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<Alicandra's POV>

After I regained my consciousness and my eyes fluttered open weakly, I realized that I was in a small white room that was brightly lit to the point that it blinded me when my eyes first opened. I wasn't used to this much light, not after growing up in a room with no windows and only one dim bulb in the center of the ceiling. After my burning eyes adjusted, I looked around to try and work out where I was. At the same time, I tried to bury the panic that was starting to overwhelm me. The room was completely white; white painted metal bed with white covers and pillows; white little metal table with a similarly made white chair; no windows; one large white door and eight bright lights, one in each corner of the room, as if to destroy all darkness in the room. Darkness! I looked around again and saw no shadows. My only friend and solace in my last prison had abandoned me in this one.

After a few seconds of me panic searching the small room after waking up, I heard a voice over the speaker that was above the door and hadn't noticed when looking around. "Gut to zee you avake Alicandra." The voice said in a sly tone and an accent that was either German or Russian, but I couldn't tell which.

"W-who are you? W-where am I?" I stammered nervously, trying to sound as strong as possible, while I looked around the room for some answer.

"Mien name ist Doctor Vhitehall unt you are home." He replied.

"H-home? T-this i-isn't my home. W-where am I?" I stuttered, fear making my words almost too shaky to understand.

"It ist your home now." Doctor Whitehall told me before a pause that led to the door being opened, revealing a tall and aged man in a long white lab coat, "Velcome to HYRDA."

After he spoke, two men in black military gear came into the room and held me down on the bed. "No!" I screamed as I fought against them with all my might, but the men were too strong, and the doctor had injected me with something that had sent me to sleep.

~~*~~

The next thing I remembered was the feeling of a cold hard floor beneath my small body. I kept my eyes closed for a moment, hoping that when they opened I would be free, but my wish was just a dream. My eyed fluttered open, blinded by another white room that was covered in lights to destroy as many shadows as they could. My heart slammed against my chest in fear as I looked around and sat up. 

The room was really big, with target looking things on one of the walls and a range of knives, swords and guns on another. To the side there was a large punching bag, that was bigger than me, hanging from the ceiling and beneath me on the floor was a large mat with different markings. I looked behind where I was to see a large mirror that took up almost the entire wall with some speakers at the top two corners. 

I stood up warily as I looked around the room for a way out, but my thoughts of escape were interrupted by the doctor's voice. "Gut, you take a time to vake up Alicandra." My head shot over to see the speakers with fear in my eyes. "Ve vant to zee vhat you can do. Pick vhatever veapon you vish unt fight vith all your might." I looked over at the weapon's rack and shook my head before turning back to the speakers.

"W-what if I don't want to?" I asked with the strongest voice I could muster but before I got an answer the door to the room opened which caught my attention and by head span to look at who entered. 

The man who entered was tall with shoulder length brown hair. He wore military looking trousers, boots and a bulletproof vest that only had one sleeve, revealing a shiny silver arm with a red star on the shoulder. The man's face was covered by a black mask, but I could see his eyes, though I wish I couldn't because they were void of all emotion like he wasn't really there. They reminded me of my mother's eyes after...

Then the doctor spoke in a language I didn't know. "Ты знаешь свой приказ солдата." (You know your orders solder.) After the doctor spoke, the man looked at me with his emotionless eyes and marched towards me. I backed away quickly as I heard the doctor speak again, "You vill fight, or he vill fight you." I backed away, but I hit into the punching bag which stopped me long enough for the man to have grabbed my arm and flung me across the room like a rag doll. I screamed in pain as my back hit the target and tears threatened to spill. I looked up at the man, who was now frozen on the spot, as I forced myself back up to my feet with weak arms.

I looked over to the speakers with fear in my watery eyes as I whimpered and stuttered, "I-I d-don't know h-how to f-fight..." I tensed my body to prepare myself for another attack by the man, but it never happened.

Instead, I heard the doctor sigh, "You vill learn." I looked up at the speakers again. "Try to shoot at de targets, zee if you are gut vith gun." I nodded my head obediently and shakily shuffled over to the weapons rack picking up the smallest gun I could find before walking over to the yellow line on the floor that was parallel to the targets. I took a deep breath as I raised the gun and tried to steady my shaky hands, but it didn't work. I knew that if I didn't shoot then I would get hit again so I just pointed the gun at the target in front of me and shot. I shrieked at the sound of the shot as the gun recoiled in my hands and looked over to see that I had missed the target completely. "Vell, I zee guns are not your thing." The doctor laughed.

