A/N: I am against spoilers but this is necessary to include. This is a trigger warning as this chapter may be emotionally distressing. This chapter is graphic and includes mental disorder breakdowns.

The cold draft wakes me up. And then I feel the pounding in my head. And then everything else. I try sitting up however I'm bound down. I open my eyes, my head bobbing face down. I don't have my jacket anymore so I can clearly see the blood staining my white shirt, going all the way down to my pants. How much blood did I lose? By the looks of it, it's already dried and crusty. How long has it been? I'm still alive so whatever happened, the wounded didn't kill me. Or hasn't killed me yet.

I'm duct taped to a collapsible chair, my calves and ankles strapped to the legs of the chair, my waist tied around to the back, my arms locked in place vertically, the edge of the tape stopping only at my wrist. I can twitch my fingers but what good will that do me?

The cold draft comes back, numbing my hands and my face. It's freezing in here and I'm almost thankful for the duct tape as it does provide a layer of warmth. It's really cold and drafty. I'm in a warehouse, bleak and washed of color. It's musty and dank in here. A lot of light is streaming in through the crevices in the structure. Sunlight. It's not as bright, a bit faded and warm in hue. Either it's very early sunrise or it's sunset.

I adjust slightly but pain erupts through my torso and I yelp. They shot me. I'm not healed yet, I just stopped bleeding. They probably applied some pressure. They don't want me dead. Yet.

Muttering comes from behind me in Russian. They're here and they know I'm awake now. Footsteps approaching. I'm still out of breath, trying to keep the shock in my nerves down. They're coming up right behind me. I can't catch my breath.

"You've come around I see," Kelcer says in German as he steps into my line of sight. He puts on a smile and then glances behind me, gesturing his head. How many other people are here?

The swift opening of a blade clicks on my right side. I weakly glance over, my neck refuses to allow me to turn. All I can see is the edge of a man and the glimmering reflection of a knife. Another person grabs my right arm. It's not like I could move it anyway.

I don't have a choice out of here but when they kill me, they won't have any information out of me. I am to die as my cover. "What are you doing?" I ask in German, hyperventilating. The guy places the knife against my arm and pushes down. "Stop it, stop, stop! NO!" I don't feel anything as he starts cutting the duct tape off my arm. "What?" I mutter. He cuts a slit down the side of the tape, the blade barely skimming my shirt sleeve. I glance at Kelcer weakly but he maintains a neutral face.

The guy rips the duct tape off and it jerks my whole body. My head whips to the side and the tendons in my neck are rigid and vibrating from the abrupt movement. My jaw falls open and I slowly blink as purple spots start fading into my vision from the pain. "Easy," Kelcer says disappointedly.

The man holds my arm firmly once the duct tape in cut off and then the fabric rips, my sleeve torn off. "Ah, what are-" Someone steps into my line of sight. The Courier. He's holding a long, black case. There aren't designs on it, nothing to distinguish it.

"Anton here," Kelcer says, leaning close in my face, "has something for you. Unless you want to tell us who you are."

They took everything off my right arm, included my shirt. They need the surface of my skin. And the direction the man holding it down implies they need my forearm. Where my veins are. They're going to inject something in me. "My name," my voice fades off, not entirely on purpose, "I am professor Warh, I am-"

"The truth," Anton says.

"No, no," Kelcer puts up a hand with amusement spreading in his grin, "I'm curious, let him finish just this once." I don't say anything, glaring at him. "Come on, you were saying, Professor?"

I glance between everyone else but no one has a reaction. "I teach American Literature and Poetry."

"At the University?" he asks, pacing to the left.

"Yes." I glance at Anton, who is still staring at me. I can't tell if he remembers me at the docks. If he did, they probably would have mentioned it by now. But he probably does recognize me at least.

"Alright, so tell me, what is a bookworm doing with Elsa Beurn?"

I grit my jaw, my teeth grinding together. "She's my fiancee," I whisper. I cut my voice sharp and spit at him angrily. "What did you do to her?"

Kelcer steps back, pacing to the right now. "Collateral damage."

