𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐍 , barnes

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄

chapter zero . . . PROLOGUE
❝ too young, too young indeed ❞

PLAN B HAD BEEN TOO YOUNG TO REMEMBER ANY OF HER LIFE BEFORE HYDRA.

Perhaps it didn't matter though. 

She already knew the ending. 

Plan B heard stories about the world outside of the four confining walls that she'd spent basically her entire life held captive in. One of them made out of a strong plastic that ceased her escape from the ruthless place she lived, where the good was beaten out of them and the bad was forced into them. Manipulation. Death. Horror. Trauma. Blood. Every word that anyone could think of to describe the Siberian base where they'd spent their entire lives, training themselves to the core, working to be the best they possibly could. 

Almost like a competition. 

But it's not a competition, not really anyway. Seven children, one teen and one adult, but everyone said the nine children. To be fair, the nine of them are only alive out of sheer luck. A couple of them liked to believe it was God watching over them, allowing them the answer to the passage to life, however as much as the others wanted to believe this, God no longer existed to them. Why would someone who was supposed to control your life put them in such a situation as they lived?

Starvation. 

Isolation. 

Torture. 

Abuse. 

Manipulation. 

Brain - Washing. 

Lying.

Why would someone give a life of that to someone so young, so innocent? 

Plan B had her innocence stripped away from her at too young of an age, she had lost too many things to be classed a child anymore. She believed her parents had left her for this fate, that they'd just given up on her. Plan B knew that's what most parents did, it wasn't God, it was the cruelty of the parents. Plan B knew of a safe haven outside of the Siberian base, it's what Svetlana called it. She called it Earth. 

She said it was beautiful. Svetlana lived in a war, a World War, where it was nothing but war and she hasn't had a break since. The others felt sympathy for her, she'd spent her entire life fighting for her rights to be a normal person, to simply exist on a world that didn't want her and then fought in a war where she lost everything before she was kidnapped and held hostage, without the sun on her skin for almost forty years. Svetlana spent every single one of her nights laid in her cot, attempting various different ways to fall asleep but over time, she's erased any hope of ever getting a blink of sleep because every time she shut her eyes, it all came rushing back to her. 

They had no idea what it was like on the outside anymore, not past the forest that surrounded the base, the land that faded into ocean. Pacific, Atlantic, Indian? They had no clue. Svetlana felt bad for the children, she had some idea of how the world worked back then and had managed to obtain her people skills but if it's changed, she wouldn't have a clue. From the small village by the base, she could tell that it might of changed but the village was fairly remote and they had to live of land crops and ration food. 

Inside the base, the villagers had no clue of the horror's inside. The kids in the village had made dare's to go out to the base and try to break in, they thought it was completely vacant and abandoned. It wasn't long after one child was killed for figuring out the password to open the doors that there became a ban to venture out to the place, realising it could be trapped or filled with life. No one thought anything of it after that ban was put in place and the base became history. 

Siberia was cold all year around but somehow, the children could tell when the seasons would change a little. Sitting in their cells, they would be able to tell when the sun was shining down over the cold, lifeless landscape because the walls would become hotter, not freezing to the touch. They wouldn't have to do anything they possibly could to avoid hypothermia or just simply being too cold to function.

During the summer, the children didn't have to wrap up as warm, Alchemy didn't have to start a fire the best she could that would only radiate a moment of heat before she was screamed at to put it out. Only on the coldest days would the Superior feel a gram of sympathy for the children and put on the heating, he also didn't want to loose his prized possessions to something as simple as hypothermia. 

The Winter was much different, everyone would be fighting to stay alive, trying to keep their eyes open even thought their tear ducts had become frozen. They'd share blankets the best they could, throw everything they could find in their cell around them to keep them warm, avoid the walls and floor so they wouldn't have a frozen back or butt. It was the most cruel day to live but it was the only way to survive, and none were sure why they wanted to survive, maybe it was seared into their brain or it was just the fight or flight instinct they didn't realise they had. Either way, they survived every Winter. 

But Plan B, she knew dying was easy. 

Living was the hard part. 

And when she'd wake up in the morning after tossing and turning in her bed at night, she'd lay there for a moment and wish to be dead, wish to not have to endure another day on Earth. But then she'd tell herself, dying is easy and you can't give them what they want, live for a hopeful future. 

And she did.