[Warning for violence, sexual assault and murder. Not graphic but mentioned.]
April, 2006
Due to the healthy meals she was allowed to eat, her appearance didn't look pitiful anymore; but bruises, cuts, black eyes and bandages adorned her body. They were all product of the abuses of her roommates, and the training she was forced to do.
She shared the same room with other 5 boys and 3 girls. All older than her.
She was just told to follow instructions. Since she was the youngest, she soon became the others' punching bag. Her everyday life's misery consisted of either running for her life in any forest they were taken to without being told how to get out, or suffering all sorts of abuse from her stressed roommates.
Her simple attire of a pair of grey pants, a white shirt and some old snickers was constantly replaced due to the harsh training.
"Hey, pretty eyes, want to train with me again? I surely have fun punching that scrawny body of yours." A guy, much taller than her, taunted. The other guys just laughed, and couldn't wait to see the show. They were not allowed to refuse sparring offer. They were basically forced to fight like caged animals.
Many times, she had ended up heavily bandaged due to the many broken bones. There were not allowed to hold back. Luckily, the past few days she had only ended up with a few bruises and a swollen eye. She had not gotten stronger, yet being their constant target had made her faster.
If she could, she would dodge a few punches or kicks and return some of her own.
Training was not the only instance when she was abused. Back in their room, while sleeping or while showering, many times she had been raped by the guys. Sometimes it would be just one, sometimes two, and there was that time she had been raped by all of them.
That time, she was taken to the medical room.
The other girls didn't care about her plight as they had offered themselves for a sexual encountered from the very beginning. They even looked for the guys to initiate the matter. At night, every night, moans resounded together with the creaking of a bed from a couple who were having sex without caring if they were heard.
After all, they were injected with preservatives.
Pregnancies were not allowed.
She was the only one who still resisted. But, that didn't erase the fact that she didn't see herself as pure anymore. She always felt so dirty, she had developed a cleaning disorder. She didn't even know why she was enduring that kind of treatment. Her mind was about to collapse, but she still continued with that type of life.
To survive.
Maybe the fact she hadn't seen her parents, and wanted to know if they were well and alive was the only reason she continued. Maybe she only withstood all that because she wanted to know why she was suffering all that, where she was and who the people that had her there were.
One day, she found some answers after training.
They were using knives as weapons that day. She was already sporting countless cuts on her clothes and skin. He was enjoying the process of uncovering her pale skin little by little. No more. With a swift move, she plucked out an eye from the guy that abused her the previous night while she was taking a shower.
He was rolling on the ground, blood gushing out from the hand that was covering the empty eye socked, curses directed at her gushing from his mouth.
She looked down at him with a sharp and cold gaze that was filled with killing intent. The others just looked at the scene for some seconds, and then continued with their stuff. Even when they lived together, it didn't mean they had to get along, so their personalities were as crooked and frivolous as a psychopath.
The same man that took her out of that cell and put her with the group entered the room and dragged her out. She thought she was going to be punished for what she did; however, great was her surprise when she was taken to a bright white room, a table and two chairs inside.
Not the room where they punished them if they broke the rules.
The man made her sit on one of the chairs and he sat across her. She finally was able to see his face as he took off his mask and cap. He was a handsome man.
"Why did you do that?" He asked in a monotone voice. She looked down and pressed her lips. She hadn't spoken for a long time, but she knew she still had voice due to the screams from the times she was raped. She never talked to any of her roommates.
"I..." Her voice was coarse and broken, unused. She cleared her throat in an attempt to make it sound better, but it was for naught. "I don't know."
"That's not the answer I want." He said with a hint of anger that made her shiver. Just a few words and the man in front of her made her want to run away from that place. She bit her lower lip and took a deep breath to try again.
"I just did it. I was tired of him looking at me with those eyes. He's always looking at me like that. I felt so gross that I just thought I could take them out so he wouldn't look at me again. And, I did it. If possible, I wanted him to disappear." She whispered those last words as she knew they were not allowed to kill each other.
That rule didn't prevent her from wanting to kill him.
The man just sat there in complete silence, then he stood up and walked out of the room. Minutes later, he came back with another man who had his head covered and made him kneel by the door. He then placed something on the table, and spoke the words that made her break in cold sweat.
"Kill him." She looked up at him and then at the thing that was on the table. It was a gun. "You want to do it? Then go ahead, kill him." He walked to the kneeling man, uncovering his face and showing the guy she wounded before.
His head was heavily bandaged, and by the impression of it, he no longer had an eye in his left socket. His sole eye was full of anger when he saw her, but the bindings on his hands and feet didn't let him move. She slowly stood up, taking the heavy weapon, and walked towards him.
"Want to kill me? Keep dreaming, pretty eyes. When you are sent back to the room, I'll take that filthy body of yours and make you scream until your eyes turn white, and you loudly beg me for mercy. That's what awaits to bitches lik-" His body fell like a lump after a hole appeared on his face, almost making his entire brain spill out from the back.
The girl emptily looked at his body while blood stained the pure white floor and wall, as if what she was seeing was nothing but a mere she had crushed.
"Congratulations, Rei. You are officially one of us now." The man clapped. "The rule of not killing is just some bullshit rule. You are actually allowed to do it, but all the guys back there didn't have the guts to do it. That's why they only left you half dead while you collected all that hatred enough to take the final step. Tsk, such a foolish guy. You pluck his eye out, and the only thing he thinks of is to rape you. Such a waste. It seems we had been nurturing the wrong guys. I'll take care of that."
He snapped his fingers and the door opened, showing another man in black that took away the corpse laying on the floor.
Soon, while they were walking down the hall, she could hear the screaming and begging of her roommates, then several gunshots came from the room she shared with them. Of course, Rei couldn't care less about their fate, she was out and that was all that mattered.
Shadow.
That was the name of the organization that held her there. Her parents were killed, accused of treason by the same organization they worked for. As payment for their mistake, they took their daughter to train her as a professional assassin.
Their replacement.
She remained impassive at the news of her parents' death, not showing the utter shock, disbelief, betray and despair she actually felt. The man smiled at her lack of reaction, very satisfied with her performance.
ISI, CIA, MI6, FSB, BND, RAW, DGSE, ASIS, MSS, MOSAD and many more intelligence agencies often depended on Shadow. As its name implies, they are the shadow of the big organizations, always working in the shadows. Practically, nobody apart from those agencies knew about them.
And she was going to work for them.