Captured // A Winter Soldier Story

chapter one // dark

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"And all the kids cried out, please stop, you're scaring me. I can't help this awful energy."
-Control By Halsey

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reyna's point of view

The night was dark. The darkest I'd ever seen. Perhaps it was the fact that I was driving on a one-lane road at four in the morning, or maybe it was the feeling of persistent uneasiness that was making it seem like I was shrouded in the goddess Nyx herself.

My windows were rolled down as I drove, the wind whipping my hair into knots. Every now and then a street light would bask a piece of the road in an unhealthy yellow light and make the green leaves of the trees behind it appear sickly. The silence was so thick that I was distracted by my own thoughts, and the longer I drove, the more the tension I felt grew.

Every shadow I passed seemed darker than the last. It was too silent, too dark, too empty. I felt like something was very, very wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on why.

I kept driving.

The time on the dashboard read 4:23 AM. I wished that I was anywhere but here, on this long, creepy road. I wished that I was in my bed in my old apartment. I wished that I could, at some point, finally rest. I don't like running. And I've learned the hard way that wishing only makes things worse. Yet there I was, doing both.

But sometimes you can't help but daydream, can't help but wonder where you'd be if you'd done something differently. Sometimes you can't help but feel the urge to just run and leave everything behind. I've been wishing every day for an end to my torture -- been praying that by the time night falls, I'd be somewhere safe and warm with someone who knows my name, rather than just another alias. But like I said, wishing only stands to make things worse.

My vision suddenly went dim, and I remembered warm hands tying back my hair, a woman who called me by my real name.

"Reyna, I need you to understand something," my mother said. "Things will be hard when you're older. You're a Hart girl, people will never make things easy for you because they know what you're capable of. But you can't give in to what they say. You have to keep your identity, keep it safe from everyone who wants to tear you down. Your identity is all you have."

Oh, if mother could see me now, running away from all my problems in the middle of the night under a fake name and a fake life. I'd hardly retained my identity.

My sight cleared as the flashback faded, and the asphalt before me came back into focus. The trees on either side of the thin, windy road seemed to bend in, as if trying to cage me. The leaves whispered of something foreign, something unwelcome amidst their ranks. My feeling of uneasiness grew as my heart hammered against my chest.

A stoplight appeared as I rounded the next corner, the light gleaming red. I didn't see any cars and wondered why it was necessary that I stop, but I pulled the car up to the line and pressed my foot against the brakes anyway.

Once the car was still, the air was too, and I felt incredibly exposed with my windows down in the middle of nowhere. I was just about to run the light, which was seemingly red for no reason, when suddenly I heard the sound of blaring sirens. Just as I looked to my left, two ambulances come flying from around the corner, blowing past me so fast that my heart nearly jumped out of my chest. They were gone before I could even process they were there.