The permafrost of our souls

Kara sliced seaweed into a collapsible bowl, fishing it out from the edges of the lake where they had spent the night. James, sitting on the sleeping bag, watched her actions, wondering what thoughts might be swirling in her addled mind. First, she said she’d made up a brother, then, easily and simply, admitted he existed. Maybe she had hidden it because of his connection to the eels, but when she realized where they were going, decided to confess? Bucky shook his head, not following her train of thought. It seemed her brains had been soaked through with cold meltwater, and now she wasn’t herself, the deeper they went. Yet Kara was a PhD, a researcher at a major company who wanted to protect her team from HYDRA followers, but seemed to have completely forgotten about that as soon as she returned to the painfully familiar walls. “I could fry them, but there’s probably natural gas seeping from the ground,” she handed him the bowl of seaweed. Bucky sighed, taking the plate, looking at the bright green strands. “Better not risk it.” “Yeah, it’s stuffy here,” James watched as Kara deftly fished out the seaweed with her fingers. “Weren’t we just supposed to deal with whoever’s after you? Your team will be here soon.” “They won’t come,” Kara shook her head, trying to chew the seaweed more thoroughly, fighting back nausea. “I wrote to my superiors that there were landslides on the mountain and the expedition should be postponed as soon as I got a signal.” “So why are we here?” He set the bowl on the ground next to him, opting for protein bars instead. “The deeper we go, the more I remember,” Kara looked a bit guilty. “Yes, it was my mistake not to say anything sooner, but it’s hard to piece memory together when it’s been erased by experimental methods. I want to shut down this algae program so no one ever ends up here.” “But you worked on it for years, didn’t you?” James reached into his backpack for food. “Yes, but,” the girl exhaled, moving the half-empty bowl aside and picking up her water bottle. “Apparently, in my memories, this place wasn’t… like this. Memory smooths everything out, turns a terrible situation into a bearable one to help us cope, but when I see these walls, I remember why I acted the way I did back then. I had to stop it.” “So what else should I expect?” For the first time, James looked at Kara not as a madwoman or a victim with a spiteful gaze, but as a person who had been carrying a trauma for twenty years, surrendering her body and mind to it. She had lived guided by past directives programmed into her by these damp walls. He saw himself in her and understood she was mired so deep, but was now, for the first time, pulling her head out of the swamp, deciding to remember everything. “Well,” Kara paused for a moment, taking a sip. “My brother, for example. I think we’re getting close.” “Take this,” James pulled a pistol from a fold in the sleeping bag and handed it to her. “You don’t know what he might be like.” “I don’t think there’s much left of the Andrew I knew,” Kara accepted the weapon, tucking it into her jacket pocket. Uttering her brother’s name for the first time in years, she faltered, doubting whether he would even recognize her. “We should go,” James stood up abruptly and helped the girl to her feet. “We’ve been here two days already.” “I hope I have the courage to do what needs to be done,” Kara gave a sad smile, fastening her backpack. “I’ll be right here,” the words came hard for James, but he understood the immense weight of regret and guilt on the girl’s shoulders and knew these words might help her. “Thank you,” the girl mouthed silently, feeling the cold metal of the pistol in her pocket.