Leave Me Bleeding [Winter Soldier] I

Better Off Dead [Chapter 1]

"Evil is a point of view"

-Lestat de Lioncourt

Six Years Later

1943

                "Please!" she begged, she screamed for mercy which was not something new to her. She was still young and she had been tortured as far back as she could remember, it still terrified her. The fear instilled in her would remain for as long as she lived, but this time it was deeper. In front of her was Red Skull herself, and she had her first failure, and it had been such an important task. "I tried... I tried so hard..."

                "You failed to achieve your target." Red skull grimaced down at her. He was not wearing his human appearance, and so the blood-coloured face staring down at her was far more disturbing. He made her feel so powerless, HYDRA made her feel so powerless.

                She fought the restraints to no avail; they had strapped down her wrists and her feet. Even though she was covered in sweat, she still could not slip free and she was not strong enough to break the restraints. The human instinct of being scared of pain was what made her fight against her bonds, but even if she managed to break free she would be caught and punished further. 

              With that in her mind, she took a shuddery breath and stopped fighting even if her whole body wanted to; they would only make it worse for her if she fought. They brought the metal device over her head, her brown hair stuck to her damp forehead as she writhed instinctively. Her lips shook as she tried to plead, but no words came out. The cold metal was not touching her skin, but she could feel its presence. Daunting and dangerous.

                "Next time you will retrieve your target. If not, you will pay the price with your life." Red Skull nodded towards one of the HYDRA men and left them to deal with Ophelia. But even as he left, Ophelia knew that this had been her chance to prove herself, and she hadn't. Her chance to show HYDRA that she was capable of more if they just gave her a longer leash. But she had failed, and she knew she would never leave this base alive. 

                "Where is Zola?" she cried before the man started the process of booting up their favourite form of torture. She has been exposed to so many in her life, but this one scared her the most. Zola had almost treated Ophelia with care; more like a dog-owner who felt obligated to make sure the dog was still alive every now and then. That was still more than she received from anyone else.

                "Captured," he told her, then brought the rubber mouth guard to her lips. "Bite."

                She bit down on the mouth guard, which prevented her from biting off her own tongue. She wondered why they cared; they never listened to her. Whenever she got back from a mission she was given her drugs, put in her room, sometimes gassed with various toxins to see what they would do to her. Then, she was given a serum that would keep her strong, or at least strong enough. She rarely slept, all the chemicals bouncing around in her body as it decided whether to fight what she had been given, or accept it. When her resilient body accepted it, there was always the possibility of death. More than once she had come close, but the serum that they gave her kept her alive. The pseudo-Super Soldier serum gave her abilities she could hardly fathom. The serum that HYDRA had created was not as powerful as the one Captain Steve Rogers was given; it was a poor attempt at the same thing, and she had been the lab rat to test it.

                The shocks began and she screamed through her mouth guard, her cries not breaching the thick, desolate concrete walls that kept her detained. The pulses came at random intervals, so she could never prepare for the electric shock. For what felt like an hour but was no more than a few minutes she suffered this torture. When they stopped, she was no longer crying, no longer fighting, more determined to do what she was created to do. Find. Hunt. Kill. She had to show them what she was capable of, she refused to die in her cell alone.