The buzzing whispers of Chechen climbed through the cracked concrete walls of her cell. Behind a rusted, metal reused prison door her body laid, crumpled and limp. Despite the mumbling whispers like crickets and fleas, it was quiet. The basement had always been too quiet.

Diana hated it.

A constant reminder that no one was coming. That she would die here, within these walls, the dirt floor serving as her casket. Her eternal resting place.

The world always felt still down here, she was not worth their time. Not anymore. And so the dirt and dust beyond the confines of her metallic cell door had settled. The etchings and engravings of days had been washed over, eroded. No one came around anymore. And the few times they did, there wasn't much time to rejoice in the moments of human contact before they pulled her out by the thick of her hair.

In all honesty, Diana had given up a long time ago. Even if she didn't want to admit it. The world felt stale and gone, there was no one left. No one was coming after all.

Soon she'd rot and mix with the same mud she'd lived on for the last few years. It wouldn't be too long of a death, after all, Diana could already feel the decay and rot from the inside.

Her bones were nothing but crumbling pillars of sand. Her brittle and corroded sinew had had their velvet exposed.

But the quiet didn't last long. Suddenly it was fleeting, rushing past the sliver of her door as echoing and ground-rumbling barrels of noise replaced its presence. First it was blaring, shots on silenced shots that pierced the air in thundering bolts. Dust shook from the walls.

And yet, Diana did not move. She laid still, eyes firmly planted on the details of the same door she'd seen a billion times as though nothing was happening beyond it.

The door lock clicked open, metal scratching against itself. Slowly it opened, the muzzles of automatic rifles poked through the first slivers of the door. Their grey frames almost blended in with the fortification. Their faces were passive as they looked down at her unmoving body. Stuck in the dirt, hair mangy and the stench of overdue death likely stung the air.

Nevertheless, Diana did not move, still she laid on the ground. Face half in the dirt, her own makeshift pillow. Eyes boring into the bottom of the metal door as it stood further from her than it had seconds ago. She could not feel a draft run over her dry and cracked skin like she had posited. There was no bitter and freezing and freeing gust of wind that shocked her frame awake. Nothing that jumpstarted her into realization. 

"Diana Winters?" They were Americans. Stitches patches on their black uniforms of those thirteen stripes and fifty stars. The speaker was from the North-West. Most likely Oregon or Idaho. Her analytical mind broke into a slow whir, the turning of an engine in her head. Her eyes lazily drifted up to their badges and mulled over their accents and stances but the whirring stopped only seconds later. And then, once again, there was nothing except for her quiet nod in return. She nodded, lethargically and apathetically. Face matted with blood and stained with dirt like it was now the only colours on her skin. 

She did not stop nodding all the way home. A gentle but impervious bow. 

In the beginning, when she first arrived, Diana had pondered and played out in her mind what this moment would look like. How her own battering ram of a heart would lead her to freedom once again. How she would escape with flare or kill everyone in this damn fort before escaping or even how her rescue would go. And each time the pondering ended with Diana falling to her knees, tears rushing down her face in a way that rivaled any waterfall, as the wind would blow through her hair. Sometimes she'd even pictured herself kissing the ground with joy as she begged thanks from God or Allah or whomever was up there.

But Diana Winters did not cry. All her tears had mixed with the clay and dirt that now sat beneath her mangled fingertips years ago. Diana Winters did not fall to her knees and she did not thank any God above.

She couldn't even muster a tear. Her escape was rushed and spoiled by her own inability to feel.

Hauling her to her feet, she stumbled, open toes dragging in the dirt. Leaving behind tracks in the unpacked dirt floor. Vertigo wrapped a barbed crown into her skull, it roiled in her empty stomach. With speed they weaved her through stifling corridors, some she'd seen before, some she'd never seen. They walked up and over bodies on high alert.

Shamil. Vakha. Anzor. Duvakha.

Diana loathed that she didn't get the chance to kill them herself. She had wanted to do the same to them what they had done to her.

But so much worse.

Bullets did not demand the same penance and punishment her plans had entailed. It seemed a waste to simply let them die without the accompaniment of blinding pain and fire-brimmed blood. 

The soldiers loaded her into the whirring and vibrating shell of a painted green and grey Black Hawk. She'd watched the concrete building grow ever more microscopic before blending in with the dense grey fog and viridescent forests of southern Chechnya.

There was a doctor onboard, he didn't greet her. No one had. However, Diana didn't mind it, the way their eyes did not meet hers came with it a sort of unspoken simplicity. No pitying looks, none that betrayed any other thoughts than accomplishing their objective. 

The doctor was similarly dressed in dark army uniforms, helmet firmly strapped to his head. Then, the doctor held his eyes to hers and smiled. A nice and warm smile as he wrapped the blood pressure cuff around the bare skin of her arm. But all Diana could give back was a stilted smile back. Lopsided and cumbersome. The doctor simply went about checking her vitals, blood pressure, body temperature, pulse, even respiration rate.

In spite of the pulsing and whirring that wormed itself into her bones and shook her spine, Diana felt motionless. Frozen, like her body was preserved in ice. Her eyes flicked around the helicopter. The pilots, a couple soldiers, the doctor and herself. Everyone spoke amongst themselves, but there were no words. Their mouths wrapped around unvoiced vowels and consonants. Uttering aphonic phrases. Diana could see the doctors shifting form but could not feel the latex of his glove on her bare skin.

Maybe she was dead.

Maybe she'd died days or months or years ago. And now the blurry essences of her last moments were replaying. The record of her world was scratched and echoed in those soundless hallways that the helicopter drew further and further away from. Maybe Diana Winters was dead, because she felt like she'd left her soul and her heart on the doorstep of that cage.

Over the shaking of the helicopter, Diana could see the shadows of the rising sun just over the horizon of trees. The golden blur shone between the needles and leaves of the forest. Like golden fingers were reaching towards her, vying to pull her back into the dark depths of Chechnya.