Prologue

On the third day since you’re captured you tell him your name. He doesn’t tell you his.

You’re not sure why you do it. It might be because of the way the silence wraps around you like a cloud of smoke, or maybe it has something to do with the realization that no one is coming for you. You’re most likely not getting out.

You work from home, have barely any friends and no known family. It will probably take a very long time for anyone to notice you’re gone, and even then it’ll probably only be your landlord coming to check why you haven’t paid the month’s rent.

Your jailers don’t seem to have any intentions of letting you go, although they haven’t made their intentions clear at all. It can’t be money, or leverage, or… you remember the tiles on the outside of your cell; white and clean and sterile-looking. You shudder.

They give you food and water at random times, so there’s no way to track the time. Always the same meal of stale bread, dry meat and flavorless gruel. But by the time they feed you you are already so hungry that you don’t care. You find that breaking the bread and dipping it in the gruel makes it easier to chew, and washing the meat down with a sip of the bottled water helps it go down. The man that lives in the cell with you eats methodically, always after you’re finished and always starting with the meat, then the bread, and finally tipping back the bowl of gruel. He finishes his water in three long gulps and then pushes the tray to a corner of the room and continues to brood against the wall.

It is while he’s tearing a piece of meat with his fingers that you utter your name. He looks at you, pausing his actions.

“That’s my name” you explain. He hasn’t talked to you except to silence you when you’d first arrived. But for some reason his presence is… not comforting, perhaps just reassuring.

Someone knows where you are, even if you haven’t met before. Someone knows what this place is, even if he hasn’t told you. Someone would know what happened to you, even is he’d have no one to tell. Someone would know your name.

Although what is he supposed to do with it?

His only reaction is the deepening of his frown, and then he continues to tear into his food as if you hadn’t said a word. You lean your head against the door with a great heaving sigh.

-

He has somewhat of a routine. He sleeps sometimes, the only difference from when he’s awake is that now his eyes are closed. After a few times where you both sleep against the wall your back starts to hurt. And you figure if he won’t take the bed then you will (calling it a bed is a kindness, really it’s just a slab of concrete sticking out from the wall, a thin white sheet stretched over it).

Sometimes he paces around the cell like a prowling lion, one of the sad ones from the zoo. Back and forth, back and forth, until he stops, blinks, and sits back down on the floor. If his expression gave anything away you could maybe say he was anxious, but it says eerily placid, so that it looks like he’s just trying to erode a straight line into the floor.

He exercises, on some days. Does push-ups for so long he’s starting to lull you, like a metronome. Sometimes you join him, though he pays you no mind. You sit next to him and do sit-ups until you hurt, laying on the floor and panting while he continues without breaking a sweat.

It’s so dull you almost forget you’re imprisoned. That is until one day the doors blast open with a bang so loud that it echoes inside the cell like it’s the inside of a gigantic bell. You shrink into yourself with a yelp, covering your ears while two men, dressed in black and armed to the teeth, burst into the room. They add to the noise by yelling to each other in a language you don’t understand, gesturing wildly towards the man, who is now standing tense and alert in a corner. The disturbance is so sudden and loud that you practically fall out of the bed in an attempt to get up, your heart is beating painfully hard and your head is still spinning.

“Wait!” You yell as they launch towards your cellmate. They ignore you, but one of them pulls out a taser and shocks the man on the stomach, even if he hadn’t done anything “Hey!! What the hell?! What’s going on?!”

The man doubles over with a grunt, but doesn’t go down. They’re pulling him out of the cell, you realize, and he’s just letting them drag him out. A deep dread sinks into your stomach like a stone. You’ll be alone. Perhaps the thought is selfish, but this man has been your only company for however long you’ve been in this place, silent as he may be. And now they’re shouting and hurting him and desperation is taking hold of you, moving you like puppet-strings. You push one of the intruders with all your might, using your fear to fuel your strength. He stumbles, caught off guard. And the stoic face of your companion shows surprise just before they throw you bodily back into the cell, left to watch as the only emotion you’ve seen in the man’s eyes disappears behinds the heavy iron door.

-

You know how he feels now. Pacing back and forth, back and forth, light unchanging and silence muffling your steps like cotton. You must wait for hours, uncertain if they’ll bring him back or if you’re next. If you let yourself think for more than a minute you’re choked by tears, so you don’t think. Just pace.

Then the door opens and before you can cower into a corner like a scared animal the man is thrown back into the cell, sent stumbling a few steps until he rights himself against the wall with his fingertips. You stand close, wary, until you notice him start to tip slowly to one side.

You don’t think, just hurry to his side and steady him. He doesn’t stand back up though, just leans onto you so that you have to adjust your grip or fall into a heap under his weight. He’s bleeding, you notice when you try to grab his arm and your hands slip on the slick blood. You try to pull away but he just falls against you again. They probably beat him, he can’t even stand up straight. You’re consider dragging him the few feet to the bed when he speaks.

“Bucky”

You’re so startled you almost let go of him “What?”

“Bucky, that’s my name.”