There was the body of a man in front of me. He was strapped to a real dirty chair, and the rope was so tight on his limbs that I almost thought he was bleeding with how red his skin was. He was bleeding, just not from his restraints. He had these wide, pulsating gashes across his face, shoulders, and hands–blood spilling from the wounds. I caressed my scarred face, sympathizing with the man’s new appearance. It still hurt whenever I touched my other half, but the last thing I wanted to do was forget this irritating pain. I already had amnesia. There’s no need to lose any more memories.

Luckily for this poor, tortured soul here, there was some nuclear energy I could utilize in the room, so I was able to create a couple of small forcefields within the cuts, preventing the dude from bleeding out any further. As I expected, that freak Jason decided to relieve his sick urges on this guy, going way too far in the process. We were only supposed to get some info on the Radius’ stolen cash, and yet I’m sure Jason didn’t even say a word about any of that. Now that I think about it, why the hell did Kofi tell that psycho to go down first? No one who’s normal can understand that idiot!

“Damn it all!” I hissed, throwing the table of bloody weapons at a wall. As the various metals crashed to the ground, I realized something unfortunate. Even though I sealed his wounds there was a good chance he was already dead. If that was the case, then I’d have to find a new-

“Wh-Wh-What the hell is happening to me!? Get me out of here!”

I whirled my body around, and I was surprised to see that the guy was still alive. Even with all that blood on the floor, he was alive… and loud. I quickly approached him and said, “Alright buddy, calm down.”

“Oh God… are you with that masked man!?” he screamed, eyes widened as he erratically shook his chair.

“No, I’m not,” I assured, pulling up a seat.

“Bullshit!” he shouted. “Who are you, huh? Why else would you be down here if you weren’t gonna hurt me?”

“Listen, I’m just trying-”

“No, get the hell out of my face! I don’t even know why I’m in h-”

A quick slap to his face was able to shut him up, allowing me to finish my sentence. I then took a seat in front of him and said, “As I was saying, I’m just trying to save you from any more sick shit that could be done to you. All you need to do is tell me where the cash your guys stole is.”

“C-C-Cash!? That’s what this is about?” he asked, sweat dripping from his face.

“Yeah, no shit,” I said, my voice growing more intense. “A bunch of you assholes hijacked one of our trucks—trucks owned by the Radius. It had a safe in it with thousands of our goddamn money in it, and they know that you know where it is.”

He hesitated to respond for a moment. “I-I don’t got any idea what you’re talking about, man. I was in Woodshaven this whole week.”

“One of the loan collectors saw you counting over a hundred bucks in your hands.”

“Being a resource adventure pays well,” he replied quickly after.

“Cut the bullshit. Nowhere on your status board does it list you as a resource adventurer. You're just a normal guy.” Slowly, I placed a hand on his knee, attempting to calm him down. “Listen man, the faster you tell us the truth, the faster you'll get out of here.”

The guy took a few deep breaths, and his body was beginning to feel less tense. “I have a family, man. Everything I do is for them. Please don't make me go through that torture again. Please! I don’t wanna die, man.”

“Believe me, you’re not gonna die,” I said, gripping his thigh. “Look at my face real quick.’ I pointed at my scarred half which grabbed his attention as I subtly hid my gun from his line of sight. Although, I was sure he was staring at it anyway. “Who do I look like sticking a few more knives in your face when I look like this? You know how much pain this shit causes me every day? Living with this is torture for me, and you think I'm gonna torture you?”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“My body hurts. My face hurts.” His brows furrowed. “My kids are gonna be calling me ‘Scarface’ for the rest of my life.”

I chuckled. “Then we got something in common here. But there are worse things you could be called besides Scarface. rface. Like ‘Random Goon: 1994-2024’ maybe.”

“Yeah, or Two-Face,” he laughed softly.

My smile immediately faded the second I heard that name, a dark cloud shadowing over my head. “What did you call me?”

He had this awkward smile on his face, seemingly thinking of what he should say next. “Um… you know, Two-Face. Because one half of your face looks normal and the other looks…”

I removed my hand from his leg. “Ugly? Disgusting? Grotesque? Scary? Like the devil?”

“No… it looks… different. Not bad but different.” I didn’t reply back, simply stared at his sweaty face. “I feel like I’ve seen you from somewhere. You look familiar. Does your name start with a… L?”

