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There’s a needle in his elbow. He barely registers the cool fluid creeping through his veins. He shivers. The ground beneath him is cold, drawing the heat from his body. He is staring, eyes half-lidded and glazed, at the dusty, moldy ceiling.
To his left is a glass wall. A man is standing behind it. The man is dressed in a white robe with spectacles that hang crookedly on his nose. The man is holding a clipboard. The man does not move.
He is cold. He thinks he sees movement to his right, but he cannot turn his head to look.
He tries to sit up, something in the back of his brain screaming at him danger but his legs merely twitch helplessly. He tries to move his right arm and manages a weak gesture before it falls back to the floor, useless.
He cannot feel his left arm at all. He tries not to think about that.
He wonders if this is Hell.
He wonders why Hell is so cold.
He hears the sharp twang of metal booming to his right and his whole body flinches against the break in silence. It sounds like a rusty door opening. He hears soft, padded noises, like walking barefoot on tile. He hears sniffing and shuffling. He hears a low, near-imperceptible moan. He thinks that it might be him.
He remembers Steve.
Steve is crouched in front of the cabinet, a teasing smirk painted on his face.
“Come on, Buck, it’s just a rat!”
Bucky is standing on a kitchen chair, shoulders pulled up to his ears. He’s laughing along, but his heart is racing.
“You get it, then!” he taunts.
A rattling sound comes from the cabinet door and both boys turn towards it sharply.
“Give me a bucket or something to catch it in, Buck,” Steve calls.
“How about a hammer?” Bucky retorts, a red blush creeping on his face despite his jeering.
Steve looks at him incredulously. “No, I’m not gonna kill it! It hasn’t done anything wrong.”
Bucky’s eyes bulge. “It’s probably eating through our flour right now!”
Steve shakes his head, smiling. “It’s hungry. It’s not like it has anything else to eat around here. It just needs to be let outside.”
Bucky shivers but hands a bucket to his friend. “Alright, let it out then!”
Steve nods, positioning the bucket against the cabinet door. “On three,” he says.
Bucky gulps.
“One… two…THREE!”
The rat suddenly leaps out of the cabinet, dodging Steve’s trap and heading straight for Bucky. He screams.
The scream echoes in his mind.
The metal door shudders again, drawing him from his memories. He manages to turn his head to see a small gate in the wall, maybe a foot tall. He tries to remember if the gate was there before.
Small, pink hands grasp the bars. His stomach drops.
The gate shudders again and opens.
What must be dozens of large, black rats pour from the opening. They scramble across the cold floor towards him, whiskers twitching. Their beady eyes bulge from their skulls. Greasy footprints trail the floor behind them.
They head straight for him.
His mind screams for him to move, to get them away, but his body refuses to obey. He sluggishly pushes his arm against the floor, but it’s too late. They’re too fast. He’s too weak.
Tiny, fuzzy rats crowd his field of vision. They’re climbing on him, sniffing at him. He tries helplessly to push them away before more come.
They cover his whole body. They wriggle under his arms and between his legs. They claw at his exposed skin. Whiskered noses dig against his ears and throat. Their dull, yellow teeth gnaw at his fingertips and earlobes. The rats tug at what little he’s wearing, shredding the fabric with their sharp claws.
He wants to scream. He can’t. He’s scared they’ll go down his throat.
They’re in constant movement, scampering over his limp body as he seizes beneath them, paralyzed by fear. All he can hear is the squeaking and chattering and his own muffled sobs.
He can’t see. He can’t breathe. He can’t think. All that he knows is the scrabbling, pinching, biting, clawing. He can’t even roll over to protect his chest. He is completely vulnerable.
He is no longer a soldier. He is no longer an American, no longer fighting in the war.
He is no longer Bucky Barnes. He is hardly even human.
He is an animal, reduced to pure instinct and fear.
He is screaming—he thinks he must be screaming. the rats flood down his throat. Sharp nails tear into his eyelids. Blunt teeth chew at his nose. He tastes dirt and rot and his own blood.
He curls in on himself as best he can, sobbing and wailing for it to stop, please stop, and he doesn’t know who or what he’s pleading to anymore, he just needs it to go away.
He is cold, so cold, and the fur brushing against his face is as sharp as ice. He tries to cover his mouth—he can’t stop screaming—but the rats push at his arms and he cannot lift them.
He thinks, for the first time since coming to this cold, moldy room, that he might actually die here.
He knows he will die here.
The rats shred his tongue, nip at his eyelashes, chew at the ribs that protrude through his sallow skin.
He knows he has already died here.
He stops knowing for a while.
When he becomes aware of the room again, it is empty. He is lying on his back. What little warmth in his body is seeping through the ground.
He opens his eyes slowly. He is alone. There are no greasy footprints on the floor.
What would have made greasy footprints, again?
He blinks heavily. There are no scrapes through his eyelids.
There is no fur in his mouth, no whiskers in his ears.
He strains his eyes towards his chest. Exposed, shivering, but free of bite marks. He thinks his ribs stick out more than they should. He doesn’t remember why that’s important.
He raises his head minutely and looks at his legs. They are bent at an odd angle, as if he were trying to run while laying down. His feet are bare, but unmarked.
He looks at his right hand. Shaking, but intact.
He does not look at his left hand.
There is no blood on him. He expects there to be. Why would there be blood on him?
His throat is raw. He thinks he must have been screaming. Why was he screaming?
There isn’t a needle in his elbow. There is nothing else in the room with him.
Movement to his left. He turns his head, achingly.
The man is still there behind a thick wall of glass. Safe, he thinks. Safe from the…
From the…
He looks at the man for a while. The man stares back.
The man pulls up the clipboard, agonizingly slowly. They do not break eye contact.
The man scribbles something on the board.
The man lowers his head, peering at him through the tops of his glasses.
He thinks that the man was writing about him.
He does not remember why that’s important.
He lays his head back down on the floor.
He is cold.
He closes his eyes.