Chapter 7 - Interrogation

I fervently stare out my bedroom window, waiting for my potential visitor.

Every movement outside feels like it matters too much. I grit my teeth in anticipation.

It’s about two hours after I received my boss's message when I see a police officer walking down the footpath.

Casual. Unhurried. Intimidating.

His determination and sheer bulk are so familiar.

As he steps closer, I recognise his powerful build.

The wall of a man who took up the entire doorway at the hospital.

The drugs in my system churn uneasily.

I shouldn’t have taken more.

A dull sickness is building under my ribs, like my body knows something is wrong and is trying to reject it.

My muscles ache in a way that doesn’t feel natural, too deep, too constant, but the absence of the headaches is enough for me not to care.

I cling to that tiny mercy.

How am I going to explain my breakout and my theft?

I blink.

An oddly long blink as the world shifts.

For a second, the street isn’t mine, yet it mirrors it closely. It’s wrong: colours muted, edges sharper where they shouldn’t be. Where the officer stands, there’s someone else, remarkably similar, but not the same. Standing straighter. Dressed in a grey and gold armoured uniform.

The sky is a reflective glow, strewn across its shimmering clouds. Each cloud pulses with a dull radiance that’s weaker than when I last visited .

My breath catches.

In an instant, my surroundings snap back. Suddenly, it’s just my usual street again, and the officer is simply the officer.

Except now he isn’t.

Because I’ve seen he is connected to that awful parallel world.

And that changes everything.

Fear settles into something colder, sharper, more focused. My body itches to run, but I have nowhere to go.

He stops close to my front door and starts talking to my neighbour, who is watering his plants out the front.

My chest tightens instantly.

No. No, don’t…

The neighbour points.

Directly at my place.

Of course he does.

He’s always had that look about him, like he’s been waiting for a reason to involve himself. I see his lips moving, explaining something, probably that I’m odd, that I disappear for days at a time, that I’m not right.

He always seems so judgmental when he looks at me. As if he is disgusted, he lives next to someone who is a bit of a shut-in.

The officer asks more questions, but I don’t hear them.

Because the realisation hits all at once.

I haven’t hidden anything.

The drugs are still out. The hospital gown is by the bathroom door. Everything exactly as I left it.

My stomach drops.

He’s going to take me in. Lock me up.

Or worse… send me somewhere I don’t come back from.

That place.

That other place, or back to the wretched hospital.

The thought alone kicks me into action as I tear myself away from the window, hands shaking as I scramble through the apartment.

I grab what I can, shoving it all into kitchen drawers, out of sight.

My movements are frantic.

Flickers. Peripheral glimpses come and go.

The lithe thing from the hallway.

The wings and their fluttering.

I swallow hard. Mentally chanting to try to stay calm.

They're not here, they're not here.

Focus.

I splash water on my face and grip the sink, eyeing my reflection.

I barely recognise myself.

My face is far too thin. My cheeks are gaunt.

I’ve lost weight fast. Unnaturally fast.

My eyes are worse.

Red-rimmed, sunken, unfocused.

Due to the drugs or lack of sleep, I couldn’t tell which anymore.

“Maybe I can get away with saying I have insomnia instead of a drug addiction,” I mutter.

The knock finally comes.

Every muscle freezes.

Maybe if I don’t move, he will leave.

Another knock comes, harder than the last.

My thoughts scatter. Should I pretend I’m not here? He knows I left the hospital, but does he know I came home? Did the neighbour see me arrive earlier in my hospital gown?

The drugs and the fear twist everything into noise.

Another knock.

I squeeze my eyes shut, and through shut eyes I see him. Well, the alternative to him.

Not at the door.

In my living room.

Standing in the corner near the window.

Armoured. Still. Watching me.

The room around this other officer is darker, as if drained of power, and the wrongness is tangible.

I scream. I can’t help it.

My eyes snap back open.

The room is normal. Empty.

But the sound has already given me away.

A voice booms in response from the other side of the door.

“I can hear you in there. Open up.”

My heart slams against my ribs.

I glance back at the corner. Nothing.

I know instinctively that whatever that was with the officer knows I am here.

I hesitantly take a long blink, trying to force myself to see it.

Still nothing.

Another knock. Louder.

“Open the door. My patience is wearing thin.”

Excuses flood my mind. Illness. A fall. Anything.

But they all break apart against the same problem.

Taking the drugs.

There’s no clear explanation for that.