“Yeah, sure. I’m fucking Lyra,” I said, getting up from my seat and turning on my status board. “Hurry up and tell me what you know.”

He let out another awkward laugh and said, “Oh, yeah. Well, you were right about a group hijacking a few trucks and copping ourselves a couple thousands. We were working for someone else. His name is is is is is is is is is…………….”

“Heads or tails,” I said, pulling out my flask container from my chest pocket.

“Huh? What are you asking me that for? I was just telling you th-”

“Heads or tails,” I repeated, my fingers denting the metal.

The man’s lips quivered. “What are… my options? I need to know what’s at stake here.”

I caressed the unkempt side of my hair with shaky hands, failing to smooth it out. “You have two options, and everything is at stake here. Heads or tails.”

“Listen man, you said you wouldn’t… hurt me,” he whimpered, eyes wavering. “If its because I said Two-Face, then I’m sor-”

The guy didn’t say another word before I repeatedly shot him in the head, etching bullet hole after hole until his face was completely unrecognizable. I knew my normal half wouldn’t be able to do it, so I left it all to my abnormal half to get rid of the prick. Asshole deserved it too, thinking he can call me something so goddamn disrespectful!

“Two-Face!? Two-Face, bitch!?” I shouted, towering over the strapped corpse. “You think I want to look like this? Everything I do for you people, and this is the fucking respect you give back to me?” I began to kick the body, blood staining my black shoes. “You wouldn’t be dead right now if you had just kept your stupid mouth shut. You made me do th-”

A pathetic yelp escaped from my mouth as I slipped on the pool of blood. I hit my head on the wooden floor, and I groaned in pain. I sat there for a while, waiting for the pain to subside before picking myself back up. The moment I saw what I had done in front of me, I clenched my head in disappointment.

“Aaaah fuck!” I screamed. “I screwed it all up again!”

I knew I wasn’t in the right state of mind when I did this. There was no damn way I would do this if my head was… normal like it was before! Apparently, there was another assignment I had screwed up on—something to do with a zombie and that contagious disease infecting everyone. According to the higher ups, the Type Two that I captured with my forcefield betrayed me and beat my ass pretty badly. If my dad found out I screwed up this assignment too… Damn it! There’s no way I could let him know about this.

I whipped my head over to the set of machetes on the ground and realized what I needed to do. I jumped back up to my feet and bolted towards the bloody tools. That was when a towering wall spawned in front of me, sending me back to the floor. I looked up and was shocked to see that Jason had entered the room.

“Hey, move it you big oaf! I already decided the room was mine since you clearly suck at interrogating!”

Jason didn’t respond to me, instead glancing at the corpse behind me.

“I was this close to getting the info, but that piece of shit attacked me! I had to finish him off with self-defense. I had no other choice.”

“Decapitation?”

“What?” I said, summoning a small forcefield at the side of my left cheek.

“Lethal Injection.”

“Would you speak normally, you big piece of-”

Jason landed a punch on my cheek, causing me to fly through the room and crash into the wall. Even with the forcefield, it felt like a sledgehammer had slammed into my face. “This is why… I hate working with you,” I muttered.

[Did he really fail such a simple task? My disappointment for a son…]

A familiar voice shot my body up, the pain of the attack instantly leaving my memory. It was my dad. I checked my pockets and, to my dismay, Jason had somehow stolen my SB in the same moment he attacked me. But how the hell could someone move that quickly!?

“Impaled through the head?”

[No, it would be unlikely that they’d still be near Woodshaven after we captured one of their men. I’m sure they’ve already changed locations by this time. If only the boy I’m forced to call my son hadn’t let his silly temper get the better of him.]

“That’s bullshit, Jason!” I yelled, struggling to stand up. “You tortured that man till he passed out from the pain. Did you even ask him a single que-”

[That’s enough, Dante! You will report to Underground A right this instant, and I don’t want to hear any more complaints from you. Understand?]

“But… Fine. Ok.”

[You’re in your twenties, and yet still act like a child? Pathetic]

My dad hung up, and the weight of his words began to crush me like an elephant’s foot crushing an ant. In my twenties? Can’t believe he couldn’t even remember my exact age…

“Choked to death,” said Jason, gesturing to me to follow him like a trainer would with a dog.

Jason… don’t think I’m gonna let this slide…