Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
“Ughh…” I groaned, my head hitting the metal of the bed. Nausea clawed at my gut, a phantom ache from strikes I barely remembered. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying for oblivion. But the dripping wouldn’t stop.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Water. I opened my eyes, focusing on the drops splashing from a cracked pipe in the ceiling. Grey concrete below. Each drop a slow, relentless beat.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Slowly, I realized I could *focus*. Not just on the water, but on the silence between the drips. My mind wasn’t fogged over. It hadn’t been this clear in… how long? Fragments flickered – white coats, syringes brimming with color, screams that ripped through bone, the taste of blood. I shook it off, sat up. The cell was always the same. Metal door, letterbox vent. The bed, metal, thin mattress. I’d been here… forever.
The door swung open.
“Hello again, Subject 88.” A tall man, dark hair, round glasses obscuring almost black eyes, stood there. A white coat. The accent was… off. “Time for testing. Don't lash out again. Cleaning up your mess was… unpleasant.” He took my chin, lifting my head. His finger waved in front of my eyes. “A concussion avoided, thankfully.”
I blinked. The memories flooded back – the limits they pushed me to. Lifting machinery until my muscles shredded, collapsing under the weight. Months of training after. Flames, searing skin, choking on smoke until I felt nothing. Now, I could carry buildings, walk through fire. They’d injected serums, twisted my genes, stolen pieces of me. I was an experiment.
I didn’t even notice I was being dragged down a corridor, fluorescent lights blinding. Cries echoed behind doors. Were they torturing others? Pools of dried blood suggested… not many survived. My body ached, every muscle screaming. I barely had energy to stand. That didn’t last long as we stopped in front of a steel door, my tormentor pausing only to type in the code to enter. I recognized this door and automatically reacted to it. I pulled and struggled to get away, crying out, begging not to be put in there again, but my pleas were ignored as I was thrown forward into the chair with strong leather restraints in the center of the room and strapped in by my arms and legs, one strap round my waist for good measure.
“Please not this again, I can't- It's been months, we've tried hundreds of times an-" I was silenced by a sharp backhand across the face, the doctor with the glasses grabbed me by the throat and glared at me, inches away.
“WE SAW WHAT YOU DID” He yelled in my face, his eyes flashing angrily. “We have the footage of your electroshock therapy session in that asylum, when YOU short circuited almost the entire building.” He let go of me. All I could do was watch in fear as he paced, tears rolling down my face. "We watched you electrocute those doctors before the footage cut out, we know they were abusing you, the amount of electricity they were passing through your skull and body would have killed a normal person. But you killed them instead, as revenge."
"I didn't- I wasn't controlling it- it just happened!" I cried, tugging at the restraints desperately as he walked toward the control panel behind a barrier and flicked a switch. The hum of electricity filled the air, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.
“It doesn’t matter if you were controlling it or not. Your body reacted to protect itself." His voice was flat, emotionless. “Your abilities will be a great asset to Hydra.” He turned a dial. Electricity surged through me, ripping a scream from my throat. My muscles spasmed, convulsed. He kept turning the dial, pushing it further, sparks flying from the machine. The pain was a white, blinding wave. I couldn’t scream anymore. I couldn’t think. I felt my vision blacken.
Then, a pop. A surge of relief. I’d expelled the electricity, sending it crackling through the room. I slumped back, gasping, barely conscious. The energy… it felt *wrong*. Like something had broken inside me.
I sat there, shaking, for what felt like an eternity. Then, I realized I could feel electricity building in my hands. Carefully, I stood up, watching as bolts sparked between my fingers. I walked toward the crumpled form of the doctor, scorch marks on his clothes. He was dead. I had killed him. A wave of nausea washed over me. I had to get out.
I snapped the restraints, ignoring the ache in my muscles. The corridor was empty. I started running, ignoring the alarm that blared overhead, ignoring the shouts behind me. I grabbed explosives from a munitions room, setting a timer. Let the building burn.
I ran, faster now, adrenaline pumping. Armed guards stumbled into my path, I blasted them with electricity without thinking. The cold night air hit my bare feet as I burst through another door, sprinting into the darkness. I didn’t look back. I just ran.