t w o.

[━━ i'm so sick]

THE GIRL WITH skin a shade darker than that of the girl whose blood was now added to her memory entered the catering centre in utter silence. Not that that was out of the ordinary for her. In fact, it was so ordinary that none of the other girls who were already seated bothered to bat an eyelash at her, save for one.

A girl with piercing green eyes and blaring red hair. A sharp gaze to go with a sharp mind. Natasha met the eyes of the quiet girl. Eyes that seemed to belong to an innocent face, and yet there was that unnatural cold that had been drilled into all of them that were glazed over her brown irises. She caught a flash of something - regret - that the girl was too slow to hide. Natasha wasn't stupid. It was quite the opposite in fact, and she'd noted the way that Madame chose her to take girls like Egorova to her office, who she always returned with out. She'd been here at least a few months longer than the rest of them, though, because she'd already been fairly used to what she was doing when the rest of them had been carted in. Some, like Natasha, for a second time.

She had a special sort of quiet about her, Natasha had noted. Not one that had been forced upon her, but one that she had used for years as a perfect shield, as a defence method to keep herself from being in Egorova's place. She wasn't the best of them, by any stretch. In fact, there were many areas in which Natasha performed better than her. Complacency was not one of them. Some part of her envied Molotova's uncanny ability to simply play with the hand that she was dealt, to go along with everything they taught here so well.

It certainly would've saved her from some bruises.

It was that day that Natasha decided to try and get her to talk, to learn how she used silence as a mechanism so that she herself could use it to protect herself from the horrors of this place. It was nothing more than whispered words in corridors between classes, and she didn't gain any response further than a disinterested glance.

That had continued for months, the dark-skinned girl's glances becoming annoyed and then just a little fond after a while. No room for anything more after all, not here. It was almost exactly two months later when Natasha grew to knew her as something other than the silent girl with pretty dark skin, whom the teachers all addressed by her last name only.  They'd been handcuffed to their bedframes, as they were every night, one hand pulled out at an awkward angle, the cold metal biting into the skin of their wrists.

Molotova had lain, as they all had, perfectly still as the lights were turned out without so much as a warning. Again, normal. Madame had come in to survey them all with a sharp eye to ensure nothing was going to go wrong in the dark, and had swiftly left. They'd all heard the click of her door as it locked. For once, it seemed, Molotova had spread her blanket of silence over the rest of them as well. As if tonight, she were protecting all of them, not only herself.

She was only a bed over from Natasha, and lay stiller than the rest of them. They lay, staring at the ceiling as they normally did. It had seemed so normal. But then the door had opened, and that wasn't usual. A light beam cut across their darkness and low, slurred Russian ruffled that blanket of quiet. It was two mens' voices, likely drunk. None of the girls dared to stir, not when this may simply be a test.

And then they drew closer to Natasha, and she felt genuine fear begin to course through her for the first time in a while. She forced herself to appear relaxed, even though she knew each and every one of her muscles were tensed, her eyes screwed shut and her breaths becoming sharp in her chest. 

They kept getting closer. Closer, and then nearer, and then right next to her.

A sneering voice had commented something, and then from the bed next to hers, there was a sound of movement. A whisper from a voice she'd never heard before, soft and feminine. Natasha felt the beam of light twist around with its holder's body, now cast onto the other bed. When she dared a glance, to open her eyes to a squint, she found Molotova sitting up, her back straight. A glance at her wrist revealed she'd slipped out of the handcuffs, and even as she left the room with what she now found to be a pair of men, Natasha's heart began to calm.

She marvelled at it, at first. The way that the girl had cut through her own shield while maintaining it over the rest of them. The way she made their silence seem quieter even with such a small noise. The gratitude was immediate however, and then came the pity.

She hadn't been sure of what exactly had happened, some part of her hoping that she'd been sent on a mission, able to get out of this place, but the next morning revealed that that hadn't been the case. Natasha had awoken to find Molotova back in her bed, wrist caged in the handcuffs as if nothing had happened. If it hadn't been for the cold, silver sunlight of dawn lighting up the girls' skin in such away that Natasha could see the new, hand-shaped bruises she'd gained when they dressed themselves that morning, Natasha would've wondered if it'd happened at all.

She'd had a renewed sense of stillness, of cold tolerance about her too, though she seemed less inclined to deal with Natasha's whispered words in-between lessons, and didn't even look at the redhead any more. Natasha herself had graduated only weeks later, and had left the academy behind. She'd been moved to a new base of operations, and even when she got out years later, she still thought of the quiet girl who had saved her.

That hadn't been the last time it had happened either. There had been an almost identical situation almost four years later, when Molotova was finally close to being let go by the training academy. That time, it had been a blonde widow who found herself eternally grateful for the girl. A widow who called herself Yelena, and knew the dark-skinned widow as someone far better in the academy than the rest of them, as someone very different from who she'd been when Natasha had been there.

But, when they worked a mission together seven months later, Yelena only saw her as her partner on a mission, even when some faint idea of recognition had haunted the depths of her mind. That familiarity didn't occur to Molotova, because the memory of anything other than what she needed to know from the training academy had been deemed irrelevant, wiped from her quiet mind. Memories of those silent nights that were the only time she spoke - in the interest of others - and even recollections of some of the girls who had sat in Egorova's bloodstained chair, slumped in it only a matter of seconds later.

Only the necessary remained. Anything deemed unnecessary, she simply had no knowledge of anymore. Molotova could feel the gaps in her memory, the way they yawned dark and wide in her head, but she didn't say anything about it.

That was simply the way the Red Room worked.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

yeah again not much to say caus we're getting into the beginning of the plot properly, but hey. hope you enjoyed, pls vote, comment, let me know what you think, etc., 

JABBERJAY_011

WORDS [1333]

WRITTEN [18.2.2022]

PUBLISHED [3.3.2022]