Shifters (Feline english version)

Chapter 10-3

The walls suddenly seemed to be getting closer, narrowing the room. I had to get out of here. I felt like I was suffocating, running out of air as sweat began to flow down my back. Is it possible that our little underground experiment has made me a little claustrophobic? Lucky me.

- 'Calm down. Why are you so nervous all of a sudden?' he asked as he got up.

- 'I can't stand confined spaces,' I said in a whistling voice, hands resting on my chest as I got up and tried to swallow a breath of air.

The panic began to win me over. What the hell was happening to me?

- 'You should have said it right away,' he said before rushing to open the door and gently push me to get me out. 'Here, take a deep, gentle breath.'

While repeating it, he led me into a large room where several offices were randomly arranged. At this late hour, they were all unoccupied, giving the place an empty and cold appearance, as if abandoned. He led me to one at the back, near the copying machine, stopped in front of the tidiest desk and sat me down on the chair in front of him. When I saw the sign on it, I realized it was his.

- 'Is this not where you should have recorded my statement, in the first place?' I articulated painfully in a breathless voice.

- 'I wanted to see your reaction under pressure, but frankly, I didn't expect that,' he confessed with surprise. 'Why didn't you tell me right away that you were claustrophobic?'

- 'It's never been this big before. Usually this only happens to me in elevators or rooms without windows,' I improvised and prayed that my lie would be credible, because he was already suspicious enough as it was. 'It must be the accumulation, with the stress I've been experiencing for three days,' I smiled unintentionally in front of the irony of my answer. 'Plus your aggressive behavior... It's starting to be too much.'

He did not acknowledge my last remark and looked at the form I had filled out about a century ago.

- 'Your friend disappeared three days ago and you're only reporting it now, why?'

- 'If I had come earlier, would you have done something?'

He looked at me without answering.

- 'That's what I thought, I was right to wait then,' I concluded.

- 'What interests me is where you've been yourself for three days?' he said, glancing at me with a piercing stare.

He stood up with both hands on the desk while leaning towards me.

- 'Do you know that this morning, one of my colleagues received a missing persons notice for two young women working at the Bruce Café. Their boss was worried because, and I quote, "they hadn't come to work for two days and it wasn't like them". And there, just as I was about to leave to interview the owner of the bar, who arrives like a fresh daisy at the police station?'

He smiled at me with a knowing look, stood up and began to circle around me like a cat playing with a mouse. I was shocked and tried to hide my shaky hands between my thighs.

- 'If you were me, wouldn't you find that a little suspicious?'

I kept my eyes fixed straight in front of me, trying not to show the panic that was gaining on me. Bruce reported us missing! That was the last thing I expected and it put me in an impossible situation. What was I going to invent to get out of it? No matter how fast I thought, I felt like I was totally brainless. I had to compose myself and get it together quickly. I understood his reactions better now, but it didn't really help me.

- 'So where were you then? And is that related to the stress you were talking about a few minutes ago, by any chance?'

He had sat down at his desk and stared at me again, when suddenly I knew what I was going to say to him. It was a little risky, but I had no choice. It was not very complicated to look upset and completely lost. I let all the emotions I had been repressing for three days emerge and threw myself into it.