My Interrogator's Secret Mission Was To Break Me... And Then Break Me Out

The metal door shrieked open and Elias was thrown forward, his already protesting body hitting the polished floor with a force that stole his breath. He landed hard on his shoulder, a fresh wave of fire spreading through his bruised ribs. The door slammed shut behind him, the finality of the sound echoing in the sudden, stark silence. He pushed himself up with a groan, his palms flat against the cool, seamless surface.

The room was a perfect, sterile cube of white. The walls, the floor, the ceiling—all bathed in a flat, shadowless light that hummed with a low, electric frequency. It was designed to disorient, to strip away everything but the raw fact of his capture. The air smelled of antiseptic and cold dread. A single metal table stood in the center of the room, two chairs bolted to the floor on either side.

He had just managed to haul himself into one of the chairs when the door opened again, this time with a soft, nearly silent hiss.

She entered not with the brutish force of his guards, but with a chilling, deliberate grace. Captain Anya Volkov. He knew the name. Every pilot in the resistance knew the name. Her boots made no sound on the pristine floor. She was a phantom in a severe, gray uniform, the fabric stretched taut over her frame, every line sharp and unforgiving. A high, starched collar brushed against her jaw. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face in a knot so tight it seemed painful, emphasizing the severe angles of her cheekbones.

She stopped on the opposite side of the table, her hands clasped behind her back. Her face was a mask of cold composure, her skin pale and unlined. But it was her eyes that held him. They were a pale, washed-out blue, the color of a winter sky just before a storm, and they surveyed him with an unnerving lack of emotion. There was no anger, no triumph, just a flat, clinical assessment. She looked at the gash on his temple, the split in his lower lip, the way he favored his right side, and he felt less like a man and more like a specimen pinned for study.

He met her gaze, forcing his own expression to remain blank, a wall of defiance he hoped was stronger than the pain radiating through his body. He would not give her the satisfaction of his fear. He would not break.

Her lips, a thin, unpainted line, remained perfectly still. She gave no greeting, no preamble. The silence stretched, a weapon in itself, pressing down on him, amplifying the throb of his injuries and the frantic beat of his own heart. He watched her, waiting for the first move in this new, terrible game.

Finally, she moved. Her hands came from behind her back, and she placed a small, dark gray device on the table between them. It was sleek and metallic, with a small, flat disk attached by a thin wire.

"This is a neural modulator," she stated, her voice as sterile as the room. It held no inflection, no malice. It was the voice of someone reading a technical manual. "It is designed to stimulate the trigeminal nerve. The intensity is under my complete control. Answer my questions, and it will remain inactive."

She picked it up and leaned across the table. Elias instinctively tried to pull back, but his chair was bolted fast. Her proximity was unnerving; he could smell the faint, clean scent of starch from her uniform. Her movements were economical and precise as she pressed the cold, metallic disk to his temple. He flinched at the contact.

She straightened up, holding a small activator in her palm. "State your name, rank, and squadron."

Elias stared at her, his heart hammering against his bruised ribs. He tasted blood from his split lip. He said nothing. He watched her thumb press a button on the activator.

It was not pain. It was an obliteration of thought. A white-hot spike of pure, synthetic agony shot from his temple, through his eye, and down into his jaw. It was a dentist’s drill on a raw nerve, a lightning strike condensed into a single point of unbearable pressure. A sharp, guttural cry was ripped from his throat before he could clamp his teeth shut. His entire body went rigid, his back arching, his fingers digging into the arms of the chair.

Then, it was gone. He was left panting, a tremor running through him, the ghost of the pain still vibrating behind his eye. He blinked, trying to clear the white spots from his vision.

Anya watched him, her pale blue eyes unwavering. Her face was a perfect, unreadable mask. "That was level three. It goes to twelve." Behind her back, hidden from his view, her other hand was clenched into a fist so tight her fingernails dug into her own palm.

"Give me the coordinates of your hidden base in the Ashvane Nebula," she commanded, her tone unchanged.

He lifted his head, glaring at her through the haze of residual pain. He thought of the families hidden there, the children. His suffering was nothing compared to what the regime would do to them. The thought solidified his resolve into a shield of cold iron. "Never," he ground out.

Her thumb moved again.

The pain returned to the same spot, but this time it was not a sharp spike. It was a deep, grinding burn that radiated outwards, setting his entire skull on fire. He squeezed his eyes shut, his teeth grinding together with a sound that was audible in the quiet room. He refused to cry out again. He fought it, focusing all his will on enduring, on the image of his comrades, on the cause that was worth more than his own body. A low groan vibrated in his chest, a sound of animal suffering he couldn't entirely suppress. He felt a hot tear escape his eye, tracing a path through the dirt on his cheek. He hung his head, letting his sweat-soaked hair fall forward, a curtain to hide the evidence of his body’s betrayal.

She held the pressure for another ten seconds, watching his body tremble with the effort of his resistance. The muscles in his neck were corded, his knuckles white where he gripped the chair. Then, just as abruptly as it began, she released the button. The agonizing current ceased.

The silence that rushed back into the room was heavy, thick with the aftermath of his pain. Elias remained slumped forward, his head bowed, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. A string of saliva and blood dripped from his lips onto the pristine white floor. He didn't move. He didn't seem capable of it.

Anya gave a curt nod towards a hidden camera, a silent signal. A moment later, the door hissed open and two guards in heavy body armor stomped in. They flanked Elias's chair, grabbing him roughly by the arms and hauling him to his feet. His legs buckled, and they half-dragged, half-carried his limp form from the room, his boots scuffing a pathetic trail on the polished floor. One of his hands trailed behind him, fingers brushing the ground.

The door slammed shut, the heavy bolt locking with a definitive thud.

Anya stood frozen in the absolute quiet, her eyes fixed on the spot where he had been. The perfect mask of her composure remained for three precise seconds, and then it fractured. A long, shuddering breath escaped her lips, a sound of profound exhaustion. Her shoulders, so rigid and straight moments before, slumped forward. She brought her left hand from behind her back, slowly uncurling the fingers. Four deep, crescent-shaped wounds from her own nails were carved into her palm, beads of blood welling in the indentations. Her hand was trembling.

She walked on unsteady legs to the wall, which appeared seamless. She pressed a specific point, and a section of the white surface dissolved into a dark screen, the recording of the session already cued up. She touched the screen, and the footage began to play in silence. She watched herself, a cold, remote figure in gray, her voice a monotone instrument of the state. She watched him, defiant and proud.

Her finger traced the controls, fast-forwarding through her questions. She slowed the footage only when her own thumb pressed the activator. She zoomed in, not on her own hand, but on his face. She watched the agony bloom across his features, the way his jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped along his cheekbone. She saw the single tear escape his tightly shut eye, a tiny, glistening rebellion against his iron will. She rewound it. She watched it again.

Her focus was absolute, her expression a maelstrom of conflicting emotions. There was no triumph in her pale blue eyes, no satisfaction. There was something that looked unnervingly like pain, a mirrored suffering. She watched the moment his body arched, the low groan he could not suppress vibrating from the speakers. Her own lips parted, a silent echo of his cry. Her fingers, the ones that had just been clenched into a fist, now pressed against the cold screen, gently tracing the outline of his face, a touch that was almost a caress, almost a plea for forgiveness. The image of his broken defiance stared back at her, and in the reflection, her own face was a portrait of torment.