "I am truly sorry Natalia, don't dispair, I'll be watching you." The doctor said as he gently lifted the box and backed ut of the room. The wires were just long enough to stretch from where she was sitting to the other side of the door. The room was once again plunged into darkness. She tried to stand, but a shock went through her body, starting from her head down to her toes, setting her nerves on edge. The message was clear: Move, and you'll be shocked again. Try to leave, and you will die. Her head started to throb again. Somewhere in front of her a TV screen came to life. Images began to flash onto screen. They started out harmless enough: birds, coffee, and bicycles. The pictures gradually became more violent: animlas eating other animals, bodies ripped apart by a bomb, children and babies laid out in piles, clearly starved to death. Natasha stared blankly at the screen, disinterested.
The screen went to black, plunging the room into darkness. There seemed to be a commotion on the other side of the door. A few moments later a video began playing on the screen, it was slightly grainy, reminding of her of security footage. Taking a closer look at it confirmed her hunch. The camera captured the image of a dark car with tinted windows pull up to the gate. The gate opened. The car drove in. The car stopped. A man stepped out and the camera zoomed in for a close up of his face. Natasha's blood ran cold. Her heart was either beating so fast she couldn't feel it, or it wasn't beating at all. Her mouth tasted like copper.A voice crackled over a loud speaker, "This is happening live Natalia. Tell us who he is and what he wants and I promise, he will live." She felt too numb to answer. Her breathing was labored. She stared at the screen with the intensity of a hungry cat stalking a mouse. The guards swarmed around him. The rain came down in torrents, but it didn't in anyway, unfortunately, hinder the camera's ability to capture the scene perfectly. Above the noise of the roaring winds and the thunder, she heard it. The sound of a gun going off. She watched the soldiers return to their posts, abandoning the body, leaving it in the mud. The last thing she saw before she slipped into a beautiful oblivion was the snapped bow next to the body.
Hope you enjoyed this shorter chapter lovelies, the next few should be about as long as this one. I'll have the next one up, really soon, I pinky promise. As always, please review/comment, you have no idea how much I love your feedback, good and bad. Lemme know if you like the long chapters that take me foreveeeer to post, or the shorter chapters that don't take me as long!