[M] 'Hunted'; the interrogation / IC

[Sickly]

Her eyes clamped shut but the light was still prominent beyond her lids. It created a dull ache between her eyes. She could feel them come closer as to inspect an interesting specimen.

“Choose your answer carefully,” Victoria jumped in her chair when they spoke, their voices lacked harmony and it bothered her greatly. Like one person and obviously not so. She gulped and waited for them to continue.

“Your replies now hold significance.” This was not something new Victoria. Her level of importance demanded a significant approach when it came to speaking. Her words always carried weight.

“Tell us what your main ambition is in life ; if you could achieve one thing only, what would it be?... Details may spare your life.”

Easy, Victoria's greatest ambition in life was to serve her country before herself. To promote peace and respect from the motherland. To live life in the service of others.

"I wanted a baby."

[Isis]

“You can refer to me as Esqu.”

“You can refer to me as Dire.”

They could not truly be described as more than a single person. Imperfect rhythm or not, Esqu and Dire spoke as a unit, like a cloning experiment gone wrong. Strangely enough, though, their use of the word can soothed her. Not machines, then. That little grammatical slip made all the intangible difference.

Still, she could not find in her limbs the impetus to move - whether that was from inability or the lingering effects of the drugs, she couldn't say. It didn't feel threatening. Even so, when they leaned close, somehow generating near-violent light (lack of glasses now seemed a blessing), Corinne couldn't help but feel her budding reassurance at their humanity shrink back.

“Choose your answer carefully," Esqu and Dire warned. "Your replies now hold significance.” Though they'd backed away, their presence cast a shadow over Corinne even more than ever, choking her.

“Tell us what your main ambition is in life; if you could achieve one thing only, what would it be? Details may spare your life.”

That final sentence settled in the pit of her stomach like a rock. May spare your life. But may not. Death's face felt so close that if Corinne could have reached out, she could have touched it. It would probably have a masked beak. Lex, she thought. If I'd known, I would have said goodbye. To you and Amy, held Braxton and Zaire. But I suppose that's the way of these things. You don't know. I love you all. A practical person, Corinne did not believe thoughts could be sent to another. She focused on them mostly for her own sake, to anchor herself in the face of dizzying realization.

Corinne took a deep breath, like she wanted to savor every one that might be her last, and answered.

"Ambition..." A strange word, really. The implication being you wanted something for yourself. To reach some pinnacle. Ambition, a word of the young and politicians. "It's different for me, I suppose. The things you want as a girl - I've enjoyed my life. I love child psychology, as frustrating as it is sometimes. I've already met the love of my life, married her and raised a daughter together. I've cheered at my daughter's graduation and cried at her wedding. I've held my grandchildren and loved them no less for their very strange names."

She sighed. "When you're just starting out, you're filled with this... fire. Fire to change the world. But now... My greatest ambition is to live happily. To make the most of the moments I have, to love my family, and not to never be sad, but to be happy anyway."

"To me..." Corinne closed her eyes, savoring the memories flooding to the tip of her tongue. "To me that would be an achievement."

As though she'd worn herself out, had used all her words and could summon no other, the woman hung her head, eyes still closed, breathing deeply. A curtain falling on the first, and maybe last, act.

[Mysteria]

“If you are in discomfort, please inform us. Despite appearances, we are not here to make your time a misery… not for most of you, anyway.”

The words were beginning to sound more cohesive to Breeze although basically she still felt as though a train had just ran over her as she felt her pulse pounding in her temples.

"Thank you. I'm not in pain but my head feels fuzzy."

She felt her strength returning slightly, finally managing to lift her head only to find herself staring into a bright light. Although she immediately squinted her action brought no relief, the light still as bright as though her eyes were wide open.

“Choose your answer carefully,” they say in disjointed voices, backing away with sudden grace, “Your replies now hold significance.”


There were the voices again. Answer...replies...

Breeze shook her head to the best of her ability, still trying to rid it of the cobwebs.

“Tell us what your main ambition is in life ; if you could achieve one thing only, what would it be?... Details may spare your life.”

None of this was making sense to Breeze Rydell as she fought her way out of the fog but it seemed they wanted something from her even if she had yet to discern what it was.

"My ambition?" she questioned in her weakened state, not sure how to answer and only able to come up with one simple reply, but it was the only one she could give them.

"Before I die, I hope to make a difference in at least one person's life."

It was a base and crude answer, but for Breeze it was an honest answer.

[Housemaster]

The emotionless tones of the two large figures replied to Izzy's rather unorthodox composure. If they found the rockn'rolla to be an odd figure, they did a fairly good job at hiding it due to their constant aura of neutrality. They began to reply,

“Your name does not concern us. Your ability to answer was all was needed to assess,” One explained, “But we thank you for the reply, Izzy.”

