Baggy shorts and a flimsy tank top, thrown onto my skeletal body for hand-to-hand combat. My hair, twined into plaits, easy to grab and rip. They shoved me out into the blistering cold, barefoot in a secluded courtyard between the two nearly windowless concrete units. Ordinarily, I would've been thankful for the taste of fresh air, but all that I tasted on the wind was death. My feet burned with pain, like every snowflake was a needle underfoot. Every gust of wind made me quake and my muscles twinge with reluctance. 

No more darkly lit rooms and padded mats. No more concealing jumpsuits and short hair. No more conceding or getting knocked out. If you lost, it was permanent. By permanent, I mean a quick twist and jerk of the neck. No more mercy. 

They upped their game. And I had to up mine. I hadn't realised the brutality of the new hostile conditions; how the blizzard would throw off my depth perception, how the un-survivable cold temperatures would slow my hand-eye coordination and how being so revealed would shatter my self-esteem.

I wasn't first in the ring, and for that, I was thankful, there were two slightly weaker competitors in my group. And the talentless good for nothing's were pitted against each other. We stood in a semi-circle watching the two girls hold their fighting posture. And with a nod of Vasily Karpov, the fight would be initiated. 

Evades were slicker, kicks were sharper and punches were executed with precision. No longer was avoiding a punch as simple as ducking, contortion provided your only reprieve from fist or foot. I observed diligently, absorbing tactics like a sponge. I watched how they were light on their feet, poised on the front of their feet, springing about like a game of hopscotch. I watched how one offensive move blended into the next without hesitation, how they plotted ahead like a game of chess, preparing for any eventuality. I watched how they reacted, far too many gave away their target with a glance of a nano-second, or stepping before they punched, or hesitated and gave away their move with a twist or a twitch. 

But what was truly unexpected in the messily coordinated sequence of moves, was when one girl snagged the other by her hair and pounded her skull against the floor and wrangled her by the neck. The girl choked whilst her captor stared proudly on at Karpov for permission to react. 

He nodded. 

She twisted and jerked. 

That was the first time I heard the snap of a neck. That crackle, that crunch, that click that echoed between the two parallel concrete building ricocheted in my mind. It looped like a broken record. Taught like an actress to keep my face emotionless, I did. I wasn't to give my competitors the satisfaction of my terror. It terrified me. 

Twenty-seven Black Widows with the red room became twenty-six. 

These tournaments were conducted quarterly, sorting the wheat from the chaff. 

And with this new taste of the outdoors, silhouettes of trees, glades and mountains in the desolate valley beyond, they took to cuffing us to our beds. Each night, the wardens would come around and snap the metal around our wrists, rattle it a little to leave no room for doubt and locked them. Children are born with that spark of curiosity, that natural born instinct to investigate and grow as a person and they tried to kill that spark. They needed to keep us - quite literally - chained to our work. 

Training wasn't indoors anymore, no more circling in a gymnasium, punching sacks repetitively. No. Cross country, scrambling over cargo nets, running ten miles a day, barefoot over the icy blades of grass, prickling our feet until they had become leathery. Jumping crevasses that cracked the valley, crossing the river on the mossy and icy stones, the perfect slabs to split your skull on. There was no excuse for stopping, the brutal conditions wouldn't forgive you. You'd been sent to an icy grave, and no one was going to recover your body. 

Twenty-six became twenty-five. 

That's when I realised I could survive inhuman feats. I realised it wasn't just my mind they'd tweaked, and how my body aged, they had rewritten my DNA. Scraps of memories reunited and sense was made out of scattered clippings: I could remember needles with rogue formulas, scalpels slicing me open, siphoning blood samples. Intravenous treatments flowing through my veins, mechanical monsters caging me and exposure to subliminal films: bold colours and flickers of text. 

As our two comrades passed over six months, bodies aged fourteen - Vasily only knew how long they'd been fourteen for - no one made a fuss. A seed of guilt was forever planted in my heart; there was no funeral, no poetic eulogy and no announcement. The fallen went unheralded. What was worse still was I didn't even know their names, far less remember their faces. And if they were anything like me, they were deceived and snatched from their families involuntarily, put through their paces mercilessly, only to amount to nothing. Young, innocence still intact and suspended in constant fear. 

Tutoring became more intense on the side. We were exposed to American media for the first time, something the polar opposite of Soviet doctrine. It was unintelligible, meaningless, purposeless. The Americans lacked discipline, their children raised exposed to brain-softening goop that delivered no realities. But we were spoon fed that cinematography, our brain ingrained with the English language, shovelled into us without pace. We learned their teachings, their popular culture and learned how to adopt it. 

I learned how to falsify a stance of pride and recite the Star-Spangled Banner, a patriotic cry for help in my opinion - words of no substance, poetic license gone wrong. Facts and figures were drummed into me. 

