He’s been sitting in a 4 by 4 interrogation room for two hours. In front of him, a small desk and an empty chair. One small light bulb hanging above him, he could hear his own steady breathing, patiently waiting for someone to come along. His wrists were starting to sore from the tight cuffs around them.
Colby was watching him from the monitor in the other room. There’s no sound because the small camera didn’t have a microphone. He was annoyed by Adrian’s calmness even from the time he came to The Dungeon to arrest him. He knew he didn’t have enough evidence to lock him up, but he was determined to get a confession out of the mute that he despised. He left him there for two hours on purpose, hoping he could catch him showing some kind of nervousness, building up suspense so he can catch him in a lie. But that kid just sat still, staring blankly at the wall with an expression he couldn’t read.
He entered the room with a bang. He asked an officer to take off the cuffs and leave them. Adrian took a glance at the officer and then kept his head down. He could feel the breeze from the files as they land on the desk in front of him. “You wanna tell me what you were doin’ in the asylum?” Adrian took a deep breath, “No.” Colby hit the desk with the palm of his hand, “Don’t smart-mouth me!! Don’t be a prick!! This is no fun and games!!”
Adrian tilted his head and looked away from Chief Colby. “Now I’m gonna ask you again … what the hell were you doin’ at the asylum?” He didn’t answer immediately, he realized that Chief Colby had confiscated some of Friday’s finding from the asylum from his bedroom. “I was looking for some files … something about the patients … I’ve told you this.” “Just answer the Goddamn question!” Adrian raised his eyebrow with an annoyed look on his face.
“Were you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Why were you looking for these files?”
“Because it’s my hobby…”
“What kind of bullshit answer is that?”
“It’s the truth … I like to do things that other people find strange,” he said calmly.
Colby couldn’t contradict that, if there’s anyone in Mofocity that would go into the asylum by himself with an infrared flashlight, it would be Adrian. “How long were you in there?”
Adrian thought about it, “A couple of hours, maybe, I left at about 7.”
“So it was already dark?” Colby knew a thing or two about the dark in Mofocity, he was intrigued by what Adrian must have found in the after hours. Adrian nodded.
“What did you see in there?”
“Ruins … I took some files from the basement office … you have them in your possession … you can see for yourself.”
“No, I mean, what did you see in the dark?”
Adrian paused, “Nothing … I was out of there by seven.”
His intuition told him that was not truthful, but he kept going with more questions to get Adrian to repeat his story over and over until he could find inconsistencies in them. Adrian’s story was solid, even after three hours of questioning, he stuck by his version of what he did that night.
It would’ve been easier for him to say that Friday was there too than he would’ve had an alibi. But he didn’t want Friday to be involved in a murder investigation which very likely to go bad because the police were determined to find a suspect.
“You know, I can detain you for trespassing in a restricted area … but your buddy insists on bailing you out,” Colby said. Adrian kept his head down almost in the entirety of the interrogation. “What are you hiding, Adrian Addams? You can’t even look me in the eyes when you talk to me,” he added
“You were the same way when I had you questioned after your dad’s disappearance.” Him mentioning his father had opened up the path to the past, something that’s been bugging him from the dream he had last night.
“You still don’t remember anything from that day?” Adrian didn’t answer. “I think you do … you just don’t want to say anything … hiding behind that persona and think you’d be safe from the truth? One of these days it’s gonna catch up on you.”
Silence.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me you didn’t know anything about your father’s disappearance.”
Adrian emerged with a cold stone look in his eyes, something had changed him overnight, the memories were starting to come back and the urge to speak came back with it.
“I remember you were holding a dead baby,” he said without an expression. Colby Jones jolted from his seat, he grabbed Adrian’s collar with fire burning in his eyes, his face was red and then he let him go. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Colby. “You’ve been such a loner, I think it messes up with your head, boy!”
Colby started to open the files he brought to the desk. He had pictures from the crime scene and it would be the first time anyone, other than the police, had seen it. Adrian’s eyes widen trying to get a good look at them. There were pictures of the basement where they found the flashlight, pictures of the lawn, and then pictures of the body part on the ground. “Do you remember this? When you cut that body up and took it to the asylum with you?”
His heartbeat started to race, behind the blue color of the decomposed skin he saw markings. It can’t be it, but as he looked closer it started to clear. “You remember leaving it on the front lawn? When no one was looking?” He couldn’t hear Colby’s voice anymore, something inside him blocking his ears and he was filled with convulsion and disbelief. It was clear to him now, the markings were familiar tattoos he’d seen almost every day, and that snakehead with its split tongue sticking out was the realization that pushed the final button, he burst out a vomit right then and there.
“Jeez!! What the hell??” Colby yelled in disgust. Adrian was vomiting his gut out, he couldn’t unsee the headless body of his friend and thinking what had happened to his head and limbs. Chief Colby kicked his chair and called out an officer to clean up the mess. He knew in his gut, that was a spontaneous reaction, Adrian had seen it for the first time. “That’s Dorian’s tattoo,” his voice almost soundless as he wiped the vomit off his mouth.
Colby Jones had not received the report from his team but Adrian just told him who the body belonged to. “Shit!” he cussed. He had failed one missing person case and wondered if he had failed all of them. Dorian being the latest missing person, made the possibility that he has failed them all looked very real.
Before he left the room, Adrian knew he wasn’t going to leave without asking Chief Colby one more question. He was sure to remember that day to be real and he knew it was Colby Jones that he saw that day.
“Where is she?” he asked by the doorway.
“Who?”
“My sister … where is she?”
Colby felt his spine-tingling as his face turned stiff, “You really don’t remember, do you?”
Adrian grabbed his shirt, “Tell me where she is!!!”
Colby pushed Adrian away but he was firm with his clutch, “Get your hands off me, you freak!! Get out of here!! Before I changed my mind!!” he screamed and two officers came and took Adrian away. The way he was looking at him sharp and hard made him quiver inside, he knew that it’s only a matter of time until Adrian remembers the whole thing.