Next, he had me throw a knife at the target, but it barely made it to the wall before bouncing off. 

After, I was expected to try and hit the punching bag, but my form was off, and it bruised my knuckles after the first hit. 

Finally, the doctor told me to use the darkness as the lights dimmed to allow for the shadows to darken. I looked over at the speakers warily as I spoke, "I-I can't use darkness to fight... I-I can't control it like that." My words made the doctor mad even though he had been so patient with me for the other exercises.

"You managed to kill your mother vith de darkness yet you zay you cannot fight vith it?" he shouted.

I cried at the mention of what I had done and his harsh words, "I-I-I d-didn't mean to... T-the darkness m-m-moved on its o-own..." I sniffled, trying not to cry.

"Zo, you zay de darkness fought for you vhen you vere being beaten?" he asked with a sly tone and I nodded before realizing what that meant for me. 

Then it hit me, I looked at the man, who had stood to the side for most of my training, to see him walking towards me. I backed away warily, but he caught my arm quickly and threw me to the floor. I could feel the darkness in me swirl but I didn't want to give in. I didn't want to kill again. The man held my arm with his metal hand so tight that I thought my arm would break as he punched me in the stomach. I began to see the shadows move as he continued to beat me bloody, but I clenched my void black eyes shut, trying to calm them. 

It didn't work. I felt the darkness getting more riled up the more pain I felt and eventually I gave in, opening my eyes quickly, releasing what little darkness I had managed to stop, as a spear of black shot through the man's human shoulder. He dropped my arm and held his now bleeding shoulder as the darkness retracted and returned to its normal positions. "Vell done Alicandra. You may rest now." I heard the doctor speak faintly but I was blacking out from the blood loss and the pain. 

Just as I blacked out I heard a single thought, 'Poor girl.'

~~*~~

I began to come to in a room very different to the ones I had been kept in before. It was dingy and covered in darkness. I was lying on a hard slab of metal with science equipment around me which reminded me of the stuff Kain had told me was in hospitals. 'Am I in a medical room of some sort?' My thoughts were interrupted by someone else's.

'I don't get it. Sure, she's powerful and has potential but why aren't they just programming her if she's in the same program as me?' the voice asked, and I remembered it as the one I had heard before passing out.

"W-what do you mean by 'programming'?" I asked the metal-armed man which made his head flip to face me. He didn't reply out loud, only confused in his mind as to how I knew what he had thought as I looked at him and saw that his eyes no longer looked empty but then I noticed the bandages on his shoulder. My eyes dropped to my lap as I apologized, "I'm sorry for your shoulder... T-they think I can control the darkness, but it doesn't listen to me... I don't want to hurt anyone, but it always does it anyway..."

'Poor kid's gonna get eaten alive in this place...' he thought before replying out loud for the first time in an American accent that I couldn't place. "You're gonna need to toughen up kid. You may not want to hurt people, but these people have ways of making you, as you found out, cause in this place it's kill or be killed." He explained in a stern but sincere tone.

I looked deep into his eyes and questioned him again, "H-has the programming thing got something to do w-with why you had n-no emotions in your eyes before b-but do now?"

He looked over at me, confused. 'Kid's smart, though that knowledge will get her in trouble.' He sighed before changing the subject, "Look kid, I was meant to get you back to your room before you woke up but since it's a little late for that lets just go."

I nodded before offering, "D-do you want me to pretend to sleep s-so you don't get in trouble? I'm really good at it!"

'This kid's too innocent for this place...' he thought before shaking his head, "There's no point, come on." He signaled for me to follow him, so I jumped off of the metal bed quickly, stumbling slightly from pain, then walked shakily over to him.

"H-hey mister?" I asked as he grabbed my arm gently with his metal hand and started to escort me back, "What's your name?"

He looked straight ahead as he answered, "Don't know."

"How could y-you not know?" I asked as I looked up at him with confusion.

"Don't remember anything before HYDRA."

"Then w-what should I call you?"

"Well, my alias is Winter Soldier, so you can call me that I guess."

"Right! Winter it is!" I exclaimed as I looked up at him and sensed amusement and hope coming off of him as he continued to walk me to my 'room'. 

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