Buzzkill [Winter Soldier]

Chapter 4

The unending nightmares started that night, each one growing more severe than the last.

At the beginning of the next week, Ruth started physical training. It started out simple. The hardest part was being the youngest one there and having to compete with everyone older than her. Most times, it was observing. The younger children would watch the older ones train for combat, and whatever came with it.

After the first time she witnessed someone being killed, the place all at once felt violent. But even after a few short weeks, normalcy developed. After a few short months, habits developed. After a year, it all seemed ok. No one reacted to the things that seemed scary or horrifying to her. No one that she watched thought twice about the harsh violence that they partook in. No one seemed to feel anything.

The older girl that Ruth shared a bathroom with didn't speak to her. Only glances were exchanged if the girl wanted Ruth to do something. No one seemed to want to talk to Ruth, and she didn't know how to talk to anyone around here besides the woman, so she stayed silent.

A couple weeks before the year anniversary of her arriving, Ruth finally asked the woman what her name was.

"Ma'am, what is your name?"

"Sara."

"And your last name?"

"What an odd question to ask someone."

Ruth never heard anyone else ever call the woman Sara. Only once after that conversation did Ruth call her Sara, and immediately she told Ruth to call her ma'am and nothing else.

The next month, Ruth asked again.

"Ma'am, what is your name?"

"Jane."

"And your last name?"

"What an odd question to ask someone."

Once again, Ruth heard no one speak that name around the woman. Everyone referred to her as "Her" or "She", and each person knew who that person was talking about.

The Woman never spoke of Ruth's parents unless Ruth asked. When she did, the Woman would fill Ruth's mind with memories of hatred. The Woman knew the way to erase the memories of good that Ruth had of her mother, father, and sister; and instead made Ruth dwell on hateful memories, and the vivid moments of the day her mother sold her. And Ruth did dwell on those memories. She gave up hoping that her family would want to find her. After the first year, she stopped asking to go back to her home. After a year of a birthday in a new place, a Christmas with different people, and more traditions being learned, it all came as a culture shock that Ruth learned to get used to.

Shortly after Ruth's first year, a new child was brought in; the first one since Ruth arrived. He was introduced to everyone as Ryker. The Woman told Ruth that he was her age, and would no doubt catch up to Ruth's level of training quickly. Ryker moved in to the bedroom next to Ruth that she shared the bathroom with, since the older girl that was once there had moved on.

From the first night there, Ruth could see how distraught Ryker was. She knew that he didn't sleep, he didn't eat for a couple of days, and he would be seen most often crying as he became the Woman's shadow. The time that passed didn't change him much, and Ruth could see the Woman was impatient to do something about it. Ruth talked to Ryker for the first time that night before they went to bed. She didn't ask what his last name was, but she asked where he came from, how he got there, if he had a family, and if he was ok. With accented english he said that he was from Norway, that he had been taken and woke up here, that he had no family that he knew of besides the people at the orphanage, and that he was terrified. The next night, Ryker told Ruth about the memories of his mother, and the times they shared before she passed away. He told Ruth how much he missed being held in his mother's arms as she sang him to sleep, how beautiful her perfume smelled whenever they went out to the park, how soft her skin was when he held her hand, and that her name was Helene. When he would talk with Ruth about his mother, she wondered why she couldn't remember those kind of lovely times with her own mother. Why couldn't she remember the last time her mother sang a song or read a book to her?

Why couldn't she remember the smell of her mother's perfume?

Two weeks after Ryker became the Woman's shadow, he still didn't show any improvement adjusting to the facility. The next morning, a couple of important looking men came in to the facility that Ruth had never seen before. They talked to the Woman as they viewed the rest of the children practicing combat on the main floor. Ruth tried to listen over the sounds going on in the room around her, but couldn't. She then tried to read their lips, but couldn't make out what they were saying. Ruth suspected they were speaking Russian, a language she was still learning. The Woman called Ryker over to them, and one of the men knelt down to talk, faking a smile to no doubt try and put some peace into the boy's mind. All four of them then went down the back hallway into a room and locked the large steel door. When the door closed, Ruth took a break from training and went to get some food in the dining room which happened to be across from the hall so she could hopefully see or hear something that was going on. Ruth got her food and sat down next to two girls that were a few years older than herself. Before she took a bite, Ruth heard muffled screaming. Shrill and indistinguishable, but still audible. The girls she sat with stopped and sat in silence. Ruth looked at the girl's faces for an answer,

"What is that?" Ruth asked.

"They're wiping his memory." One of the girls replied.

"Poor thing." The other one added flatly.

"Why would they do that?"

"He didn't adjust. They did the same thing to me." The first girl said.

"Me too." The other added.

Ruth furrowed her brows, confused. "Why didn't they do that to me?"

"You adjusted. The first one that I've seen."