The permafrost of our souls

The spotlights, which seemed to consume all the base’s electricity, left not a drop of shadow in the small room. They stood along the walls, surrounding the girl, whose arms were painfully wrenched behind her back, firmly tied to the chair. The light was so bright Kara couldn’t even guess how many hours she’d gone without sleep. Along with sleep, they had deprived her of water and food, but she remained conscious the whole time, and the soldiers who rarely came in wondered how much longer she would last in this state. When the door opened again, Kara didn’t even lift her head, staring at the floor glowing from the spotlights. Her head was yanked back by the hair, searing her eyes against the spotlight directly opposite, and Kara could make out Kuntze. Their eyes met, and the girl’s head jerked sideways from a blow, but the strong hand still held her hair. “Untie her,” Kuntze commanded, and Kara heard the click of a switchblade behind her as her hair was released. The ropes went slack, but she couldn’t immediately lower her arms, numb from being bound so long. Resting her hands in her lap, Kara sat waiting for what would come next. “Get up,” Kuntze ordered, and Kara leaned forward, but her legs gave way, and she almost fell face-first, until a familiar metallic hand caught her under the elbow and set her on her feet. Kuntze told the Soldier to leave once the girl could stand, and he closed the door behind him. A telescopic baton appeared in the man’s hand, and Kara knew what was coming. It whistled through the air as he swung, and a choked gasp escaped Kara as blood sprayed from her nose. She pressed a hand to her face as if trying to catch the blood in her palm, but the next blow struck the back of her neck, forcing her to double over. He said nothing; only his heavy breathing before each swing and the girl’s attempts to cough through her gasps were audible. She licked the blood from her lips with a dry tongue, falling to her knees. The blows came one after another, not letting her rise, but at some point, they stopped. Kuntze yanked the girl’s head back by the hair, forcing her to look up at his face, which was a mask of blood to her blurred vision. Kara could hardly see anything; she guessed one eye was swollen shut and the other was flooded with blood, but through the crimson veil, she saw his silhouette with the long metal baton in his hand. The man opened the door, letting the Winter Soldier back in. He pointed at Kara and said: “Give her food and monitor how long it takes her to recover.” After Richard left, the Soldier, without a word, helped the girl up and led her to her cell. Kara barely shuffled her feet, feeling her left ankle swollen, making the journey take longer than usual. Reaching the cell, Kara collapsed onto the bunk, turning to face the wall. She wanted nothing—not to talk to anyone, not even food or water were a priority. All she wanted was to fall asleep and not wake up, just to end this nightmare. “Undress,” said the Soldier, locking the door behind them, but the girl didn’t react, sinking into sleep. “The medics made an ointment.” Kara opened her eyes, coming to again when something was placed in her hand. A bottle of water. Overcoming the desire to sleep, Kara sat on the bunk with her back to the man and pulled the jumpsuit down to her waist, exposing her back, which was purple with bruises. She drank the water greedily while his warm fingers rubbed a greenish ointment into her skin. “Why you?” she asked, no longer surprised by her hoarse voice. Her stomach felt bloated from the water, and nausea rose in her throat. “It’s his plan,” the man answered curtly, hunched like a shadow over the girl. “To make you a mother hen and then sever our bond?” the girl wondered, wincing in pain. “Or not sever it, but make you do something? Something worse.” The Soldier didn’t answer. He dampened a piece of cloth with water from the bottle and told the girl to turn towards him. Kara, holding the jumpsuit to her chest, shifted with difficulty to face him. The Soldier, crouching in front of the bunk, wiped the still-fresh blood from the girl’s face. Her right eye barely opened, swollen with a purple bruise; the nosebleed had stopped. The man touched the bridge of her nose with two fingers, surprised to find it unbroken. Applying ointment to her face, he tried not to look into her one good eye, which was studying him intently. At one point, as he was applying it to her collarbone, Kara touched the Soldier’s cheek with her feverish palm. She said nothing, looking somewhere past the man’s head. “Too bad I look like this right now,” the girl said, removing her hand after a couple of minutes that felt like an eternity to them. “Get that out of your head,” the Soldier said dryly, wiping his fingers on the cloth. “Think it’s some kind of Stockholm syndrome?” she smirked with a crooked smile, dipping her fingers into the jar of ointment to apply it to her swollen ankle.