Not The Only One - A Winter Soldier Story

Chapter 2

     I woke up to Polkovnik and two soldiers opening the door. After undoing my restraints, the soldiers locked their arms under my armpits and dragged me into a huge room with metal railings and some type of device in the center.

     I was fastened into the strange metal chair. Machinery whirred and two metal pieces made contact with my head. A painful electrical zapping forced horrible screams from my throat...

~

     I was held in some strange type of metal chair. Men with guns surrounded the railed area around me. A man in a military uniform with a crimson beret stood in front of me.

     A dark red book held the words he read aloud to me. "Создание. Убегая. Принуждение. Мать. Огонь. Вечер. Второй. Разрушен. Рейс. Лезвие." He closed the book and set it down. 

     "Доброе утро, солдат."

     After a meager breakfast of a bowl of porridge and a small cup full of sausage, the man in the beret led me to a large room with a huge barred off area, like a cage, in the center of it. Four men in full SWAT gear and two men with clip-boards and lab coats were inside the cage.

     There was another man inside too, one with a metal arm. As I stood there taking him in, he came at me swinging. He got in a few good blows before I regained myself and retaliated with my own punches.

     In a fraction of a second, he was behind me and caught me in a choke hold. My vision started going fuzzy and I gasped for air. Throwing my metal elbow back into his gut and then my metal fist against his crotch loosened his grip enough for me to wriggle free. Snatching a knife from his belt, I clutched it in front of me and put some distance between us.

     While I kept coughing and trying to recover, he charged and knocked me down hard. The man mounted me and began battering my face. Knife still in hand, I brought my arm up to defend myself. Yet somehow he got the blade away from me and pushed it to my throat.

     "Будет," the man in the beret said and then the metal-armed man got off of me.

     So he is not trying to kill me, but this is not a game either I deduced.

     One of the lab coats came over to check various vitals of mine and give me water. In my peripheral, I noticed the other lab coat was doing the same to the metal-armed man. 

     Afterwards, the metal-armed man and I resumed our nearly lethal sparring session. The only reprieves we received were when the beret man called the metal arm man off when he beat me and then the lab coats would check us.

     I do not know how many hours passed until the man in the beret had one of the men in SWAT gear take me by my left arm and lead me out of the cage. We walked down a long hallway until we came to a room with a thick metal door. 

     Inside there were various pieces of medical equipment, cabinets, counters, and such, but what caught my attention was the bed with a tray on it. A small piece of bread and a pitiful bowl of rassolnik soup were waiting for me. The food was soon gone, but it did not banish my hunger. When I finished, the man told me to lay down on the bed and then fastened me to it. He flicked off the light as he left, closing the large door behind him.

     As I drifted off to sleep, I wished for two things: that my bruised body would stop aching and that I could make that miserable metal-armed bastard feel true pain.