"You shot her!" I scream. "She was pregnant, you shot her!"

"Now, let's keep our voices down."

"What do you want from me? I don't have anything to give! Who are you people? I-I-agh" I wince out in pain from my attempt of sitting up. It's a double catch because when I hurt my torso, I lurch forward, which hurts my neck. I hang my head down, gasping for air. Spots. They're floating around on the edges of my vision. I can't tell if it's from my shallow and rapid breathing or from the pain. Kelcer places a hand on my shoulder. "Let go of me, let me go, I don't have anything."

"You think very low of yourself," he says, keeping his hand there just to annoy me.

"What do you want?"

"Tell me the truth now or Anton will give you something," he says. He grips a fistful of my head and I moan out as he yanks me to look at him. My neck creeks and I grunt, stifling my breathing. "Who are you?" he asks, staring me down.

"I already told you. My name is Gerard Warh, I am a-" His hand starts pulling my hair up and I catch my breath, a splitting pain spreading at the base of my skull. "I live in Vienna-I am a professor-" He punches me in the temple, my head jolting to the side. I scream out, my throat burning but it's the least of my pain. The punch didn't hurt anywhere near the amount of pain from the whiplash.

"Give it to him," he says, switching to Russian.

Anton steps over to my side. The guy holding my arm jerks me upright and I only scream more, sputtering up and choking. My neck is going to snap. I can't turn correctly and everything is so rigid that it's all going to just snap. The guy pulls my arm outward and Anton rummages through the contents of the case. An elastic band tightly wraps around my bicep, cutting off circulation to the lower part of my arm. I can't speak, just moaning and gasping out. My vision starts doubling but I can focus enough to see him holding the needle. I try squirming away but I'm strapped down too tightly and I'm too weak to free my hand from the guy's grasp. My thoughts start jumbling together and I know my worries are not prioritized. I really hate needles, they hurt and it freaks me out and I don't like pricking my skin. And the sanitation of the needle is also worrying. But I really should be concerned about what the colorless liquid is inside the vile. My fingertips start tingling, my hand becoming numb. I try closing my fist. My fingers are stiff from the cold but now I have less control in my hand. My veins begin bulging up, swelling in size and becoming prominent enough to distinguish. "Nein," I breath out weakly. I start whimpering, trying to resist but my legs are immobilized. If my move my torso, convulsing pain. If I move my head, nauseating pain. I can't move. I can't fight it. I can barely see anything, just the blurry outlines of them. But I feel the prick.

I squeak, wincing out. Kelcer starts laughing. "Scared of a shot?" he asks in German. I don't say anything, biting down on the insides of my cheeks and holding my breath. I shut my eyes tightly but my straining starts to hurt my head.

The sound of duct tape rips in my ears, the tape stretching out and the ratchet sticky noise echoing. My sleeve is gone so there's nothing covering my skin as they start binding my arm to the chair again. The sound keeps ripping out, the horrible curling and fasting peeling off the back side of the next layer on the roll. The sticky and tight binding on my arm and around the chair. They stick it again my arm, binding it around and against the chair, tighter each time. Sharp, minuscule pains prick my skin as my arm hair is snagged and pulled from the tape. At this point, it's only numbing me.

The sound keeps ripping in my ear, getting seemingly louder each time, more obnoxious each time, more worrying. Each time they pull another stripe, it's less movement I have. Less resistance on my part. More control on theirs.

Kelcer leans close again, his dry forehead and jutting nose in my face, his eyes staring me now. I flick my gaze up at him. "What did you put in me?" I ask hoarsely. He smirks. "Truth serum?"

He leans back and sighs. "No, but a good assumption. However, it will get your tongue loose."

"So it's truth serum," I repeat. My breathing starts increasing and my mouth gets dry.

"You can call it that but see, truth serum slows down your brain," Kelcer pauses, noting my reaction. A hot flash strikes me and I'm out of breath. I close my eyes, trying to relax. "It gives less reaction time for high-functioning tasks like concentrating, which makes it harder to lie." Kelcer stares at me and starts chuckling. It's really hot in here and I can feel the heat trickling down my body. "But this is a lot more entertaining. Instead of slowing the brain down, we speed it up."

