When I reached my room, I stumbled exhaustedly into the bathroom and began to peel off my slightly scraped clothes. It was a tough material, so only a part just above my knee was torn from when we had skidded across the road. As I was taking off my shirt, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and to be honest, I wasn't even sure if it was me looking back.

My face was pale and thin, pinched across my bones and shining with scars at the right angle in the light. My eyes had black rings under them and drooped slightly. My lips were dry and cracked, bright red in some parts where I had bitten them, either accidently or part of my nervous habit. My arms had slightly visible muscles, but they were also thin at the same time, lacking the fat that I would have gotten from a normal diet.

I looked down at my stomach and saw that it too was covered in scars, the most obvious just above my navel where a HYDRA agent had stabbed a knife and twisted in around in one of my earliest training sessions that the Soldier wasn't involved in. I could see my hip bones poking out of my skin, my stomach dipping inwards slightly.

I sighed and looked away from my reflection, turning on the tap and splashing my exhausted face with water. I dried it with a towel and walked back into the main part of the room, pulling a pair of loose clothes from the cupbaord. I pulled them before laying down on the floor, curling myself up in a tight ball as I fell into a restless sleep. I couldn't sleep on my bed anymore, not after all of the bad memories there.

I struggled to fall alseep that night, nerves were still churning in my stomach, making me feel sick. I barely got any sleep, maybe an hour at most, and I had to take a couple of tablets for the churning in my stomach that began to become painful.

The next morning, I struggled to get out of bed, not only because of the exhaustion that made my bones feel like they were made of concrete, but because of the burning pain in my stomach. I had a cool shower and took a couple more of the pain killer tablets. I dressed back in my torn and slightly bloody clothes from the mission last night and braiding in my hair in a pathetic attempt to look a little better, but it didn't really work.

I didn't eat much breakfast either, my stomach hurting too much. I just poked around the porridge like substance and looked down at my scarred hands. Before I walked with the Soldier to training, I quickly excused myself to the bathroom. My stomach was like a stabbing pain now and I wrapped my hands around my stomach as I walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind me.

I was about to flush when something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention and I looked down to see that the water was full of blood. I breathed shakily and flushed away the blood, ignoring my horrid reflection as I washed my hands. Maybe that was what had been hurting me so bad.

-{+}-

When I got to training, Strucker narrowed his eyes at my late arrival, but didn't say anything and waved his hand for us to start. As usual, I got my ass completely kicked by the Soldier, though in my defence, I still wasn't feeling well. Strucker decided to use the training time as a punishment, because he made us both fight with weapons. I was stabbed several times, though nowhere near my stomach, which Strucker had banned the Soldier from going near a couple of weeks ago.

When training ended, I laid on the ground as Zola injected both of us with the healing serum, a massive stab wound in my thigh that prevented me from standing up. Before I could even make a move to go back to my room, Stucker grabbed my arm and pulled him with me. I gritted my teeth as his nails dug into my arm.

"We need you." He told me pulling me roughly out of the door. "You can clean up later."

I didn't say anything, trying to match his fast pace so I didn't keep stumbling. I had no clue where we were going, and I never would have guessed that it was the Lab. Strucker slid his ID card across the recognition pad and the glass door slid open. I saw Zola's reflection in the glass and I quickly looked over my shoulder, having not realised that he was following us.

We weaved our way through the Lab benches until we reached a white elongated chair with a control on the side of move it down flat. When Strucker let go of my arm, sat on it and lay back, fear beginning to prickle as Zola lowered it down until I was looking at the ceiling. However, no silver bands were clamped around my arms or legs to keep me in place.

Suddenly, there was the sound of a machine whirring and I looked over to my left to see a large silver cover moving up from the side of the bed and creating a dome over the top of me. I watched warily, keeping my emotions off my face as the dome blocked out all light.

Then, blue lights flickered on inside the dome and I could suddenly see how little space I had to move. Something beeped inside the dome and I looked up to see a ray of blue light travelling down from my head. I managed to keep my eyes open as it travelled over my eyes, but everything was slinding white for a couple of seconds afterwards. After about a minute and soon, the lid lifted off me with a hiss and I sat up, rubbing my eyes.

I blinked rapidly as my eyes adjusted to the light and looked over to see Strucker and Zola peering at a computor, other scientists looking as well. They were both looking at it so intently that I didn't want to interrupt them, but I wanted to know what they were looking at.

Suddenly, Strucker slammed his fist on the table, sending paper and pens flying everywhere, causing me to flinch. My heart skipped a beat and I struggled to breathe for a second, adrenaline rushing thrugh my body. Strucker started to swear very colourfully in Russian before he marched over to me and picked me up by the throat, moving over to the wall and pinning me against it. I was tempted to use some of the things I had learnt in training against him, but he already looked pissed enough, so I thought it would be wise not to push it.

"What have you done?" He yelled, droplets of spit landing on my face, but I didn't dare flinch.

"Nothing." I said softly, not wanting to speak any louder to anger him more. I didn't even know what he was taliking about.

"What have you done?!" He snarled even louder, this time in Russian, which made it seem a whole lot more threatening.

"Sir," Zola interrupted hesitantly, causing Strucker to swing his murderous glare over to the doctor. "In her defence, this seems like it has happened... naturally."

Strucker slowly looked back at me and I swallowed nervously before he let go of my neck and I fell hard to the floor. I slowly stood up, eyes darting between Strucker and Zola. I had slowly come to the conclusion that they had failed in trying to reproduce more agents, using a mix of my genetics and other inhanced. But I didn't know why it failed.

"You'll regret this." Strucker hissed at me before turning to face Zola. "Make it work."

"We could have the Soldier try." Zola spoke up almost timidly. "His genetics are more stable than the others, and he is stronger than the other subjects. It could work."

"I don't care what the fuck you do." Strucker snapped. "Just make it work."

He stormed out of the room, leaving me no choice but to follow as well.