I could name you every president in order if you asked. Every state, in alphabetical, or alphabetical backwards if you so wished. The civil war, Edison, Franklin - I learnt it all. Inventors, philosophers and rulers. Law, traditions and celebrations. A nation of fodder obsessed with wealth and power. 

But still, reimbursed with that exposure to a radical and wrong way of thinking we retained the correct way to think. We were taught not to be like the Americans, not to trifle with tomfoolery such as Hollywood, popular music and fiction. They told us it would blunt our minds and we needed to stay sharper than our Capitalist counterweight. 

I'd never vocalise it, but America fascinated me. Tales of 'Walt Disney' and his 'princesses', 'Frank Sinatra' and his 'Jazz music', 'John Steinbeck' and his 'Mice & Men'. Durgy grey walls and a dismal grey world beyond them, these simple pleasures had such colour. 

I breathed cycles of education and exercise and I spend days in the doldrums. There was no place for socialising, for friendship, for leisure. The only leisure we had was sleeping and eating, and that consisted on being uncomfortably cuffed and consuming bland bread rolls. 

And soon enough my toll bell was rung and it was my rotation in the ring. All eyes were on me, I was ready to be prosecuted, but not quite ready to die. I counted my blessings Belova wasn't my first combatant; but she was ranking at the top, and they saw no point on wasting me talents on me. They wanted to test me against people of my rank. 

Even as my foe stepped up to me, I managed to isolate her weaknesses, in only the split-second I had to assess it: swollen ankle, she stepped into her stance before she prepared her hands and slanted forwards, her chest pushed out. 

"Go!" Karpov shouted with no warning, gnashing his jaws like a wolf. His voice pranged off the walls and I jumped to it like it was a starting gun. 

Arm favoured, I ducked the first dart of her fist, squatting and sweeping a leg into her ankle. She howled and was floored. She used her arms to push her up so I pounced on top of her and pinned her arms to the frosty paving stones. She spent too long calculating and I saw her eyes jump to my stomach before she jerked her knee up. With a kick, I spread her legs painfully, as she writhed in discomfort it was a swift clash of the head that put her out of her misery. I put a hand over her mouth: regular breathing, then backed off. 

Karpov narrowed his eyes at me as I rose and brushed myself off. He was amazed at the brevity and my jump in skill. A smirk was awarded to me for my swiftness, but a frown and a glare for not killing her. 

And that was it for three months. 

Whispers passed between the girls about my weakness, that I let my opponent win. They shunned me for my kindness. I was amazed they weren't fond of me for not killing one of the few people we're aligned with in this wicked world. 

As it goes, I only saved her days, because I couldn't end her, they ended her for me. And no one acknowledged her absence either. 

Twenty-four. 

As time slid naturally by, caught up in a time-consuming routine, I knocked heads with plenty of others in the squad. Three others. All of whom I refused to kill. And they were crossed out like tallies in a chart too. 

Then came the person I feared most in camp besides Vasily Karpov. I looked into the eyes of the blonde tyrant, stormy blue eyes met ivy green. She didn't blink, she didn't clue in with subconscious gestures, she didn't exhibit hesitation. Every step with her was precise, every shot was offensive not defensive, every spar with her was lost. 

Murderous eyes, pinprick pupils, furled fists. She still loomed over me like the Chrystler building. But with the lessons of my comrade, the Russian ideal solider, whom I had engaged and won with, she seemed a tad less daunting. 

"Go!" 

She steps forwards, I step back, like a waltz. I danced with her, letting her swing her arm and not land far enough. She over balanced on her step trying to reach me and I kicked her ankle out. She lunged off her remaining foot and tackled me to the ground. 

Like a paper under weight, I flexed and crumpled in all the wrong directions. I furled tight and kicked her as hard as I could muster in the stomach. She was catapulted to the feet of the other girls like fireball out of a trebuchet. 

We both took mere moments to recover. She attempted a high kick, I grabbed her ankle and tripped her to the floor. Sprawled on the floor she flailed her leg to kick my knee, I took a step back. In a wriggling movement she recovered to her feet. 

I sidestepped a right hook. I ducked the incoming left that was thrown in quick succession. I back-stepped an uppercut and ducked a jab. She twist kicked and I fended it off. I make reparation with my own, landing a blow to her stomach. I followed it up with a punch to the cheek. 

She held out a hand to try and fend me away, but I seized her wrist, twisted it and knotted her arm up behind her. With a kick to the back of the knees she was floored. I splayed my fingers across the back of her skull and smashed her head into the ground. 

I looped the plaits around my hand and yanked, twisting her arm up in synchronisation to steal a yelp from her. She threw her head back and managed a collision with my own, and I lost my grip, she kicked me out of my crouch and scrambled out from under me. 

Her lip was gashed, her own teeth having sunk into the brittle wind-bitten flesh. Her eye was bruised and her forehead was purplish. Thick streams of red spouted from either nostril and she rotated like a coiling serpent whilst I tried for traction. 

I got a foot to the face as she regained her footing. I scrambled backwards clutching my throbbing socket, the world blurred. 

