How Not to Interrogate Someone

SPLIT!

The blade of my grandfather's tanto-turned odachi crashes onto the floor. Its target, a burly accountant in his 50s, slumps on the floor. His head has been carved into half like a watermelon, the result of many a failed interrogation. Oh dammit. GodDAMMIT! THEY ALWAYS DIE BEFORE I PULL ENOUGH INFO FROM THEM!

It's so damn simple. I sit you down on my mom's old chair and ask you some questions. You don't answer my questions, I cut you with my sword. Simple as that. But you runts JUUUUUST have to struggle, don't you? Stuff like "I have a family to feed." or "When my friends find you, there'll be nothing left to bury!" First of all, you had the audacity to deal with the bitch who killed my friends and family. I'm just taking back what I should have had. Secondly, your friends are jack-shit. If they're as powerful as you said, they'd cut their losses and run away from this town. Run away. And leave your sorry weak ass behind.

I tell them, with as much patience as a girl grasping for her happy days can, something like these two facts. They never buy it. The struggling begins, the zip-locks on their arms starting to cut into the skin. Stop struggling, I just want some questions. Stop. Struggling.

I SAID STOP STRUGGLING!

Everything erupts. The air consumes itself as the room bursts into holes, teeth sprouting from them, voices jeering and screaming. The accountant jerks even more, he's clearly crossed uncharted territory. Sweating from every exposed spot of skin, the smell of urine on his pants growing more pungent. I'm too submerged to act on these details, as if the mouths around us are consuming my attention. I'm taken back to Whateley and its glimmering halls. The ceremony that started this unholy chain of events. Please no... no...nononono

"Damn, Lyra, I didn't think a party girl like you could grab some serious grades!"

I'm back, at the ceremony. My mom chats with Mr Alvarez of Dunwich Bank, its about the delicious cookies she made for his son's birthday. Haniff from my Chemistry class, what an absolute animal, is bewildered by the fact that I actually managed my partying to study. The whole room is full of a joy that only pierces my heart. All the signs of a mundane existence, all fated to rot and chewing. I want to yell at him, ask him why I'm in this hell again. Why I have to sit through the start of my very own horror film.

The words chew themselves into pieces. Then a mouth opens.

It's not my own.

"Well, see, I only party when I know I'll ace the tests. There's a time for serious crunching and there's one for letting loose. You poor thing, when I reach Hollywood's top, I'll make sure you get a job!"

A cheery smile creeps on my face. It's not my smile, it shouldn't be a smile. Why is it making me smile?

"And now, we are proud to announce Whateley's Class of 2022. All graduates, please come on stage to-"

I cut out the MC's voice from my thoughts. I know each word he'll say, in what tone, and how long it takes to finish the line. It's the same vision I've had since last year. My eyes try to dart around, fighting the stillness of my own actions. No, you won't... burn it... in my brain again... Past the seats of exuberant students, drunk roommates, and the occasional tight-suited business magnate. Up the carpeted stairs. And on the stage. Surrounded by thousands of expectant families. And my body has failed to fight that path.

Like it always has, my gaze points to a long ponytailed girl hunched in the middle. For a moment, her hairband opens its mouth. It's her, the one I've been looking for. The one I stained my hands just to wring her neck. That audacious, thieving, good-for-nothing, selfish, life-ruining, cowardly, SPOILED, TWO-FACED, CONNIVING...

MIMI! YOU LITTLE-

The headband splits apart as hell breaks loose. The world turns holed; a couple kisses and detaches, there's a giant hole where the girl's mouth and nose should be. A baby writhes on the floor, screaming in fear as it eats its own limbs. The atmosphere laughs, everything consumes itself and others. The front row crumples into blood and limbs in 3 seconds, not even time left to scream. Fear permeates the place, the MC backs away from the podium as a hole in it chews down on his hand. He screams in pain and drops into the stage, the gap closing (and smiling). Concrete falls around me, smashing the chairs and corpses into bits. A newly-single mother feverishly pulls the torso of her daughter: all she's rewarded with is the body's jaw agape and taking a chunk off her chest.

All this, in 6 seconds. Enough for Mimi to have stood up, a crazed smirk plastered on her. The thing bundling her hair is gone, rows of molars chatter through her hair, some gnashing frantically. She knows I'll keep suffering this living nightmare, so she's always saying some new retort. A fresh set of sentences guaranteed to break my heart and fuel my anguish.

It always works.

Today is the worst of them all...

"You think your body count's gonna bring back the world you had? Your family? Your friends? Your own little spot in Hollywood? Don't make me laugh. With each person you kill, your mother weeps!"

"Look, she's calling you a disappointment! Or was that your father? Maybe even your gramps? Your whole class?! AHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Ahhh it doesn't matter. Why am I wasting their words on someone who'll never. Hear. Them. Again~"

My howling is wringing and deep with grief. Sorrow, hatred, guilt, EVERYTHING.

My body is freed from its puppeteering. I charge at the thing that I once called a friend. Grasping, leaping, blade ready.

"I'LL TEAR YOUR GUTS OUT FROM YOUR MOUTH!"

SPLIT!

The world fades back to normal. Through hoarse breath, I focus on my dead lead's diagonal wounds. He's gone, my ticket to Mimi gone. And the chair, my mom's chair, splintered with his life.

I drop to my knees, whimpering. Then sobbing. Banging the floor with my fists, tears staining the dusty wood.

Why me, of all people? What was all this suffering for?