The last sentence sounded almost bored, but then again Izzy was never one who could make minuscule observations like that. "Such polite blokes you are eh?" he beamed, getting readily used to this strange environment.

When their faces began to close in around his and a bright light suddenly blinded his vision, Izzy as trained by countless adventures to the hospital opened his eyes and stuck out his tongue as if he was sitting in for a routine check-up (routine being found in some alley blacked out on 'X' amount of drugs). Up to now there has not been anything that particularly worried the rock-star as it fit pretty well with his personality to go with the flow, neither was he a particularly quizzative type like these two 'doctors' were.

“Choose your answer carefully,” they spoke in disjointed voices, backing away with sudden grace, “Your replies now hold significance.”

He really did not hear the last line too well, and even if he did he never really paid much serious attention to 'questions of significance' and found them to be fairly boring and mundane.

“Tell us what your main ambition is in life ; if you could achieve one thing only, what would it be?... Details may spare your life.”

The rock-star laughed, "Well, I guess-a bout five minutes ago, at least I think it'd be five, my biggest goal in life was to get me some pie n' chip." his mouth watered just thinking about it, "Five minutes from now, who the hell knows what I'll want!" he tilted his head to the side, "Being tied down by 'life goals' is somethin' middle-class wankers grumble about each n' every mornin till they keel into their grave. 'Not me' I says!" He would have pointed to himself, but was still unable to move. "I'd rather be thrown in the looney bin before anythin' like that happens to me! A nice... comfortable... white... hey fellas. Is this the looney bin? An' if it is, any chance I can have some pie n' chip?"

[Tune]

“Your analogy is interesting, Jane…” Esqu replied.
“…But it holds no lies.” Dire finished.

“You are bound by similar laws as we,” they spoke together, “And we are bound by truth.

Their faces close in around yours and a bright light suddenly blinds your vision. You can see no torch in their hands, and yet, it feels as though they stare into your skull. If only you could see past those masks… but no. The eyeholes are shadow-coated; gazing at them does nothing but cause your mind to ache.

“Choose your answer carefully,” they say in disjointed voices, backing away with sudden grace, “Your replies now hold significance.”

“Tell us what your main ambition is in life ; if you could achieve one thing only, what would it be?... Details may spare your life.”

Had she told them her name? She groaned; her head hurt. She couldn't remember anything from a few moments ago. That thought concerned her deeply. How would she explain the lapse in her memory? Her absence from her presentation? Was her presentation today? What day is it? Several thoughts ran through her head, and she tried to come to grasp with all of them. All answers eluded her. Only question marks remained. Just question marks that made her stomach knot up.

What had the monsters said. Ambition? What is her main ambition in life? The greatest thing she could achieve in life? Just one thing? She wanted to achieve so many in life. So much that becoming anything less than a workaholic was unacceptable. She tried to brush a few blond strands out of her face, but her fingers only tingled and stayed in place. She inwardly cursed.

"One thing that I want to achieve in my life?" she said, staring down at the ground. "One thing that I want to achieve is... I want to graduate from Yale with a doctorate degree in Accounting. A doctorate degree in Accounting would give me access to any career in the field that I wanted. I could be a major stock broker on Wall Street. I could become the Secretary of the United States Treasury.

"I could have the world eating out of the palm of my hand. I could even open up a chain of national banks all across the United States, and attend charity galas, dine with the big wigs of Wall Street. All that could be mine if I wanted it. But I have to get accepted into Yale first. Or Harvard. Maybe even Oxford."

[Wattz]

”Very good, Adam.”

Yes, very good indeed. How obedient of him, even in his dreams, to please others without question. Even when he didn’t mean to, he felt as if he were catering to others. Usually it wasn’t so bad, making others happy. But when you don’t know where the line crosses between asking others to care and—

“Choose your answer carefully. Your replies now hold significance.”

At this, Adam nodded. He could almost feel his body sink further into the chair at the duo’s judgment, emanating like heat from their forms. If only he could rub his fingers together or tap his cheek, then maybe he could know for sure if—

“Tell us what your main ambition is in life ; if you could achieve one thing only, what would it be?... Details may spare your life.”

So many possible answers, so many choices panging around in his head. The ones he felt he should say were ones he’d told his teachers, his parents, his siblings, his friends. But the true answer had been suppressed in the back of his mind for so long, passed away as a fleeting thought amidst the others. A negative thought, his therapist had called it. A negative thought, and nothing more. Just let it be, she said.

“I want to have the last laugh when the world ends.” It had been so surprisingly easy to say, a petty desire he’d harbored inside for so long. How liberating, to see it splayed before his very eyes.

