The Perfect Detectives

The White Room

Kiyotaka POV

A loud noise reverberated in the distance, jolting me awake from my usual state of contemplative apathy. Gazing upward, the blinding whiteness that had enveloped my life for eighteen monotonous years loomed overhead, a sight I anticipated enduring for many more to come.

Another resounding boom echoed, closer this time.

Extracting myself from the makeshift bed – nothing more than a mattress on the floor, the remnants of a bedframe long gone – I surveyed my surroundings. The White Room instructors had removed the bedframe after I broke a piece off and sharpened it into a makeshift knife.

Yet another distant noise pierced the sterile atmosphere.

I had no idea what time it was. The concept of time itself held little significance in the colorless expanse; its relentless march seemed futile. Looking around I noticed no scheduled supplements or instructors. Odd, indeed.

Another, now noticably louder, noise disrupted the eerie silence, accompanied by what sounded like panicked shouts from the instructors. Interesting, this event seemed to be unexpected even to them, or perhaps it was another attempt to deceive me into another test. Fixing my gaze on the locked steel door, I discerned no change in its fortitude. It had withstood my previous attempts at escape, reinforced by routine inspections from a contingent of guards.

More than a dozen guards would enter at once to make sure that the door had not experienced any damage. It didn't always used to be that way, I distinctly remember when a single guard would enter. They changed that proceedure after I killed him and escaped my cell.

The commotion escalated, explosive sounds interwoven with gunshots and screams, some of which I recognized as belonging to the guards and instructors.

Glancing back at the door, a idea formed – in the midst of the chaos, a strategic assault could render it vulnerable. The question lingered: who would orchestrate such an incursion? The Japanese government was an unlikely culprit, given my father's political affiliations. Could it be another nation's military or a group of assassins dispatched to destroy the facility?

More gunfire.

Choosing to test the waters, I approached the steel door and aimed a deliberate kick at one of its hinges. The first blow caused noticeable damage, yet no response materialized. No guards, no noxious gas – an unexpected turn.

Gunshots waned in intensity.

Systematically, I targeted each hinge until the door succumbed to my efforts. As it did, it fell over leaving me able to step outside my cell. Years had passed since I last traversed beyond my cell unattended. Surveying the now vacant hallway, no guards were in sight – a testament to the severity of the ongoing conflict or, perhaps, another calculated evaluation orchestrated by my father.

The sporadic gunfire ceased, leaving a lingering silence in its wake.

Venturing into the familiar corridor, I encountered a long hallway. To the left, a formidable steel door remained impervious to my capabilities, and to the right, the standard testing chamber beckoned with its solitary wooden chair. Recollections of enduring torture within its confines flooded my mind. I began walking towards the center of the camber, where the chair stood alone. I had been strapped to it not too long ago, a test to see how well I fared against standard methods of torture and interrogation. Ripping one of the legs from the chair, an impractical weapon at best, I prepared for the unknown.

Casting my eyes upward to the once bustling glass observatory, now eerily desolate, my attention shifted to the leftmost wall – a stark reminder of the countless faces that once lined its length. Yuki's departure from our midst echoed vividly in my memory. I was now all alone.