Light.

It wasn’t exceptionally bright, but after having been in total darkness for over twenty four hours, it was nearly blinding. Had it been that long? Maybe not, or maybe it was even longer than that. There was just no way to tell.

Robert Planas was tied to a metal chair in a small room. No windows, no furniture except a table and chair in front of him and his own chair that he sat on. The fluorescent light above him hummed loudly and would occasionally flicker giving the room a strobe effect.

His face was covered in dried blood from days of beatings, his face purple and misshapen. Planas rolled his tongue through his mouth and felt several gaps where teeth used to be. His body was in bad shape too. Besides the plethora of cuts and bruises, he was now missing several fingers on his right hand and his entire right foot was gone.

It didn’t really matter though. Planas already knew he wasn’t making it out alive.

The only door in the room opened with some effort. It was a large metal door that probably could have kept an elephant from getting out. A man stepped through. He wore a short black trench coat over his white shirt and black tie. His jet-black hair was jelled and styled, and his well-trimmed goatee matched his overall dark appearance.

This was the interrogator, Mic Deko, though Planas thought, he didn’t look the part today. He looked like he had just been called from a banquet. He also looked like he didn’t want to be here anymore.

Maybe death would come soon. How demented did you have to be to take comfort from a thought like that? Planas didn’t know, and he didn’t care. His body was giving up.

The man came and sat down at the end of the table. Planas didn’t look at him and Deko didn’t look at Planas. They both stared at the floor silently for a minute.

"I think we can be pretty sure that you’re not going to tell us anything," Deko said still absently gazing at the floor. "Am I right?"

Planas just stared at the ground. 

Deko finally looked up at him. "Let me just ask you. You don’t believe in anything they stand for. Speaking religiously, I mean. So, why would you struggle against the grain? Would you call yourself a ’freedom fighter’?"

Nothing.

"Because, I think you have us all wrong. Just because a government is large doesn’t mean that it’s evil. All we’ve ever done is defended ourselves and our people against terrorists who threaten their way of life. I’m talking about your friends, Robert."

Planas still didn’t say anything. He hadn’t expected the conversation to turn this way. To tell the truth, he hadn’t expected a conversation at all. He expected to have questions shouted at him, some more torture, then maybe they would finally kill him. This turn surprised him, but it didn’t knock his guard off. He remained silent.

"The reason I’m asking," the man continued, "is because I want to know what it is you want. You have to want something, and I know it’s not religious freedom."

The man leaned forward and lowered his voice. Obviously for dramatic effect. "You’ve caught me in a very special mood today, Robert. I’m tired of playing this game and I want it to end. I’m here offering you whatever you want."

"And what do you want, Deko?" Planas replied. He kicked himself inside. He shouldn’t have said anything.

"The same thing we’ve been asking you all week," Deko replied. "Tell me who the other spies are in the University system so we can restore harmony to the Roth community."

"And you’ll what? Let me go? Give me a normal life? You cut off my foot!"

"Wounds can be healed."

"You can’t give me what I want."

"You’d be surprised what I am capable of providing for you."

Planas sat back in his chair. He could feel Deko trying to wrap this all up. If Planas just gave him the names, it would be over. He doubted they would actually release him, but maybe. He had no intention of turning in his friends and it looked like if he could just hold out a little longer, Deko would just kill him. It would finally end. How he longed for it to just end.

"I want this war to end," Planas said. Deko just stared back at him expressionless. "I want Kouros dead. I want Roth to be a name people spit at when they hear it. And I want you to live out the rest of your miserable life rotting in a prison just like this one." Planas smiled grimly at him. "Can you give me that?"

Deko didn’t move for a moment. He finally blinked and looked down at the table. "You know, there’s an old saying. Something about a fate worse than death."

"Save it Deko," Robert interrupted. "Torture me, kill me, whatever. I’m not afraid of you."

With lightning fast movement, Deko reached into his coat, pulled out a semi-automatic pistol, and fired a shot between Planas’ eyes. Planas’ muscles tensed and contracted for a second as blood billowed out of the hole in his head. His eyes were wide with surprise, frozen open as death engulfed his body.

Finally, he twitched and slumped forward, his forehead hitting the table with a metallic ’clang!’

Deko stood up and calmly put the pistol back in his coat. With an eerie coolness, he walked over to Planas’ body lying still, his face producing a puddle of blood that spilled off the side of the table.  He put one hand on Planas’ head and with the other, he ran his finger through the pool of blood on the table. Then he began to paint. With the bloody finger, he drew a symbol on the back of Planas’ neck. Starting at the middle of his neck, he painted a spiral with the blood, the lines moving outward from the center. As he drew, dipping his finger in the blood periodically to refill, he spoke. They were unrecognizable, guttural sounds that came from deep in his throat.

As soon as his finger completed the third circumference, Planas shot straight up in the air. His restrained limbs kept him from going very far, but the motion made the chair hover for a brief second.

And he was screaming. Long, loud, and full of pure terror.

The hole in his forehead was gone, but the blood from the wound was still all over his face, running down his chin and dripping on the ground.

Deko moved forward again and grabbed him by his hair and put their faces close together.

 "There is no fate worse than death," Deko growled at Planas. "You know that’s true now, don’t you? Now you’ve seen what waits for you on the other side."

Planas stopped screaming but was shaking violently and whimpering on the verge of sobbing.

Deko lifted his face away from Planas ever so slightly. His eyes scanned the room behind Planas.

"I can see them," Deko whispered, his eyes twitching as if following some invisible movement through the room. "They’re asking me to send you back." Deko turned his face to lock eyes with Planas. "They’re so hungry, Robert."

Planas whipped his head around trying to see. The room was completely empty, but he could sense something in the room with them. A dark presence filled the room like a cloud of poison gas. A silent, invisible killer waiting insidiously for its victim.

Deko let go of his hair and took a step back. He took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped the blood off his hands. Then he reached back into his coat and pulled out the pistol once again. He aimed it at Planas’ head.

"Tell me their names," Deko said. "Or I will send you to spend an eternity as the food for them."

Planas had lost his mind. The terror that overtook him was so encompassing that he barely had any other brain function. He was shaking with terror, drooling uncontrollably and mumbling incoherent phrases of fear. But he had just enough mental capacity to recognize that Deko was going to kill him no matter what. Deko was not going to let him go. In that brief second of clarity, before the terror overtook him again, he locked eyes with his interrogator.

"Deko, go f…"

Deko didn’t even let him finish. He pulled the trigger, once again shattering his skull and re-creating the macabre scene from only a minute ago.

Planas’ body again hit the table and lay still, this time for good. Deko stood over him silently for a moment, then lowered his weapon. Finally, he put it back in his coat and walked toward the metal door at the other end of the room.

He waited by the door for the guard on the other side to open it for him. With a creak and a slow swing, the heavy metal door opened up and Mic Deko exited the interrogation room for the last time.