00:45 AM – Interrogation Room
The air in the interrogation room was heavy. The dim neon light overhead flickered slightly, casting faint shadows on the gray walls. Scattered across the cold steel table were photographs and documents, evidence of something dreadful.
Thomas sat in a metal chair, his wrists cuffed in front of him. His shirt was wrinkled, stained with faint traces he had yet to notice. His head felt heavy, his mind blank, as if a vast chasm had swallowed chunks of his memory.
He mumbled, his voice barely audible beneath the low hum of the air conditioning.
"What... what is this? What have I done...?"
Across from him, a stern-faced officer with piercing eyes slid two photographs toward him. The edges trembled slightly as they touched the table.
"What's your connection to them?"
Thomas stared at the images. The faces were familiar, hauntingly so, but they felt distant, like blurred reflections in a fogged-up mirror. His heartbeat quickened. He narrowed his eyes, trying to reach into the locked corners of his mind.
A flash of light. A deafening noise in his ears. A room. The scent of metal. A sudden, unexplainable dread.
The officer leaned in, his tone sharpening.
"A disturbance was reported in an apartment. And you, Tom... you were the only survivor."
Thomas stiffened. The words cracked something inside his skull.
"An apartment...? A disturbance...? A victim...?"
His cuffed hands moved to his temple, as if to hold back the sharp pain that surged through him. Fragments of something distant began piecing together—scattered shards of memory.
"There was a woman... and three men... I... I was one of them."
The officer placed two more photos on the table.
The first, a woman, lifeless, surrounded by a pool of blood.
The second, an apartment door, the faded number 135 smeared with dark red splatters.
Thomas swallowed hard. Something heavy pressed against his chest. He lifted his gaze, his breath coming in shallow gasps.
"Yeah... I remember."
The officer's eyes narrowed.
"What do you remember?"
Thomas blinked, his breathing labored.
"I was there... I was trying to save someone."
The officer slid two more photographs forward, closer, more demanding.
"Who were you trying to save? Which one?"
Thomas' fingers trembled. His eyes scanned the images, searching—searching for something that still felt wrong. Something was missing.
And then, without warning, something inside him shattered. A memory surged forward, sharp, unrelenting.
A voice screaming.
A hand gripping something tight.
A muzzle flash bursting in the dark.
And blood. So much blood.
Thomas' fingers shook violently. His mouth opened, but no words came out.
He was beginning to understand something he was never meant to know.