"What did you do?" I whine, glancing around. My heart is beating a lot faster like I was just out running. Like I was sprinting. Sprinting and fleeing for my life. All my muscles tense up, my joints locking up and straining. "What is this? What's-what's happening?" I clench my fists up, the edges of the duct tape bulging around my wrists. "Why are you doing this to me? I didn't do...I...I-what is this?"

"Still think it's truth serum?" Kelcer asks. I stare up at him wide-eyed, panting for air. My mouth is so dry, my throat crackling as I start wheezing. "I'd say it's closer to psychosis serum." I've had truth serum before as part of training. I don't know if he took a gamble and assumed I was capable of getting out of it or if he's just a psychopath. "Tell me who you are."

"My name is Gerard Warh!" I screech, huffing afterward. "I live in Vienna! I-I don't know!" I shut my eyes, panting heavily. It's going to get worse very soon. I'm not sure what I'm going to say or how many layers of truth I'll go down. He can't know I'm CIA. He can't know who I am. But he cannot know anything past that. "My name is Gerard Warh!" I keep screaming, drilling it into my head. I am Gerard Warh. There is nobody else.

"Hold him back," Kelcer says in Russian, taking a slender cylinder out of his coat pocket. The chair jerks back, tipping on the back legs. I scream out, trying to brace myself for the fall but it slows down. I start heaving, thrashing my body out. The back legs of the chair slip from underneath with a quick scrap and I fall back, clattering on the ground, the metal smacking onto the concrete flooring. The metal frame juts into my spine from the impact, the wind knocked out of me and a blinding pain rupture down my forehead. I keep screaming, my head dangling back and rolls against the floor. "Not that far," he sighs.

Two guys lift the chair up, holding it against my movements and bracing it down with their feet. I keep whipping my head, the pain becoming worse but no longer holding me back. At this point, it's only a reminder that things hurt. I keep screaming out, my vision pulsating from completely black to patchy violet spots taking up most of my vision. An arm snakes around my neck, under my chin and I'm placed in a headlock. The chair slowly scrapes back as it starts sliding out from under me again but they catch it this time. The pressure around my neck increases and I'm wheezing for air growling and sputtering. They're going to rip my head off my shoulder. My body's going to fall and they'll pull my head off. Anton's staring me down, grunting and holding my head still as I keep fighting. Kelcer holds his fist loosely above my face before he presses his hand over my mouth and I start gagging. He shoves something down my throat. It's large and it falls to the back of my throat, hitting my gag reflex. I start choking up but I can't breathe as he keeps his hand over my mouth and nose, my head starting to build pressure. I can't turn to either side, just shaking back and forth in futile attempts. "Breathe," he taunts. My head is going to blow up, my skull is going to crack, my brains are going to seep out of the fissures. "Or swallow."

My gag reflex keeps convulsing. It's like a capsule but it's huge and my throat is raw and dry. The coating sticking to any moisture it touches. He moves his hand from my nose and I inhale deeply. As soon as I exhale, he covers my nose again and I'm shaking again. Tears stream down my eyes, black creeping around my sight and I can see less and less. I keep retching but he presses my mouth shut, the capsule scraping down my throat. Reflexively, I swallow and it slowly goes down, sticking to the bottom of my throat.

Kelcer lets go me and I choke out for air, coughing deeply. I gag out, retching and hacking but I feel it. It's stuck in there and it's slowly going downward. I can't get it out. It's too late. "If you get any ideas, if you get out of here," Kelcer says with a gentle look as if he's foreboding to a child, "which you not if that wasn't clear. You are going to die. But if you get out, you will still die. The coating will take several hours to dissolve before it releases the poison in your system. But by the time it dissolves, the psychosis will have worn off. And you won't remember anything. Let alone the fact you're poisoned." I don't...feel anything. I'm floating away. I squint up at him curiously, blinking slowly. His dry skin is turning blue and his eyes are glowing red. He smiles at me again, revealing his fangs and snake tongue. I groan out, my head still pounding. Pounding in rhythm to the massive clock behind Kelcer, the swinging pendulum going back and forth. Each time it switches, a thumping in my head. Back and forth, over and over and over again.

