Secretive - Bucky Barnes

27 || Horros of Hell || 🔪

[Trigger Warning: Suicide.
Do not continue reading if you feel triggered by this topic or have yourself caught thinking about it. Please beware. If you need someone to talk to, go check 131114 if you're from Australia, 1-833-456-45645 if you're from Canada, 08001110111 if you're from Germany, 08006895652 if you're from the UK and 988 if you're from the US. There's also always the option to call your local emergency number that mostly contain three numbers, such as 911 in the US.]

The texture of Hermes's eye went from slippery to dry-squishy real quick as I take it out of my pocket, the same second I hear James's breath hitch for just the blink of an eye. It's somewhat comforting to know that, after all the years of torture, pain and misery, he still silently shudders when it comes to lose body parts. Because it means there's hope left for me, too.

»Eyes really are one of the most disgusting things when it comes to things that aren't in the place they're meant to be.« he comments.

The moon shines brightly above us, still so bright it is almost suspicious. Almost like it's watching us on the demand of another. The pale moon-rays make Jamie's hair and skin shimmer colorlessly, like with every motion he takes further into hell's direction, a part of him is already dying. »It's not my first eye, and something tells me it won't be my last.«

»Optimistic,« he grunts, and if I hadn't been so serious about it, I might've chuckled.

Both of us stomp through the water running like a slow river through the middle of the arch, a beautiful yet small building of concrete aggregate styled sometime after the U.S.'s purchase of the gardens in 1910, just a few years before James's birth. It's still in good shape, the framework solid as the water makes its way down into a small lake. It reaches to the middle of my calves, for James a little lower, but much more unpleasant since he isn't robust to temperature. He doesn't moan about it, but I'm sure he wouldn't take twenty minutes in here until his first toe would fall off. 

The stars above us are somewhat hidden behind thin clouds, their mystical appearance like tendrils trying to grab for the suns too far away to get a hold onto. It's quiet around us except for the rush of one of the four main elements and Jamie's steady heartbeat, the only thing – next to our children – that makes this mission worth its while.

After our conversation in the car, we both went silent. For once, not the pleasant kind you share with people you know well, people you are fond of because the warmth between the both of you is enough to shy away the cold awkwardness. No, James got me something to gnaw on there that will not leave my mind for a long time, I assume. Especially, since there's not really time to rip his words from one another and taste them each on their own, really let them sink in and make them relevant enough for me to carve them into my soul and thereby, change its structure.

»Three steps,« I utter to myself, the Ex-Winter Soldier a sole observer in my back as I push my body forwards, eventually reaching the level and searching for whatever comes close to lose stones that form a rectangle. It takes me a little longer than I first suspected, with some algae covering it up and marking them untouched for a long, long time. However, a single thought of mine suffices to turn the little plants into dead powder under water, steam clouding my vision for nothing more than a second. 

»Four, one, four, three, two,« I quote the man left with only one of his eyes simultaneously to typing the pattern in, after quite some time to figure out where the numbers start and end.
For once, mathematics in school pays off. The first quarter starts in the top right corner of the rectangle, and the fourth is placed next to it on the left. Quite contra-intuitive.
Then, I hold Hermes's eye out for show, hoping that whatever is supposed to scan it, can do so.

At first, nothing really happens. I don't know what I expected, maybe a move to the side or some arrow pointing a way that suddenly becomes visible. At this point, anything is possible. It's like living in someone's fiction, just waiting for the author to spin some new tales and riddles and let me handle all the weird stuff flowing from their head along a keyboard right into the program of my world. I'm so sick of it.