Digging Holes - A Divergent Fanfiction

One of the Purposes of this Interrogation is to Determine Your Loyalties

            The next morning, I am dragged into a small room with bare, white walls. I am not given any food; I have not eaten since breakfast yesterday. I am tired and hungry, and I am not sure I can handle being interrogated.

            I am slung into a chair. It is more comfortable than the cold floor of the cell; I wonder if the guards realise that the chair has given me some comfort.

            A man walks into the room. He is stern looking, and he looks observant the way an Erudite is. He looks like he is in his late twenties, and he must have some authority because the two robotic guards leave when he nods for them to go. He is carrying a tray with bread and a glass of water on it.

            He sits down in a chair across from me, setting the tray on the ground. He stares at me.

            I stare back. His eyes look older than the rest of his face.

            I start to feel awkward after a few minutes.

            “What faction are you from?” he asks, suddenly.

            “C – candor,” I stutter.

            “Is that what you got in the aptitude test?” his eyes never break away from mine. I nod. It isn’t a total lie. It was what was officially recorded as my aptitude result.

            “Do I have to put you on truth serum? I can tell you’re lying.”

            “How can you tell?” I ask, genuinely curious.

            “I am Inspector Traugott. I have different methods from other detectives and inspectors. All the time I was watching you when I first came in, I was memorising your neutral face. You weren’t scared, you weren’t happy, you weren’t lying. It’s one of the ways I can tell if you’re telling the truth or not. Are you Erudite, really?”

            I shake my head.

            “Curiosity is an Erudite trait. But you don’t look like you’re lying. You do look a bit confused, though.”

            “I thought Jack Kang would be questioning me,” I say.

            “Don’t you think he has better things to do than to talk to teenage murderers?”

            I shrug. The way he looks me in the eye is very unnerving.

            “You don’t look like a murderer,” Inspector Traugott says slowly.

            I shrug. “I’m quite small.”

            “That’s not what I mean,” he sighs. “There is always a look to the killers. They always have lost the glint in their eye; they are always terrified that someone will figure them out. There’s also the way they act. You don’t have any of that. You’re digging yourself a deeper hole. What really happened?”

            I don’t know what to say.

            “Are you hungry?”

            The question takes me by surprise. I am hungry. “Yes.”

            Traugott reaches down and breaks off a bit of the bread. He hands it to me, probably to bribe me into giving him answers. I eat it anyway. He continues staring at me as I eat. It occurs to me that it may have some more of serum or drug in it, so when he offers me more I refuse it even though I am still hungry.