Chapter 3
Sigrid woke in a room one could only describe as a cell. There was a thickly paned window with bars covering it on one wall and a thick metal door across from it. There was a small slot in the door, she could only assume was for transferring food in. There was an uncomfortable bed in one corner the room, a toilet in the other, and nothing else.
She sat up in the bed, head spinning. She went to place a hand on her forehead before noticing she was restrained with thick metal cuffs with intricate technology powering it, some kind of blue glow radiating from the inside of them. Her brows furrowed in confusion and curiosity as she gazed at them. Suddenly, it dawned on her. She immediately tried to summon any amount of power, but was unable to do so. Panic began to set in. Without her powers, she was helpless. Even if her powers were unstable, even if she didn’t know quite how to use them properly, they were her only line of defense. Without them, she was a sitting duck.
She broke free from her thoughts when she heard a hard knock at her door. She let out a yelp and backed away from the door as much as possible, curling up into a small ball in the corner of the room.
“Get up, it’s time.” Someone yelled from outside. Immediately her door unlocked and three men, all aiming guns straight at her, filed in. A fourth man, whom she recognized, followed after.
“Hello again, dear Sigrid. How are you feeling this morning? You’ve been out for a while.” Sigrid pursed her lips, refusing to say anything. Zola sighed. “Well my dear, the time has come. Your training will begin today.” Before she could say anything, two of the three men lowered their guns and grabbed her by the arms. She tried to shake away from them, but she had been exhausted from the electricity that had previously pumped through her veins. They managed to get her out of the room and down a hall, the third man never lowering his gun. Zola led the way to another room, instructing the guards to pull her inside. Inside the room sat a menacing chair, hooked up to a large machine that Sigrid knew wasn’t used for anything good. There were wires and smaller machines all over the room, all connecting to this disturbing chair. It was primitive looking. Terrifying.
They quickly sat her down in the chair and undid her handcuffs, only to strap her to the chair. Once everything was in place, the men stepped back. Zola stood by the main machine powering the chair. He glanced over her, noting the fear written all over her face.
“Do not be afraid, little one. We are simply going to unleash your true potential. You have so much to offer HYDRA. To offer the world. It’s time we put you to good use.” He pressed a button on the machine and the chair came to life, mechanisms moving to cover parts of her head and face. Her panic began to increase, along with her breathing. Zola a few more buttons and immediately Sigrid’s head felt like it was melting. Electricity shot through it, causing her to scream in a way she never thought she could. The pain was immeasurable. Energy began surrounding her, causing the aura around her to glow a bright white. She could feel herself drifting away, almost like her mind was taking her consciousness somewhere else.
As she was screaming, she could hear Zola yelling over the noise. He was saying disturbing, menacing things. About her being a weapon. A soldier. That there were people that needed to be terminated. That she would help further HYDRA’s cause. That she was now property of HYDRA. Sigrid couldn’t tell if the pain was worse than the ideals being shared through Zola’s mouth.
After a few minutes, Zola stopped the machine, and it whirred down until the room was silent. The energy around her dissipated. He walked calmly over to Sigrid, her head down and her breathing labored.
“How do you feel?” He asked.
Sigrid couldn’t speak. All she could muster was a small squeak, a sob from deep in her throat.
“Are you here to help, little one?” He asked, placing his hands on his knees as he tried to lock eyes with her. He saw her face contort slightly and her head minutely shake. He sighed and stood up straight.
“With time, you’ll see reason.” Zola snapped his fingers and the guards quickly released her from the chair, locking her cuffs on her once again.
They dragged her quite literally back to her cell, throwing her back onto her bed. She couldn’t bear to move. Everything hurt. She felt a few tears slip down her face, but couldn’t get her arms to move and wipe them away. At least she had been left alone…
Twice a day they’d force her back into the chair, and every time she’d come away with a piece of her mind gone. She could feel herself slowly breaking, but she fought against it as hard as she could. Every time they seared her brain, Zola would repeat the same sentences over and over. Repeating HYDRA’s cause, and her role expected within the organization.
Sigrid lost count of how long it had been after two weeks of being fried over and over. Her brain didn’t care anymore to track the time. She found she didn’t really care about much anymore. She actually didn’t do a lot of thinking anymore in general. She couldn’t remember many coherent thoughts after Zola had taken her into custody. She often would just sit on her bed and stare into a wall, her mind blank, while most often someone sat outside her cell and read pro-HYDRA propaganda to her. Whenever her mind would begin to come to, she’d be strapped to that chair and electrocuted into mindlessness once more. It was only a matter of time before she broke completely.
