Ugh. Chris woke up with a tight feeling on his chest and stomach, as well as several things prodding him in the back.

He looked around the darkened room with blurry eyes and tried to figure out where he was. His half-asleep brain failing to comprehend anything through the darkness.

Suddenly, the lights turned on, blinding him. He tried to reach up to cover his eyes, but he couldn’t move his arms.

Confused, and with his brain feeling like it was running in quicksand, he continued trying to move his arms up to no avail.

His eyes eventually adjusted to the light, and he could finally see again. The first thing he saw was the familiar room and the familiar table, but then his vision was drawn inwards.

He looked down and saw two straps wrapping over his body and keeping him in place: one that stretched across his biceps and chest, and the other that stretched across his forearms and stomach.

So that’s why. He figured out why he couldn’t move his arms, and started to freak out a little. He didn’t know how he got here. He was in bed, sleeping next to his wife, then the next thing he knew, he woke up here.

His frantic moving caused something to dig uncomfortably into his back, evoking a groan.

Turning his head to the side, he came face to face with a sharp metal spike. He gulped. The spike looked massive in his vision, almost jabbing into his eye. He slowly pulled his head back to distance himself from the spike.

Slowly looking around, he found himself surrounded by black, spear-like spikes. Long, bladed pieces of metal that looked like they could draw blood at the slightest prick.

“Good morning Chris. You must be wondering what is going on. And how you got here. I know what you have done, and I have seen all the blood that you have spilt here. You have unjustly tortured a lot of people in this room. Your heinous actions have been condoned for far too long,” Buddie’s inhuman voice echoed around the empty room.

The voice shattered the remnant drowsiness in Chris’ mind, dragging him awake and making him sweat. He felt the spikes pressing against his back, and felt intimately close to death.

Memories flashed through his mind. He could almost see the people he had interrogated standing in front of him, battered, bruised, and bloodied.

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He flinched as he imagined his face on their bodies, the spikes feeling like they were stabbing right through to his heart and mind.

He froze up as Buddie continued speaking.

“A lot of people have been scarred by your hands, both physically and mentally. They have never felt the same after leaving this room. They are not innocent, and will receive the justice that they deserve, but so must you.

You are currently inside of an Iron Maiden. An ancient torture device from your world that I’m sure you’ve heard of before. Once those doors close, you will be trapped inside and slowly bleed out on those spikes as your life fades away.”

Chris paled, his head shaking as he stared at the doors, begging that they wouldn’t close.

“You must be scared, right? Ashamed of what you’ve done? You have a chance to escape this fate, as long as you are willing to suffer the consequences.”

Chris saw a ray of light in the voice’s words. A chance? He thought that he was going to die. He didn’t know how he got here or who had done this to him, but he thought that someone was getting their revenge and that he had no chance of coming out of this alive.

He clung to the voice’s words, listening to every word eagerly.

“I have someone here with me that specialises in your line of work. He will be asking you a series of questions. Answer them truthfully and you shall be free to go. If you lie, the doors will start to close and you will be trapped in there until you die. It is time for your own interrogation. Good luck.”

Chris hoped to gleam more information from the voice, but it stayed silent after that. He looked around anxiously, wondering when things were going to start.

He had been in this situation a lot. That of an interrogation. But he had never been on this side of it before. The spikes pressing against his body, and the tight straps around his chest made it difficult for him to breathe.

He felt a chill in the room as his brain started to spiral. The door opened and his eyes immediately locked onto the person walking inside.

He was a large, bulky man of average height. An even mixture of fat and muscle with a sizeable beer belly.

He looked like a perpetually tired middle-aged man. He had bags under his sunken eyes, more than a few grey hairs, and messy stubble on his jaw.

He was dressed in a brown trench straight out of a 1940’s or 50’s noir film, long pants, and leather steel-capped boots.

He was smoking a cigar, and everything about him screamed that he was a character from an old movie.

The sight of him stunned Chris, making him unable to think for a while.

The man crossed the room in a few steps, stopping in front of Chris and the Iron maiden he found himself in. A trail of smoke drifted through the air behind him.

His hands ran across the doors, stopping at the straps. He checked that Chris was locked in place and nodded. Then he looked behind Chris at the spikes that were poking into his back. He pressed his finger onto one of the spikes until it drew blood, and nodded with a satisfied grin.

He wiped away the blood and looked Chris in the eyes.

“I don’t have a lot of time so let’s keep this brief. You don’t need to know my name and I don’t need you to tell me yours.”