“It’s just… it’s exhausting, making others laugh. Even I’m guilty of it, but in the end, there’s nothing to laugh about but… you know, the end. It’s all kinda silly, if you ask me. But god, to watch it all burn, to have the final laugh on the best punch line ever, now that… is a dream worth having.”

His smile widened into a big, goofy grin, familiar in all its simplicity. “But you can’t tell anyone those kinds of things, you know? People’d think you… crazy or something.”

[SandQueen]

Ambition it was a simple word and something that Dr. Farahani had talked to many of her patients about. It was also something she'd given thought to on her own so answering the question would be easy.

"To be better." She replied confidently. "To be faster, smarter, stronger, and better than any of my peers. As Daedalus said to Ariadne 'Always forward, never left or right'. If I don't feel like I'm doing everything I can possibly do then I don't feel like I'm doing anything at all."

[V]

"Oh I must agree," Justin replied to the pair, "quite the shame, really, I loathe liars and lying myself."

Blinding light filled his eyes and he tried to stare at the masked men, but his head hurt too much so he looked away. Their strange vocal pattern continued as the back away. Justin nodded listening to their words, he liked their direct approach to the .... meeting. It was quite appreciated.

“Tell us what your main ambition is in life ; if you could achieve one thing only, what would it be?... Details may spare your life.”

"That is an interesting way to ask, I must say, my ambition is all about life in general." He pondered for a moment trying to find the words to explain. Justin spoked as he thought, "I find it annoying that no one has ever asked me this before, irritating to the soul that my desires haven't been worthy knowledge to someone."

"It may be disturbing and weird to hear but I wish to achieve Slaughter. To murder all of them, everyone that I cross paths with. To kill, to maim, to destroy people's lives. I don't care at how I do this, any way at all is perfect for my tastes."

"To have them know that I was their death."

[Kiall]

Grant did not like the sound of that.

“What does he mean life depends on it? Uh..uhh, don’t tell em what you really think! Tell em what your mom told you to tell your grandma that one time. That you wanted to be a dentist!” Grant suggested.

“She can’t lie remember?” Bethany replied.

I kinda want to tell them, I’m sure they won’t mind it.

“Do what you think is best honey,” Bethany said, “we’re just here to help.”

“Yeah…What she said,” Grant acquiesced reluctantly.

“I wanna go into space!” She said excitedly. “I wanna go on those big rocket ships and blast off! Pshhhhooooww!” She said making rocket ship noises. “I wanna fly to the moon! And..and sail among the stars!”

“Let me see what spring is like on...” Grant muttered.

“Jupiter and Mars!” Suzy crowed not realizing that what Grant said could not be heard since it had been only in her mind. “But what I really, really want,” she said her face lighting up, “is to go on a new planet! I wanna be an explorer and have lots of adventures on a brand new world!”

She looked around after giving them her answer annoyed a bit by not being able to move still. “Hey um…mister bird people? When will I be able to move again? My nose itches…” She actually really wanted to pick it, but she had that itch that only comes sometimes when you really want to pick your nose so it wasn’t technically a lie.

[~N~]

“Well done,” they muttered together. The answer did not seem to come easily to the man; his mouth seemed preoccupied dealing with other matters.

“Try to relax, Charlie. These questions should take less than half-the-hour, considerably shorter depending on your replies.”

As if he could do anything else. They had a real sense of humor that he could only barely grasp at like some phantasm floating, lingering just within reach... slipping right through his fingers...

And then BAM, BLINDING LIGHT, SO BRIGHT that it made him jerk uncontrollably away from it. "Holy... ssshhhh... sshhit..." he slobbered out, wincing as from a hard crack to the side of his face, eyes pinched shut. His limbs shook and trembled, eager to move for cover, but...

Their faces closed in around him.

Staring. Drilling deep like a dentist right into the hard bone and marrow of his thoughts.

His tongue clicked fatly in response; the kind of bound and gagging noise you might expect from a kid congested with thick swabs of mucus in his brain.

Empty eyes... lifeless eyes... doll's eyes...

“Choose your answer carefully,” they say in disjointed voices, backing away with sudden grace, “Your replies now hold significance.”

Fan--tastic.

“Tell us what your main ambition is in life ; if you could achieve one thing only, what would it be?... Details may spare your life.”

"Sharin' a chocolate moo-shake wi' a kid in a... cancer ward," he blubbered out. "Mine's got Jack though." Big crooked grin. "Give 'im some if he as't."

"After bowlin' and furrench fries."

Then a sudden thought, freed from its drug-induced locker: "Ma dawg's gonna mess on th' carpet if'n I dun git home soon. Shoot."