Everything starts melting around. It's getting darker and harder to see over the blinding light clouding everything out. The walls are dripping with blood and the echoes of children screaming get louder, ringing in my ears. It's not just children. They're babies crying, toddlers wailing. But underneath the screaming is the whispering. The soft voices breathing in my ears, their breaths gentle and delicate. The whispering fluctuates in pitch, their sounds smooth and warm as if arms are enveloping my body, blocking out the cold wind.

The shadows start walking around, swirling around. They're bending and morphing. Men, blurs, shapes, drips. Solid black colors. One comes up to me holding something out. I stare at it but I don't see anything. A feathering touch scrapes across my face, dragging over my eyes. Everything goes black and pressure is wrapped over my eyes and knots up in the back of my head. I can't see anything. I can't see. It's dark, it's nothing. But then fading spots and kaleidoscopes spiral around. Every time I try focusing on them, they dart to a new spot in my peripheral vision. Neon greens, fuchsias, canary yellows, cyans, jagged colors darting around my sight but yet I see nothing. My eyes are gone, consequently, the screaming gets louder. And the whispering voices get closer. All their voice echo, some are haunting, some are panicked, others are indifferent. The voices vary from feminine to masculine to androgynous. The voices range from a babbling toddler to singing children to fearful teenagers to bitter adults to ration elderly. The closer I listen, the less I hear. But the more I let myself go, the louder they become.

"You're going to get out of here."

"No, don't listen, no one is saving you. No one is going to save you."

"You are GOING to get out of here."

"And even if he does, he will be poisoned. Poisoned."

"Ring around the rosy."

"Elsa is dead. They killed her. She's dead! They killed Elsa! And your baby!"

"Pocket full of posy."

"You're colleagues aren't going to save you. They're too busy. You're all alone."

"Ashes."

"No one is saving you. You're going to die."

"Ashes."

"They're going to kill you! You need to run!"

"We all fall down."

"You didn't do anything wrong. And when they see that, they'll let you go."

"What is that? What's that sound?"

"They won't let him go. They'll kill him if they find out he has nothing!"

"We all fall down."

"Do you hear that? It's getting louder!"

"Even if they let him go, the poison will kill him."

"Water. Running water.

"We all fall down."

"There's water!"

A voice booms louder than any of the other ones. "Tell me who you are." I can't see anything. The feathery pressure over my eyes spreads over my whole face, covering my forehead to both my ears, over my mouth and nose and draping off my chin. "Who do you work for?

"Don't say anything! They're going to kill you."

"I hear water!"

"You already told them. They just don't listen. Nobody listens!"

"I am Gerard Warh," I whisper out loud, all the voices morphing together to become my own. They muffle against the feathery covering.

"Danger! Danger!" The platform I'm on shifts and everything starts tipping back.

"We all fall down." I'm floating in air, suspended upright and balanced back at an angle.

"WATER! WATER!" Jarringly cold water splashes down on my face, the covering tightens and plasters against my skin. Water. Cold. Frigid. I sputter up but it starts draining down my mouth and the stench is repulsing. The colors of the Kaleidoscope morph into red. Red. Danger. The voices start drowning and bubbling up. I can't breathe, everything is drowning, washing away. The screaming gets louder, even more terrified, sputtering and gasping. My body convulses back, shaking and thrashing, trying to find air. All the air is all gone. The water keeps coming, flooding down and streaming over me. The iciness burns my skin and it just keeps coming. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. Water. It's trickling down my throat, up my nose, in my lungs, stinging my eyes, biting my skin. My neck strains and I start twitching. It finally stops.

Everything tips back upright, slamming back down in its correct position. The cloth over my face flops off and splatters in my lap. I gasp for air, heaving and choking up water, pumping it out of my lungs. My jaw can't hold still, my body freezing and shivering. The wind is getting stronger.