The van was entirely silent, not a single word emitting from anyone inside. David was curled up against the wall, listening to the wheels squeak and bounce along the road. There were no windows in the back where he was tied up, so he couldn't see where they were going, but he figured it was probably somewhere super scary. He'd seen plenty of movies about kidnappings to know that much. It was probably some creepy isolated shed, or the basement of the blond man's house. He could tell the blond man was the leader of the group. That much was pretty obvious.

Figuring all this out didn't mean he wasn't scared, of course. Fear still raced through his bones, making him tense and shivery (the freezing metal beneath his small body definitely didn't help that). This was supposed to be the day he becomes a middle schooler. It was supposed to be fun and exciting, not horrifying. He was supposed to be sitting at the table eating burritos and enjoying the company of his family, not sitting in the back of a van scared for his life, left entirely orphaned.

A part of him wanted to form some type of escape plan, like kidnapping victims always did in movies. But he was a small, scrawny boy, and there were five agents. He had no chance even if he tried. This was a big, dark van, he was in handcuffs, and they all kept glancing back at him, too often for him to be able to slip away unnoticed. Besides, the squeak of the back doors he'd heard when they shoved him into the van would give him away all too easily.

It seemed all too soon when the van screeched to a stop. The doors in the middle of the van slid open and the men climbed out, moving around to the back to grab their prisoner. David let them take him, knowing it was better not to fight. They dragged him toward this stone building with no visible outward markings. It looked nothing at all like the plain house or the shed he had imagined. It looked more like a government building, something important.

He let his head fall forward as they dragged him by his cuffed arms, leading him into the building. They were instantly met with a sudden rush of cold air conditioning, which would have been nice if he wasn't a victim of a kidnapping. The blond man led them down twisting halls that had no distinguishing features, the loudest sound being the echo of their steps against the linoleum floor. There were no bright colors. Everything seemed muted, colors of beige and grey all around. It was almost like a boring old office, but with some sort of creepy vibe. There was the faint sound of dripping water, as if something was leaking, but David couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from. It was an eerie vibe, and he could almost tell horrible things had happened here. He didn't need to be told that.

The man led them down a hall filled with jail cells, complete with the metal bars and emptiness. Inside each one was only a rotten, moth-eaten cot and a lidless toilet. Just the bare necessities. What more for prisoners? Here it didn't seem as nice as the other rooms and hallways he had seen. There were various puddles on the floor, some dried up and leaving stains behind, others recent. These puddles seemed to be of various things. Blood, water, and other liquids he couldn't recognize. The cells weren't very populated, but they definitely weren't empty--which was made obvious by the screams and begs for escape they could all hear. The man pushed David closer to the cells so he could see what was inside as they walked. The prisoners all looked horrible in one way or another, some with missing limbs or missing facial features. Almost all of them had bloodied faces and bodies, some curled up at the front of their cells, gripping the bars and begging everyone who passed to be released. There was such horror and desperation in these people's faces, it made David shrink back, but the man merely pushed him back closer.

There were some prisoners who had given up all hope of escape. They were all hunched against the farthest walls of their cells, hugging their knees or lying on their beds or just on the floor. There was a vacancy in their eyes, an absence of emotion, of fear or rage or pain. They had been beaten until they didn't feel anymore, David realized. He shuddered, looking up at the man.

"My name is Cedric Fader, but you will call me Sir. Anything else and you'll be beaten to a pulp. Understood?" the man asked, looking down at him with an arched eyebrow. It was more clear to David now than ever before that this man was the boss of this place. It was his fault all these people were like this.

"Why am I here?" David asked quietly, looking up at him with big eyes. He didn't want to be here. He wanted to be curled up at home in his mother's arms, letting her comfort and care wash over him.

"Because you're an agent now, of course." Cedric smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "And it's, "why am I here, sir?" One more mistake and you'll be punished," he warned, leading David deeper into the cell hallway. The boy followed, not sure what else he should be doing. The taller man stopped in front of a cell. This one was the biggest one, but looked pretty much like the others, with a cot and a toilet, but this one was definitely cleaner, void of random puddles and stains. The sheets on the cot had been changed recently, and were a pale white. "This is your room for now, until you prove you can handle having a normal door like everyone else. You'll get an actual room then and only then."

David stared in shock and surprise. He was going to live in a cell, like the rest of these horrified prisoners. He was going to be locked up in here like an animal, like an experiment. He looked up at Cedric in disbelief, his lips parted.

Cedric didn't seem to see the look on his face, because he continued. "Your cell will be locked with you in it once it's time for you to sleep. I'll be here early every morning to unlock you and tell you your duties for the day. You'll get a uniform to wear soon, and once you get an actual room you'll have an actual closet to put it in." He then walked past, grabbing David's arm to lead him back down the hallway toward the office-looking area.

"This is where the desk jockeys work. If you fail at missions enough, you'll be stuck here just like them, filling out nothing but boring paperwork. But I'm sure that won't be you." He smiled again, as if he had some sort of twisted faith in David. He continued walking, flipping a light on. A board lit up, a numbered list glowing faintly. The words were big and clear, but David couldn't read any of it other than basic stuff like "a" and "the". "These are my rules," Cedric explained. "Break them and you'll be punished severely. And I mean it." But he couldn't read it. How was he expected to follow the rules if he didn't know what they were?

David opened his mouth to speak but was merely yanked over to another wall, where another glowing board was already waiting for them. This one had names all over it, the name at the top glowing the brightest and with a little golden crown above it. Next to each name was a cluster of words David couldn't read. "And this, my dear boy, is the mission board." Cedric's chest was puffed out in pride, and he was smiling again. "One day you'll be on here, once you get a big enough mission. This is only used for bigger ones, not little ones like information or file retrieval. This is for stuff like capturing people who wrong us, or new recruits, just like you. See?" He pointed to the top name. "'Cedric Fader'--and the agents who helped me, who don't matter, of course," he read, then dragged his finger over to the mission, and read, "'Retrieval of New Recruit'. That's you, kid." He grinned down at David, which sent a shiver down his spine.

He was showing him around this creepy base. This company, which kidnapped children and tortured prisoners and killed innocent people. "What kind of place is this?" David whispered, looking up at him with big eyes of fear and horror. This probably wasn't even the worst of it.

"HYDRA, kid. And you're our newest agent, of course."