After a few months of captivity and torture, it happened. She was strapped to the chair for the second time that day when she felt herself drift away. Amid the electrocution, her mind fell into blackness. A dormant-like state.
Zola, however, had gotten what he was looking for. He slowed the machine to a stop and walked over to the blank-faced girl.
“How do you feel?” Her eyes slowly and steadily rose to meet his. There was nothing behind them. He smiled.
“Hello, Angel. You have a lot of power within you. Let us begin learning how to control it, hm?”
She nodded slowly, and Zola instructed the men unstrap her from the machine. One of them always had a gun aimed at her, at the ready just in case. Zola offered out his hand to her, and she slowly grabbed on to it. Her body seemed to do whatever he told it. Her mind, however, was gone. Hiding somewhere in her fried brain, away from the torture and the pain. This would be the beginning of something awful. The forging of a new weapon. A new soldier.
-
For years, Sigrid trained. She learned how to use her magic in a deadly way. She often was strapped back in the chair, her brain being fried again and again, any time her mind began to show any little sign of coming back. They kept her subdued as often as they could control. She was at their beck and call. A weapon that was stored away in a cell unless it was time for training, electrocution, brainwashing, or a mission.
Throughout the years, she was called upon to take out enemies to HYDRA. They only called her out occasionally, however, as they had someone else whose job it was to take out most enemies. She was there as a last resort and for extremely important hits. HYDRA couldn’t risk her power becoming an interest to anyone else. The Angel was a deadly force who always completed her orders.
And so went time. Zola appeared to have aged every time she saw him with semi-sane eyes, and eventually he disappeared. Others took his place, none staying long enough to be permanent. She guessed that she had been held captive longer than she could tell. It only felt like maybe a few months had passed since that first fateful night, but with Zola’s disappearance, that felt wrong. Maybe a closer to a decade? It seemed ludicrous that that much time had passed.
After Zola’s constant presence had vanished, time became even more distorted. Sigrid could no longer properly discern minutes from days, even when her sanity had somewhat returned. Not that it mattered. Every day would pass mostly the same. She’d listen for hours as guards would relay HYDRA ideology to her, her only alone time being the late hours of the night, if she could even comprehend them. She’d be taken in everyday for training, and weekly for electrocution to keep her mind at bay, more often if she showed signs of lucidity. She was often just in a blank state, but sometimes she’d come to just enough to mourn and grieve her previous life.
She would tearfully wonder how her life had turned out so wretched. She thought coming to America was the best thing to do. However, she reasoned, had she not made that journey, she wouldn’t have been turned into a killing machine in the hands of murderous psychopaths, and her once dear friend wouldn’t have been murdered in cold blood. Blood she believed to be on her hands. Over the years, she had gone from sobbing on the occasional night to internally eating at herself almost constantly when she was lucid. All the pent up shame and guilt only continued to grow as they continued to utilize The Angel.
What a disgusting name. A name one should associate with peace. Heaven. Tarnished by a group of people hellbent on what they called “freedom”. She couldn’t bear to even identify herself as Sigrid. That woman died a long time ago. She was someone new entirely. Who that was, she didn’t know, but the thought of using the name that once brought love and cherished memories of her sister into her heart only caused her more grief and pain. She didn’t feel worthy to use that name. She didn’t feel worthy of anything. Every day she hoped and prayed to the gods above that she would be freed. That her suffering would stop. Even sometimes, that her life would end. Maybe then, the murder and destruction that came from her hands would end too. Her prayers always seemed to go unanswered.
As she sat in her bed one day, she knew it would be soon that she’d be back in the chair. She was becoming much too lucid. Her lucidity was usually predictable, occurring for an hour or so in between torture sessions, but occasionally it would occur at random. Once during a mission, she had nearly finished the job when her mind began to come to. She refused to take a life of an “enemy” that day, and had been severely beaten as punishment. It became harder to stay sane after that. They began strapping her in the chair more often to prevent future slip ups.
