She was fifteen and had just completed a mission. Entering through the back door of the Bolshoi theatre, she wiped the blood of her body with a towel hanging nearby and slipped into the medical room to tend to her wounds. She was reaching for a band- aid when she noticed how her hand was trembling, how she could feel bile rising up her throat. Dammit. It was happening again. Her mission had forced her to push her Treatment time back for several weeks, and because of that she was finding it difficult to hold it all together. She fitted herself into one of the empty lower shelves of a cupboard at the back of the room, closed the cupboard door and leaned back against the back of it, silently composing herself mentally. Breathe in, breathe out. You did what you had to do. Breathe in breathe out. The man deserved to die. Breathe in breathe out. Remember that you are doing this for the greater good. Breathe in breathe out. Mrs would be proud. Breathe in breathe out.
It was then that she heard a creak as the door to the medical room opened once again. 'All clear,' that was Bartholomew, one of Mrs's 'bodyguards'. Natasha looked through the gap of the closet as Mrs entered the room soon after, flanked by four other bodyguards, followed by Karolina, one of the top spies in the Black Widow program, only a year younger than Natasha herself.
'Get on the bed face down,' Mrs told Karolina briskly. Karolina did so obediently. 'Today,' Mrs began to pace around the room, 'We are here to try something out, to make you faster, stronger, better.'
'Thank you, Mrs,' Karolina responded.
Mrs nodded curtly and her bodyguards moved forward swiftly to cuff Karolina's limbs to the four posts of the bed. Karolina's eyes widened in surprise but she did not say anything. Four doctors entered soon afterwards, and at that Mrs exited the room and headed to the spectators room next door.
Natasha was stuck. She could sense that what was happening in the room was of utmost sensitivity, that if her presence was to be noticed, she would be killed immediately. And so she curled up in the corner of the cupboard, breathing as quietly as she could, hoping and hoping that she would not be found.
The doctors were eerily silent as they circled around Karolina, strapping her to various machines. All of a sudden a doctor whipped out a scalpel, digged it into Karolina's leg, and then she began to scream and scream and scream. Natasha pressed her hand to her mouth to suppress a gasp. What the hell was happening here? The doctors did not seem to be concerned by Karolina's screams, and they continued with what they were doing, cutting into her leg, pushing the skin aside, examining it, until suddenly a doctor reached out and sawed at something inside Karolina's leg. A sharp snap rang through the room as the surgeon reported, 'We've cut through the leg muscle. Move on to stage two.' Karolina stopped screaming then and fell silent. She must have fainted, Natasha thought.
The surgeons moved on upwards to her torso. Natasha heard the sharp snapping of bones, Karolina's screeches of shock as the pain pushed her in and out of unconsciousness, her pleas of 'stop, please stop' as the doctors went on, ignoring her completely. Natasha was numb with shock. There was more snapping, then the sound of drilling, and that finally stopped and was replaced by the monotonous beep of the heart monitor. '
Patient has flatlined,' one of the surgeons stated.
Mrs's voice rang through the room once again, 'She wasn't meant to survive it. You have one week to improve on the procedure and we will try again next Monday with another girl. We are done here.'
She left then and the surgeons left swiftly after clearing up.
Karolina was the first girl that was experimented on. Natasha was the fifth. She was the first to survive. Just barely, but it was good enough.