The room they put me in next is dim. At least it's not pitch black. It's a small comfort, but the first comfort I've been afforded at all since my couch. It's impossible to tell how long ago that was. This morning? Last week? A year ago? A millennium ago? Time doesn't work the way it used to. It warps and jumps and changes, going ten times its normal pace one moment and then stopping the next.

In my new cell the temperature is too low and I'm cold. I'm cold, so so cold. It helps bring me even more back into myself, into the present and into my pain. The pain in my shoulder shocks me, reminds me of just how real I am. Maybe it's stupid but for a while it seemed debatable whether I was human or just a bad dream. Now I can see that although this does seem like a bad dream I really am here. Tears are pushing at the back of my eyes but I'm too dehydrated to cry. The room is spinning with my pain and for the first time in over a decade I find myself wanting my mom. Inside this cell everything else seems small; the outside world, the problems I had there. So what if my mom worked too much? So what if we had nothing in common? So what if she passed me off to countless other people to raise me until I was old enough to raise myself? It's easy to forget sometimes that when my dad died, her husband did too. We were both so lost and alone and helpless that we forgot there was another person in the universe who knew exactly what we were going through.

At some point food comes, if you can call it that. In reality, it's a tray of slop with a plastic spoon. Because I'm a dangerous criminal, I can't be trusted with metal—or, heaven forbid— a fork. I think it sarcastically at first, but then I have to wonder if I really am dangerous, if I really can't be trusted. Somehow that manages to make the food taste worse.

The light level never changes. It's too dark to be light and too light to be dark. I try to stay awake, alert, ready but I'm exhausted. The day is catching up to me, instead of watching a movie of my life I'm back to living it. And the more of it I live the less I want to. All I want to do is curl up in a ball and fall asleep. Nothing's stopping me. At for the first time today nobody's holding a gun to my head, nobody's screaming, nobody's shoving me.

But what did I do? What criminal did I help? It's not as if I routinely help anyone, let alone criminals. And me being a terrorist? Even the thought is laughable. I get mistaken as a little kid on a regular basis. Also, since when is conspiring to overthrow the government a crime? It makes sense I guess, but that still doesn't explain why I was accused of it. My friends laugh at me, tease me for being "more patriotic than Captain America". Which is kind of ironic at this point.

The thing bothering me the most about my hearing hadn't been isn't the charges though, it's what the man said at the end.

Trial postponed.

Imprisoned without bail.

Case closed.

Is that it? Can They do that? Who are They?

Whenever you watch crime TV shows the accused gets an attorney, a call. A trial date is set and justice is received. It feels like whatever is happening here is illegal but how am I even supposed to find out what is and isn't legal? And who am I to question the law?

What bothers me most is just how unbothered I am. Because sure, I'm bothered. I'm cold and I'm hungry and I'm tired and I'm sore. But a tiny part of me feel like I deserve this, deserve to be in this cell, sitting in this cold. Captain America thinks I'm a criminal, so who am I to say I'm not? Captain America isn't just the law, he is the embodiment of what my father died for. If all my friends were jumping off a bridge I wouldn't, but if Captain America told me to, I would without question. Everything I stand for can be encapsulated in him.

So I'm not bothered. Captain America brought me here and Captain America is justice. There will be justice for me then, and if he says that this is my justice then it must be.

Except.

Except I'm the kind of person who gets nervous jay walking because it's technically illegal. Except I was the kind of kid who stressed about missing school when I was sick in case I wasn't "sick enough". Except I actually followed the whole "don't enter the park after dusk" rule. Except I've never drunk because I'm underage. Breaking the rules isn't my style. When you look up obsessive rule follower in the dictionary there's a picture of me going 20 on a 25 road even when there's absolutely no one else on the road. So the idea that I did something bad enough for me to be imprisoned as a terrorist by Captain America is almost absurd. Almost.

There's nothing I can do though. I get the feeling that I could scream and scream and scream and scream and nobody would answer. Even if I were to pound on the door till my hands were bleeding and my voice was raw I would still be sitting here. Alone. Unanswered. Head swirling with questions that don't have answers.

For a moment I consider trying. But the thought of asking and not being answered is more terrifying than not knowing. At least now I can pretend that if I tried to get an explanation it would be given to me. Lying to myself is much easier than facing the truth. And if highschool taught me one thing it's how to effectively lie to myself.

So I don't scream or knock or even whisper. Instead I just curl up in the corner, head on the cold cement floor, side pressed against the wall. I don't worry for myself. I don't fear for my life. Except if I start to think about myself at all, reality comes rushing in. So I don't think about me. Instead I think about Mrs. Wyn, about whether she found her husband and if he's ok. I think about the strange man in the rubble, whether or not he made it to his cousin. It was stupid of me not to send him right to a doctor. That decision has been made though, and happens happens at this point. Yesterday these thoughts would've kept me up, stopped me from sleeping. Today though, they lull me into a deep, troubled sleep.