December // A Winter Soldier Story

1

Ｄｅｃｅｍｂｅｒ ７ｔｈ， ２０１３

 １９° Ｆ

𝓉𝒽ℯ 𝓈ℴ𝓁𝒹𝒾ℯ𝓇

He hasn't slept in days. His eyes are bloodshot from holding so many emotions in them all at once.

A clear thought can't form in his mind. The world around him is silent and still, but he can't hear any of it. All he hears is the roaring of his own blood and the screaming voices echoing in his mind.

The soldier is crouched in the blinding white snow, leaning against a dead, barren tree. Out here, he is a sitting duck. He knows that even though he is in a forest, it is winter, and he is wearing a black uniform. Anyone within a few miles could easily see him.

But he can't do anything right now, because the voices are too loud again. They are yelling, arguing, screaming at him, telling him he needs to do this, needs to do that. He needs to pull the trigger, he needs to run; he needs to sleep, he needs to kill. It is exhausting. It is splitting him in half.

Blood is running down his arm, staining his skin and the snow beneath him. More evidence of his presence. They will find him, and the voices are telling him so. But he's tired, and the voices are interrupting his ability to think. He wipes the blood from his arm, only to find out that the hand he used to wipe the blood with is also bleeding. A good metaphor for his life, really. No matter what, there is always red. Red is the only constant in his life.

The soldier hears the faint snapping of a branch, and the sound of boots stepping carefully through the snow. His finely tuned hearing and fast reflexes tell him instantly that whoever is passing is about a hundred feet to his left. He crouches lower, looks over his shoulder. Sure enough, five heavily armed men are moving parallel to him further back in the woods. They're the same ones who were chasing him yesterday, and the day before.

Minus one member, though. He killed their sixth member yesterday.

Usually, it would only take him a few minutes to take them out. But the voices in his head have been way too loud for him to focus lately. He had no choice but to make the decision this morning to abandon the mission for now and head back to the base, where the people there can make the voices go away.

But these bastards currently searching the woods insisted on following him. And since they can't know where the soldier's base is, he now must take extra time out of his day to shake them from his scent.

The men creeping through the trees haven't spotted him yet. In fact, in the time it took the soldier to tell the voices to stop, something else has caught their attention.

A young woman, maybe 25 years old, is standing between two trees, frozen as the ground beneath her feet as she stares at the men with wide eyes. She is wearing a black puffy coat, jeans, and boots made for the snow, but not clunky boots like the ones the soldier is wearing. She is wearing soft, comfortable ones instead. Her blonde hair is half hidden under a woven snow hat. She is maybe seventy-five feet in front of the soldier, but even from here, he can see the blue of her eyes, and the fear that shines in them.

The men and the soldier must've wandered closer to the nearest neighborhood than they thought.

The men are all standing still and staring her down. Their masks cover everything but their eyes, and though the soldier can't see their eyes from the angle he's at, the look on the girl's face tells him that they are not planning anything good.

The voices in his head suddenly go silent. Except for one, that whispers: protect her. He does not know why it whispers this. Confusion makes him hesitate.

"Hello there, beautiful," the masked man in the front says, taking a step closer. The girl immediately takes a step back, her eyes nervous and calculating. Her hands close into fists.

He's still confused as to why his gut is telling him to protect the girl, but now that the voices have stopped arguing, the soldier has found the will to stand. He looks between the group of men and the girl. Without realizing it, his bloody hand is already on the gun in his holster. No one has seen him yet.

"What are you doing out in the forest all alone, pretty one? Shouldn't you be at home?"

The masked man takes another step towards the young woman, throwing out a laugh. The soldier stands alone, far from both, but begins moving closer. He is able to take ten slow steps before the girl's eyes shift towards him. They widen even more. He can't imagine what he must look like to her - he's at least twice as big as the other men, covered in blood, has a metal arm, and dark hair covers half his face. Compared to the soldier, the other men look welcoming.

The men immediately follow the girl's gaze, and are shocked to see the soldier there. Their ghost of a target was suddenly in plain sight. What has made him come out of hiding? He never allows himself to be seen for any longer than it takes to kill his victim.

The first masked man looks back and forth between the bloody soldier and the girl, and then looks at his own men.

"Apparently this is how you get Winter to come out of hiding," he remarks, his gaze resting on the bloody soldier again. "All you need to do is bring a pretty girl into the picture."

The soldier growls. His voice is dangerously quiet.

"Leave her alone."

The first man narrows his eyes and steps closer to the girl, who is now visibly shaking. She is not being held down, so she could, theoretically, leave at any time; but she is smart enough to know that if she runs, it will be the last thing she ever does.

The soldier's stormy grey-blue eyes are on her piercing light blue ones. She is crumbling under his intense stare, because she can't tell whether he is the good guy or the bad guy.

The soldier does not understand his own actions -- he can't explain why he refuses to let the men touch her. Something about the idea of them hurting her just feels...wrong. It is the strongest feeling he has felt in decades. He doesn't know where it is coming from, but he clings to it. He clings to any feelings he has nowadays, because he knows what it's like to feel nothing, and doesn't want to experience it ever again.

"Why do you care what happens to her? She is nothing, a nobody. A bothersome girl whom nobody will miss," the first masked man says. The girl is being backed into a tree by the pure malice wafting off of his skin. She hits the bark, and the man stands tall over her. His hand wanders low, too low, and she stiffens.

"Although, I bet she'd taste wonderf-"

And that's all he can get out before the soldier lifts his gun and shoots him in the side, forcing him away from the girl who is now as pale as the snow around her. The red hot anger pumping through the soldier's blood at the moment is enough to give him the strength to bring down an army, and now, with the voices in his head silent, there is nothing stopping him from erupting into a murderous rage. The only thing he can hear are his own yells as the world becomes a blur. Each masked man tries to go after him, and each one falls within seconds.

It is less than a minute before the snow is no longer white, and the soldier is surrounded again by the color that haunts him for each and every moment of his existence.

He is trembling. He can see his breath in the air as the world is silent again.

He looks up, but the girl is already gone.