Interrogation I

The room was dark. Extremely dark. Ash stood unmoving. His eyes darted around the room in search of a light source. It was to no avail. He could not even see his own hands.

Just then, a light source shone in a circular fashion on the ground. Ash still stood in the darkness. Light footsteps could be heard walking towards the light. Then, the person appeared in the light. Ash's eyes immediately widened in shock.

"Delilah!" The person in front of Ash was his childhood friends from the Vicars Church. Her age and looks seemed to be stumped at a young age. She wore the white linen clothes that were given to her originally. "I…"

"Ash…" As Delilah spoke, there was only sadness in her voice, "Why did you not save me back then?"

"I couldn't save you!"

"Why did you not save me from those wolves?"

"I couldn't!"

"Do you know how much it hurt to have those large teeth bite into my chest?" The white linen shirt started to become soaked in red. The crimson blood slowly spread across the entire shirt, making a starting contrast in Ash's eyes.

"I..I really couldn't…" Ash crashed to the ground, kneeling. Tears started to form in his eyes. The light shining on Delilah turned off and Ash was plunged into darkness once again.

Bam, the light was switched on again. This time, it was shining on Ash. The young man realised something was different. Looking and feeling his body, he was now wearing white linen clothing and had shrunk back to his small self.

The light shining on Ash expanded outwards slowly, revealing many other young children that looked the same size as Ash. Some of the faces Ash recognised. Delilah, Hayden, Ray, Kaleb, Mary. They were many other children present that the young man had no recollection of.

All of a sudden, the group of children started running towards Ash. Like a bunch of starving and crazed individuals, they lunged on top of the shrunken boy. The look of desperation existed on everyone's faces. It froze Ash in place. Unable to react, Ash curled himself up into a ball and covered his head.

"I'm sorry! I'm really sorry!" Ash repeated that loudly. He did it as an act of repelling the children. There was nothing more that he could've done. After all, what happened in the past was all means for survival.

Splash! A large bucket of water was dumped onto the unconscious young man. Ash awoke from the despairing dream into the dim present world. Another lucid dream. This was not the first time Ash had such a realistic nightmare from the past. Now, he was in another nightmare belonging to reality.

Feeling the rough rocks on his pale bosom and the feeling of nothingness, Ash could tell that he was naked. Down to his willy, when he was splashed with water, it felt like he was being baptised.

"You finally woke up from your dream, young man?" A voice came from outside. Currently in the cell, there was Ash who was chained up on his four limbs and a guard that was holding onto a water bucket. A man wearing a white formal button up shirt entered the cell. He folded up his sleeves, looking like he was preparing himself to do something dirty.

"Young man," The person in the white shirt squat down to meet Ash's eye, "Do you know why you ended up here?"

There was no reply. The only light source in the rocky room came from a lightbulb dangling from the ceiling wire. The only sound came was the water droplets that dripped from Ash's hair onto the ground.

"Well," The person in the white shirt stood up and walked towards the bucket of water that was place beside the door. "Do you know what we do to those that do not cooperate with us?"

He bent down and picked up a drenched cloth from the bucket. Another guard walked into the cell and picked up the bucket. The pair proceeded towards Ash, before the man in white spoke with an intimidating smile, "They drown."

…

The term waterboarding is a torture method used by interrogators around the world. The methodology of torture relies on a wet cloth being draped onto the captive's nose and mouth to limited airflow and a water source to be poured onto the cloth. This simulates drowning to a very uncanny extent and would last for 30 seconds. 30 seconds was how long most people have to last drowning before the wet cloth is removed and the captive is allow to breath the previous oxygen for a few short seconds.

This was what the hitmans in Nexus were trained and taught about waterboarding. When the word 'trained' was used for waterboarding, it meant that the trainee hitman has to experience it themselves. Most call it the worse 30 seconds in their life. Many rather die than experience it numerous times over.

"1,2,3…" Ash counts the number in his head as a constant flow of water was forced onto the cloth. "10,11,12…"

"18,19,20." Of course, there would be slight jitters from Ash's body as the body is rejecting the lack of oxygen coming into the lungs. "28,29,30."

"Ha, ho, ha, ho, ha, ho…" The 30 seconds was over and now was the break. Quick and constant breathing was key for this exercise. It was engrained deeply in the 20 year old's mind.

To Ash, these 30 seconds passed by rather quickly. His mind was tuned to such methods torture. The interrogator would think the duration would break any man. Yet, time passed by gradually. 5 minutes. 10 minutes. 20 minutes. 30 minutes. Even the man that was pouring water constantly was getting tired. They had even went on google to search the maximum time one should do such torture on a person. The interrogator had even started to doubt whether he had been doing waterboarding correctly after all these years.

"Clang!" The metal bucket thrown and kicked aside by the man in white. He was furious that he could not break into the young man in front of him. The worse part was the look at Ash gave him. There wasn't a single bit of fear in his eyes. It was as if it had always been him against the world since the beginning of his life.

It was then the door into the cell swung open.