Hollow Soldier
Time passed.
Bucky and I continued in this endless cycle of missions, freeze, thaw, fight, repeat.
Only difference: I remembered everything.
He didn't.
They wiped him before every freeze, reprogramming his mind each time he woke.
His memories gone, but his body still carried the weight of every bruise, every scar.
Unlike mine, his wounds didn't heal like nothing had happened. They were a map of pain, a constant reminder of what he endured.
I remember the one time he almost got out, when a fatal mistake was made during a rushed deployment.
Usually, they never sent him out on back-to-back missions. The longer he stayed awake between wipes, the more risk there was of memories creeping back.
But that time, they did. And he remembered.
Not everything.
But enough.
Enough to know his real name.
Enough to know he no longer wanted to be the weapon they turned him into.
He fought with everything he had.
Broke the programming machine, something they'd never expected.
That was his undoing.
They refused to put him back on ice until they had completely erased his mind again.
Instead, they locked him away like a wild animal.
Shoved him into a reinforced padded cell, pitch black inside, silent except for the sound of his own agony.
The padded room echoed with the thudding impact of his body slamming against the walls, hard, relentless.
Each bang sounded like a drum of desperation, reverberating off the sterile concrete.
A device was strapped to his metal arm deactivating it.
I was posted outside the door, I was the only one strong enough to restrain him if he tried to break free.
For hours, he pounded his body against the padded walls.
His screams tore through the darkness, raw, ragged, full of confusion and unbearable pain:
"What am I?! Why does my head hurt? Make it stop!"
His agony filled the empty cell, a sound that clawed at the walls and settled into my bones.
His memories overflowing in his mind like a hurricane.
Eventually, silence fell.
Heavy and unnatural.
The general ordered us in with extreme caution.
We secured the perimeter before opening the cell door, and there he was.
Bucky, slumped against the padded wall, covered in blood.
His blood pooling beneath him, soaking into the mattress floor.
His metal arm was mangled, ripped apart, wires exposed, fused with torn flesh.
He had clawed at it so violently that the skin around was shredded, the muscle stretched thin like it might snap.
His head was bruised and battered, bleeding.
He had bashed it repeatedly against the walls, fighting to erase the pain.
A jagged piece of metal, torn from his own arm, was stabbed straight through his flesh wrist.
Medics rushed in.
I was ordered to carry him to the medical bay.
His blood soaked through my uniform, sticky and warm against my skin.
As I laid him on the cold exam table, my only thought was a silent prayer:
I hope you die.
Not out of cruelty, but mercy.
That death would be a release, a quiet freedom from this endless torment.
In his glimpses back to his true self, he found that was what he wanted.
May the reaper find you soon, Bucky.
The medical bay smelled of antiseptic and sterile cold.
Machines beeped incessantly, monitors flashed numbers and rhythms that meant life, but not the life Bucky wanted.
They worked on him for hours.
"He's a super soldier," one doctor said coldly to the general.
"He won't die so easily."
"X13, guard him," the general barked at me.
"Make sure he doesn't try this again."
I stood watch in the room where he lay, his metal arm disconnected and restrained, wires spliced and waiting to be repaired.
His shoulder wrapped in blood-stained gauze.
His other arm strapped down, an IV pumping both blood and drugs into his veins.
His legs, torso, arms, all restrained. Monitors blinking incessantly.
The sterile smell of antiseptic mixed with coppery blood hung heavy in the air.
If I had any strength left, any will of my own, I would have taken my gun and ended his suffering then and there.
But I was no longer master of my own body.
I stood by him for days.
He woke occasionally, barely conscious, his voice ragged and broken:
"I don't belong here... please… kill me… let me die."
The Bucky I once knew, the kind man filled with hope, was gone.
Only a hollow shell remained.
Broken, scraped raw, empty.
But who could blame him?
What they had done was cruelty beyond words.
Most men would have broken long before.
He was human. They turned him into something else.
Doctors fought to keep him sedated, but his super soldier physiology metabolized the drugs quickly, he fought the fog, the pain, the nightmare.
His mind fractured, memories overlapping, crashing into one another like waves in a storm.
Screams turned to silence, and silence swallowed him whole.
When the programming machine was finally fixed and his arm repaired, they wiped him clean again, no ceremony, no regret.
Back into cryo.
They said his injuries would heal while he slept.
But the scars were permanent.
A roadmap of pain etched into his flesh,
A reminder of every broken piece, every shattered moment.
Leading him deeper into hell.