"Cough! Cough!... Cough! Cough!"
I only react when I hear Liz's voice. She has been jolted awake not only to the pain at her neck, and most probably her head too, but to one worse. I stand up with the desire to run up to her, save her, and end this nightmare. But as I do that, I freeze, because of the green eyes that look so inhumane, and the dark invention of humans that look so cold in its representation of cruel savagery.
Red droplets are pushed out of her mouth with the effort she makes to regain her breath and suppress the pain. But the first thing she does after that instinctive reaction is not to look at her aggressor, her torturer, but to look my way, following my voice.
Relief, joy, happiness and hope. That is what I see in her eyes, and that shakes me even more than simply seeing pain in them. Her red lips, as glaring as my white dress had been months ago, pierce through my heart like an arrow with a scalding tip.
"Liz~~~"
"G– Go~!"
Even while in pain, the only thing Elizabeth wants is for me to run away, uncaring of what will happen to her. Of what is happening to her!
The tears I have pushed away rush back with vengeance, crushing any and all barriers I have erected, and rain down my face after blurring my sight. I don't even need to try to imprint her miserable state into my mind. I raise my head, and fix my eyes full of venomous hatred onto the intruder in our life. But his face doesn't change. He calmly pushes Liz, to turn her from lying sideways to lying on her back, with her hands clamped between it and the floor.
Before I can bite my lip, he opens his mouth, at the same time as he raises his foot, right on top of the unprotected stomach facing the ceiling.
"When did you start reading minds?"
"WAIT!"
*BANG!*
"Hurgh!!!"
The sound rings louder in my mind, just as the muffled groan full of pain that follows as Liz throws up another small jet of vivid red sounds sharper, even sharper than if she had cried out loud.
"NO! Please, no~ I will answer your questions, please stop…"
But 'Mike' still raises his foot, his expression indifferent.
"Stop! I– After the accident. The first time I saw you, no, actually, before that. My boyfriend came, and I received his thoughts. I just didn't know. I didn't understand until later."
I speak as fast as I can, and the foot pauses, before crossing the last few inches between it and Liz's stomach to rest there. But I do have the time to feel anything about that. I only want everything to end faster.
'Mike' doesn't reply. He does nod or frown. He simply looks at me and opens his mouth again:
"Did Ryan and Delina Lockdream die on the spot that day? What did they tell you, or give you before or after the accident?"
I freeze, memories I have repressed coming back to me, and for a moment, overriding the new grief born from the pain I'm resonating with right now. I recall the sound, loud like thunder, at least to my ears. I recall the slow grinding of metal being crushed, the thrown off balance and the pain from the seatbelt holding me back. I recall the red, and beyond that, the crushed flesh that I have always refused to notice before, the crushed, exposed bloody flesh as the car broke down in it, on them…
For a moment, I see the abyss, bloody red, waiting only to drown me, but because of that foot that can rise up at any moment, and come back down, I open my eyes right after closing them, and skimming over the bloody waters. My voice is hoarse from both the past and the present scraping my flesh raw:
"Dad and mom didn't have time to say anything. They died on the spot. I witnessed that before I lost consciousness."
I'm looking at 'Mike', but from the corner of my eyes, I can see the tears Liz is shedding, and I know it is not from her own pain, but from the pain in my voice. She has never tried to revisit that day with me, because she has always known, she always understood how raw that wound, dug deep and wide, has always been for me.
Standing before the couch, I have to raise my head to avoid looking at those tears, and let my own slow down, and stop rolling out.
"They were hiding some things, do you know where those are?"
"No, I don't know."
"Did they ever give you some drugs?"
"No."
"Medicines? Once, or over a period? Injections? Subcutaneous implants? A surgery around any nerve cluster?"
"No. No. No. And no! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT!?"
I end up shouting, venting all my frustration, and my fear underneath that layer of emotion, because I really know nothing, I can give him nothing, and because of that, I can't see any hope at all.
"What the hell do you want~? We are just normal people. I had an accident. I lost my parents. My brain changed. Beyond that, nothing happened. I know nothing. We know nothing. Please! Just please, go! We won't call the police."
My voice is choked with emotions, and for the first time, 'Mike Donovan' shows something other than calm. He frowns, and his calm eyes turn thoughtful amidst the whirlwind of dissatisfaction they are showing.
'She really doesn't seem to know. And Elizabeth Lockdream remains a normal insulator without any ability to read my mind and notice my intentions, so she must not have been involved in the research. Did they really destroy them? Did they have no further result beyond what is known?'
I don't know what he is thinking about, what he is asking about. I really know nothing of the secrets that seem to surround our parents.
The emotions 'Mike Donovan' is showing grow to make his frown deepen, and the thought he produces chills me down my marrow.
'Since that is the case, use this burden to break the specimen, then take her away. That will be enough for The…'