But today had been different. She had become rather sane through the night, and she hadn’t yet been taken down to the chair. She knew it was coming, and so she tried to savor the last remaining moments of clarity she had before succumbing once more to the void. She never knew how long she would stay in that state, but she knew that once she eventually began sobering up, her memory would fill her in on what she missed. At least, it would remind her of the horrid actions that came from her hands.
She heard a loud bang and a shout from somewhere down the hall. Her eyebrows furrowed. The guards usually made noise when coming to fetch her, but this was different. It was almost violent sounding. More bangs came, and suddenly the lighting in the building shifted red. A siren began to blare, and gun shots rang in the air, as well as more shouting. She began to panic. Slinking into the corner of her bed, her back sat against the cold brick wall and hands covered her ears.
The gunshots and voices died down after a few minutes, leaving the only sound to be the wailing of the siren. She slowly lowered her hands, tears beginning to slide down her cheek. Before she had time to comprehend the situation, her door exploded in. Shielding her face from any shrapnel, she let out a shout and slunk further into the corner. Luckily her magic was subdued, due to the metal cuffs on her wrists, or some damage surely would have come from her own hands. She had to wear the cursed cuffs any time she wasn’t instructed by HYDRA to use her powers, including in her sleep. It was a wonder they hadn’t permanently molded to her skin.
Her heart pounding, she lowered her arms slightly. In the doorway stood a woman, dressed in all black with bright red hair. She held a gun up, looking for any threat. She turned her gaze to the woman on the bed.
“P-please… don’t hurt m-me…” Sigrid croaked. The redhead looked at her with confusion for a moment, before realization and sympathy took over. She dropped her gun and her facial expression fell to something neutral, placing her fingers to her ear.
“I found someone. I think it’s her. I’m going to try to get her out.” She paused for a moment. “Can you handle clearing the area of any remaining HYDRA agents and prisoners?” After a moment she nodded and spoke a confirmation. She turned her attention back to the young woman on the bed, reacquiring her look of sympathy.
“Are you alright?” She stepped forward, and the frightened woman curled away from her, shaking. “Hey,” the redhead assured, “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to take you away. Somewhere safe. Are you hurt?” Sigrid sat still for a moment before shaking her head no. “Good,” the redhead stated, offering her hand out. “We need to get you out of here.”
Could it be? Would she finally gain freedom?
She hesitantly grabbed the hand that had been offered to her. The redhead quickly pulled her off of the bed and out of the cell. Looking back, she felt relieved. This was the first time she was leaving this cell and not going to get brainwashed, or go to training, or go on a hit. She felt skeptical, but free.
As the pair exited the building, Sigrid looked around, her eyes quickly gazing over the night sky, the trees, the grass. Her eyes began to tear up. The redheaded woman took notice of the tenseness that has passed through the body she was leading. She looked at the woman next to her.
“Are you alright?” She asked. Wiping her eyes, Sigrid answered,
“… I missed this…” The pair stopped. Sigrid bent down and grazed the grass with her fingers, tears beginning to fall. Suddenly a gentle voice piped up.
“My name is Natasha.” The red haired woman bent down, the two eye level now. “What is your name?”
She stayed silent. She didn’t know who she was. She couldn’t bear to use the name she’d previously been gifted. She didn’t feel worthy of the title. But if not Sigrid, who? The only other name she has been known as was “The Angel,” and that wasn’t her in the slightest. That was a weapon created by HYDRA. She simply dropped her head back to the grass.
Natasha placed a hand on the silent woman’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you somewhere safe.” She rose from the ground, bringing the teary eyed Sigrid up with her. She led her down a hill, where a strange looking jet sat. At least, that was all she could assume it was. The design of planes had progressed significantly since her first voyage to America not too long ago. A ramp was down, allowing them access inside. Natasha sat her down on some seats, before once again placing her fingers to her ear.
“Is it clear?” The woman looked up from her seat. Who on earth was she talking to? Natasha nodded after a minute. Turning to the woman beside her, she said, “Correct me if I’m wrong. You are the one HYDRA called ‘The Angel’, right?” Sigrid’s head dropped at the mention of the name, shame coursing through her being. That was all Natasha needed. “Yeah, we got her. No, she’s not a threat. Trust me,” she spoke again to the voices coming in through her ear. Turning to face the confused woman, she said, “Don’t worry. We’re going to take you somewhere safe.”
“…We?” She inquired. Natasha smirked.
“We call ourselves the Avengers.”