Out of touch (1)

f o u r

- p a r t  t w o -

It had been three months since Anita had been dragged into the TVA. Everyday she sat in her cell and drank glasses of water and ate whatever food they provided. And every second day she had Mobius visit her. They had installed a speaker system in the walls whilst she was asleep one night. He had told her he was ordered not to go near her so that's why he stood at the end of the long hallways when he spoke to her. She admired the way he broke the rule to make sure she was okay but they both knew she was never getting out of there.
He had explained why she was stuck there multiple times but like every one of her kind that had come before her, Anita didn't believe anything he said. She was convinced this whole organisation was just a pawn in Dreykovs game to get her back into the Red Room. Mobius was simply just the friendly face they thought she would trust. She didn't. They both knew it. It didn't stop him checking up on her though. He knew who she was, he knew who she could be. But her brain had been so badly abused and altered that he just had to find a way to get her out. To pull the scared little girl from her cage so she could break free. He would find a way to put her back in her timeline under a fake name and story and let her live the life she deserved. He had watched her grow silent day by day, only speaking when he asked her questions. She never answered the personal ones. She kept a lot to herself.
He was sat at the end of the hall now, comms in hand as he tried to speak to her.
"Are you sleeping alright?"
"Yes"
It was a lie and they both knew it.
She was having frequent dreams about her old life and about who she used to be. Nightmares about the red room happened often and every two weeks she had dreams about something she felt was yet to come. She would see images of a man with raven hair, much like hers, walking towards her, helping her escape. She would wake up every night from those dreams gasping for air. Like it was a premonition. She so desperately wanted to get out that she was dreaming of anything that would help her escape.
Mobius would walk past some nights and see her silently screaming or gasping for air as she fell on to the floor. He knew she was scared even if she refused to admit it. He had some of his co workers tend to her and help keep herself clean and tidy so her hair was now shorter, just coming past her shoulders and it stayed neat. She had spent her first few weeks at the facility in tatters. She still wore the same suit from the red room but she had the option of other clothes should she want them. But this suit was the last thing that was chaining herself to who she really was because as much as she wanted to forget who she had been, it was still part of her.
Anita Lenkov would always be a trained killer. She would always be someone who's brain had been half turned to mush and she would always be the girl who was taken from her mother. She would always be looking for a way out, screaming for help whether it be silent or not.
"Are you lying to me?" Mobius asks and she snaps her head up so that her eyes meet his at the end of the hall.
"What does it matter, it won't change anything" she snaps back before turning around and setting her back to him.
"Fine, have it your way, I have to tend to another variant, I'll see you soon" he says shutting off their communication.
Her head rolls back against the glass and she lets the tears fall down her cheeks. She was never going to get out. She didn't know how long she had been there and she didn't know how long she would have to stay there but she was getting sick of it. Mobius saw her as a child and no one else would even acknowledge her apart from the ladies who cleaned her and tended to her hair. She patted the black strands and felt it stop shorter than she had been used to. She mourned the past and the little girl who's hair had been so long that she thought that one day she may be like the princesses she read about as a child. She wanted to see her once again, to run through that field with her and meet her mother at the back gate. She would go inside and it would all be the same.
Her dreams had gotten shorter every time, always missing out key pieces of information leaving Anita to piece them all together like a jigsaw. She would just spend hours in her cell staring at the wall, not knowing if she was losing herself more or if she was gaining more knowledge of herself with no where to put it. She knew Mobius was gone but she felt herself wanting to turn around and talk to him again but she couldn't. She knew that if she started to trust him then they would surely lure her out only to take her back to the red room. She would be forced back into that bed and have her brain be tampered with again. She would lose herself all over again and she would go out kicking and screaming before Dreykov decided what to do with her. She could only imagine what his punishments would consist of and she didn't think she could stand it. The pain would be unbearable. She would have to take it and forget everything she had learned. She knew she was different to the other widows, she had since day one. Whilst they all conformed perfectly, Anita had always been one to try and put up a fight. She supposed that whatever they had tried to control them with, wasn't able to grip onto her as strongly as it did with the other girls. That was how it had so easily slipped away from her. She had too much of herself still left inside that she was able to force herself out of the control. She was stronger than any of them had anticipated.

•••

"Go on, you can go closer"
Anita sat up quickly at the sound of Mobius' voice coming out of the speaker. She was confused as to why he came back and turned to the hallway only to see a man with raven hair walking towards her. Their eyes met and she felt like a hundred stories flew through her mind. Vivid memories of him presented themselves to her as she stared at the man. It was as if she had known him her whole life. She stood up and walked towards the glass, placing her hands onto the cold surface, flinching at the change of temperature but standing her ground. The man stared at her with a weird look as she tried to call out for help.
"Who is she? Why is she locked in here?" He asks turning back to the analyst.
"That's Anita, she's one of the, what we call, paranoid"
"Why do you call them that?"
"Because they're scared and confused and are convinced we're out to get them, she's getting there though"
He turns back to see her eyes practically screaming at him not to leave. He saw right through her though and knew that he was the same. They were both just scared children trapped in the bodies of people who had been wronged. People who deserved better.
He placed his hand on top of hers as if to tell her that he understood and that he wanted to help. That he too was a scared child like herself.
"Come on, let's go" Mobius says behind him.
He finds himself tearing his hand away from the girl as she watches him walk away from him. But deep down she knows, no matter what, he is her way out. He will help her escape and she can trust him with anything.