I could feel her shadow drowning me and then I felt the clamp of her hand around my airway. It was like having a cloth stuck in my mouth and my nostrils plugged, I heaved like a Hoover, unhealthily rasping. 

In a situation too familiar to me, I was dangled by my throat. No time for pawing at the hand strangling me, I needed to react. 

One leg curled around her hip, I threw the other over her shoulder, swung and locked the other leg around her neck. Flicking my body downwards, she was propelled to the floor, locked between my legs. She flipped over and I mercilessly strangled her, roles reversed, still partially blind in one I. 

She scrabbled and kicked but it served her no good. I squeezed tighter and cut off her air supply completely. Her eyes fluttered shut and her clawing hands went lax. Her whole demeanour domesticated, she was no longer the savage animal, subdued into sleep she had become tame. 

I didn't halt until Karpov was sure I'd done my job. With a nod from him I quit my abusive game, and dutiful to my morals, I checked she could still breathe unrestricted by my legs. 

I wandered to depart with the group but he stopped me, cane outstretched across my chest.

"You'll come with me Natalia..." He drawled, secrecy masking his tone. 

And we dawdled in silence back into the facility. He guided me along corridors I had never seen before, where no water logged the floor, no mould crept up the wall and no light fittings sparked. The floor was polished, the walls homed propaganda posters, red and black and gold and the doors were ornately carved. 

His office was labelled 'Officer Karpov' and with a jab of a key in the lock, he entered and swept the door open for me. 

He wandered behind the desk that was the main feature of the room and flopped in an armchair. He picked up a knife and began to twiddle with it between finger and thumb. 

For the first time, it had occurred to me that he had aged severely. His hair had been receding when I met him in the early nineteen-thirties, but now his head was polished like a monk, not a single sprig was left on his shiny head. His wrinkled face had shriveled like a mandrake and his beard and eyebrows had become white and wiry. 

I on the other hand had barely aged a day, I'd barely sprouted, and I was only just ripening - puberty still yet to fully transform me. I was unsure of why, when we had all had our childhood sustained as if bathed in the fountain of youth, that he elected to age. 

"Why did you do what you did, Natalia?" He investigated, a hoarse cough following his question. 

"D-do... Do what?" I stammered, choking on my own spit. 

"Not do as your told..." He sternly grumbled, eyes boring into me. 

"I don't understand-"

"Why didn't you kill Belova?! Why didn't you kill any of them?!" He stabbed his blade down into the table top. 

"I-I..." I felt my eyes spool tears. 

"Go on! I dare you to give me a pathetic excuse!" He roared like a lion, springing to his feet, looking like he was going to hurdle the desk and best the life out of me any second. Yes, he was frail, but he still had the spirit of a beast. 

"Where's the use in killing your assets?!" I screamed back at him, audacity broiling within me. 

He swayed backwards as if he'd been hit by a bullet. He hadn't expected such a small human being to have such a confident and contemptuous voice. "Do not question my authority! Do you know what happens if you question my authority?!" He boomed, yanking the knife out of the desk. 

"Do tell me!" I dared, defiant to the blade he had grasped in his hand. 

He stormed forwards and turned the blade sideways, backing me up and pressing it against my neck. 

His voice lowered to a whisper and his dark brown eyes engaged with mine. "You've seen your teammates, in the ring? Snapped necks, bodies left in the ice to wither away? Like it's supposed to be. That will be you, my girl. If you defy me, you will eliminated just like the rest." He smoothed a hand through my disheveled plaits. "Don't think yourself a hero, Natalia. No one here knows you. No one will remember you..." He simpered sweetly, cupping my face with his rough spot hand. "You're a whisper, a loophole in the records and you'll die as one. You won't get a funeral. You won't get a thing..." He snatched my chin and forced me to look him in the eye. 

My green pools of tears met his. 

"Are you going to behave, Natalia?" He crooned. "Second chances are few and far between here. Third chances are non-existent. I'll give you a hint..." He inched close enough to smell his rancid breath; garlic and coffee. I held my breath. "Take this chance..." He smiled. "Are you going to behave, Natalia?"

"Yes, sir." I didn't speak out. 

"Now go. Reunite with the survivors of your pack..." He removed the knife and held the door open for me. I slowly slipped away. "Go!" He barked and I scampered away.

I didn't know in which direction was back to the quarters, but one person was on my mind, the man who had tutored me and enabled me to survive this far, right now I longed for his company, his genuinely doting touch and encouragement. Karpov had isolated me. I'd always known I was different from the rest, but I'd finally figured it out. Humanity; that was what set me apart. Reluctance, deviance and curiosity. I didn't want to hurt anyone, let alone kill. I wouldn't take orders without questioning why, mentally, or for the first time today, verbally. I was the only human left in the place. 

A/N - So this came out of nowhere. I'm literally so exhausted, but hey, have a chapter, my wonderful readers!