Lost Memories

Chapter VIII

That's a long corridor, Natasha decides as she observes it.

She stands in a long white corridor which looks like it doesn't end. The door, the walls... all white and if she is being honest, it makes her nervous even if she doesn't know why. She has never liked hospitals and the hallway looks like it's from an asylum. But what's scaring her the most is that she knows this place and doesn't remember it. Her brain tells her she has been there already but can't bring a single memory about it.

It's just a dream, she repeats to herself, just a dream.

She starts wandering around, determined to find a way out.

The first door she opens leads to what seems to be a dormitory. Simple beds in poor condition are lined up along the wall, each with a pair of handcuffs hanging from the headboard. She pushes down to urge to vomit as she recognizes them. The Red Room. They never slept without being handcuffed. Each night, they would be locked to their bed and even if later they knew how to get out of them in five seconds, none of them has ever dared do it. Going out, she closes the door and goes on further.

She thought it couldn't be worst, oh god she was so wrong. Each door she opens leads to another bad memory, another remainder of what she has been through. She sees the mat where she killed a comrade for the first time. She revives the moment she killed a man for her graduation. She feels electricity running through her veins when she steps into the torture room. And the further she goes, the scarier she gets. Never knowing what's going to be behind the next door.

Until that door. The one too much. She opens it, slightly shaking and finds herself facing... herself. Her younger safe to be precise. She mustn't be older than fourteen. She is tied to a metal table, sensors on her chest and temples. She is fighting, trying to break free. But that's not the worst, no. The worst part is that Carol is here too, in the same state as she is. Except that she is unconscious and pale, so pale. Her delicate skin is covered with sweat and scars. A wave of raging anger clouds her vision. Murder. That's the only word she knows right now. She tastes blood in her mouth and she wants to kill, kill, kill whoever put her soul and heart in that state. She opens her mouth and-

« Leave her alone you huge bastards! » her younger self screams.

She sees herself pull so hard on her restrains that her wrists turn purple. A man approaches Carol's side and on pure instinct, Natasha lunges forward to stop him but she goes through him like a ghost and hits the opposite wall. She watches, as helpless as her young self, as the man sticks a syringe in Carol's arm and Carol starts screaming again. Her tears pierce Natasha's soul like a thousand sharp, white-hot knives, grind her heart to dust, crush her chest to pieces. She is livid - as livid as young Nat she presumes - as Carol's cries go on and on and on.

« ENOUGH! » she yells, putting her hands over her ears and shutting her eyes close.

When she reopens them, everything is gone. No hallway, no torture room, no Carol. She is surrounded by darkness.

« You forgot »

She turns around quickly.

Carol.

Adult Carol is here.

« You forgot » she repeats, starring at Natasha.