“If you do not answer in the next ten seconds, I’ll be required to use force.”

That does it.

I can’t avoid this.

Keeping my distance from the corner, I circle toward the door, every step feeling like I’m walking through something thick and resistant. My eyes keep flicking back, expecting, knowing, something will be there.

Nothing is.

I open the front door.

The officer completely fills the frame.

Up close again, he’s even bigger than I remember. Taller. Broader. There’s a weight to him that wasn’t visible earlier, something that makes the air feel tighter just standing near him.

His eyes move over me slowly, assessing.

Then they lock onto mine.

I’m screwed.

“May I come in?” he asks.

My voice comes out weakly. “Do you have a warrant?”

The moment I say it, I regret it.

Are you stupid, Koan? That likely only works in movies.

His stare sharpens. Not angry, not annoyed. Just heavy.

It oddly forces me to hold eye contact longer than I want to.

He doesn’t answer my question, unfazed by its implication, instead asking me another.

“Koan is it? Sounds like a weak name for an even weaker-looking boy.”

My mouth goes dry.

Hearing my name heightens the dread.

Something about this feels wrong in a way I can’t explain. Not just dangerous. Life-threatening.

“People who look like they’re on the other side of death’s door aren’t usually running out the hospital doors. What was the rush?”

He waits, looming over me.

I say carefully. “I was admitted without my consent. I wanted to recover at home, so I left.”

He doesn’t write anything down. Doesn’t even blink, it feels.

Predatory, like I am capable of being killed at any moment at his whim.

I’ve never dealt with police before, but I’m certain it’s not supposed to feel like this.

“Do you know someone by the name of Caelan? He also goes by Evander.”

The question catches me completely off guard.

Caelan oddly rings a bell, but I can’t remember why in this moment; Evander means nothing to me.

“No,” I say slowly. “I’ve never met anyone by those names.”

Something shifts.

He steps closer.

I flinch, instinctively shutting my eyes, expecting to be grabbed.

I’m back there again. The other world, a parallel realm.

Where the officer stands, there’s no longer a man.

Just a figure made of pale, ethereal blue light. An enormous silhouette with a pulsing core of light.

On reflex, my eyes shut tighter. Betraying me. As the other world stays.

My attention drifts away from him, though.

Back down the street behind him.

The armoured figure from my room stands there now, looking back the way they came, tense, alert. He looks like the officer, but sharper. Cleaner. His hair is more precisely cut, and two long scars carve across his right cheek.

They turn, in a panic, towards the ethereal man and me, but I don’t want to see more.

I rip my eyes open.

Back to reality.

The officer isn’t looking at me anymore, but rather at where his other had been, no longer visible. His head is turned slightly, like he’s listening to something I can’t hear.

For a moment, in those intense eyes, I see something.

A flicker of panic.

Real. Subtle, but there.

He looks back at me, expression returning to the intimidating intensity.

“We aren’t done here, boy. That door looks as brittle as you. You best answer quicker next time.”

And then he’s gone.

Quick. Abrupt.

The moment he disappears, all tension breaks.

Relief floods in so fast I nearly faint.

I shut the door immediately, checking the locks twice before backing away, as if waiting for that wall of muscle to change his mind.

My body aches. My thoughts feel dull and distant, like fear has burned through me, leaving something numb behind.

I go to the kitchen cupboard, retrieve the smuggled pill bottle, and swallow another painkiller dry, not caring anymore.

I sink onto the couch.

For a second, everything feels so absurd I can’t help but laugh.

Hysteria-driven laughter, with tears following.

I don’t know how long I laughed for, but I feel better.

“I can add mania to my mental resume.”

Whatever’s happening, I’m not coming back from it. Not properly. Not in any way that resembles who I was.

There’s no way I can fix this.

It must be schizophrenia.

Maybe I should have let him arrest me. At least then I wouldn’t be the most insane person on the block.

The thought lingers, uncomfortable but not entirely unwelcome.

It’s interrupted by a series of knocks at the door. Soft and rhythmic.

I would almost miss hearing them if a part of me wasn’t incessantly worried about something coming through the door.

Another knock comes, this time a single note.

It’s not as loud or as forceful as the officer.

But the room darkens with it.

Not dramatically, just enough that the shadows deepen and stretch slightly further than they should.

My stomach flips.

It’s too much.

I lurch forward and vomit onto the floor, my body finally giving in to everything it’s been holding back.