The door of the Containment Unit suddenly opened, and Nick's entire body twitched as he was startled.
Nick looked over at the person who had entered and saw a middle-aged man with black hair.
He was wearing the uniform of a member of the city, and, according to his emblem, he was an Expert.
The man calmly walked over to the table and sat down in one of the chairs.
"Nick Nick, Chief Zephyx Extractor of Dark Dream," the man said calmly. "Is that correct?"
"Yes," Nick said nervously.
"Marder Sansen, Captain of the city guards," the man said.
Nick nodded. "H-hello," he said absentmindedly.
"From where did you obtain the signal?" the man asked immediately.
"Wyntor gave it to me after getting it from his father," Nick said.
"With Wyntor, you mean Wyntor Melfion?" the man asked.
"C-correct," Nick said.
"Why would he hand you the signal?"
"Because his father told him to," Nick answered.
"Why would Vernon Melfion tell his son to hand you the signal?" the man asked.
"He didn't tell Wyntor a lot," Nick said. "He was very vague. He said that the misuse of the signal is punishable by death."
"He also said that if I am unsure whether to use it or not, I should not use it. He said I will be certain that I have to use it if I need to use it."
The man furrowed his brows.
"Why were there two Specters with you?" the man asked.
"That's a long story," Nick said.
"I have the entire day," the man said, leaning back on his chair.
"Okay, well, a bit over two years ago, I hired a new employee. Her name is Jenny, and…"
Nick started at the very beginning and told the captain about the Riker Strikers.
The captain didn't even ask why Nick hadn't told the guards about the Specter.
It was normal for a Manufacturer to keep the identities of Specters hidden.
After all, they didn't want anyone else to benefit from their work.
"The record says that the two Specters stood behind you and that there was no sign of aggression," the captain interrupted Nick. "That doesn't conform with what you were telling me."
"I'm getting to that," Nick said, his voice still shaky and nervous.
Nick arrived at the moment when he told Wyntor about the dark room, and the captain seemed to become much more interested.
"There is no way that there is a way for light to enter?" the captain asked.
"No, and speculation isn't important anymore," Nick said. "I have already been in the room, and it was dark."
The captain furrowed his brows.
"What did you think made Riker decide to take such a risk?" the captain asked.
"I had no idea," Nick said. "I couldn't imagine anything worse than essentially dying. I just went to Wyntor since he always knows what to do."
"But not even he had any idea what this was about."
"So, he went to his father and asked him."
Then, Nick told the captain what Wyntor had told him what his father had told him.
At that point, the captain started to ask many questions.
Did Vernon say anything more?
Did Vernon hint at anything?
Why did Vernon not do this or that?
Nick gave quick answers, which mostly boiled down to him saying that he didn't know.
After a while, the captain wrote something on a sheet of paper, but Nick couldn't see what the captain had written down.
"Tell me what happened earlier today," the man said.
Nick nodded and told the man about when he had entered the room above Riker's room.
When Nick reached the part in which he had entered Riker's room, the captain looked deeply into his eyes.
As Nick retold what he had seen, the image of the starving child entered his mind again.
Nick's heart rate shot up, and his breathing quickened.
He felt deep terror inside of his chest whenever he thought of the starving child.
He almost felt like the starving child inside his mind was moving of its own volition.
It was like the starving child had power over Nick's mind and was trying to kill him.
The darkness in its eyes stretched out until it clouded all of Nick's senses.
The darkness was everywhere!
It was consuming him!
BANG!
Nick almost shot out of his chair as a hand slammed on the table in front of him.
"I need to know what happened!" the captain demanded as he looked deeply into Nick's eyes.
Nick took a deep breath.
The starving child wasn't there.
It couldn't hurt him right now.
'Calm down, Nick,' he thought. 'It's not here. Calm down. The quicker the city knows about this, the safer I am.'
Nick took another deep breath.
"I saw four big stones that were surrounded by a circle made of seven stones," Nick said.
At that moment, the captain took a deep breath as well.
Nick looked at the captain, and he could see that the captain had started to sweat.
Naturally, the captain was doing his best to seem calm, but Nick could see that the captain was anything but calm right now.
Of course, this made Nick's fear return.
"There was a big spherical stone in front of the circle of stones," Nick continued. "There was nothing else in the room, and when I saw the stone, I felt like I had stumbled upon something very bad."
The captain remained silent.
"I was thinking about activating the signal, but I wasn't sure if I needed to use it or not, and since Vernon said that I should only use it when I was sure, I didn't," Nick continued.
"So, I moved my hand forward, and the spherical stone suddenly started to transform."
"Stop!" the captain suddenly said.
Nick was taken aback and looked at the captain.
Why had the captain interrupted him?
"Are you telling the truth?" the man asked.
Nick just wordlessly nodded.
"Are you willing to bet your life on that?"
Nick blinked a couple of times.
"Yes, I mean, I'm telling the truth. I'm more concerned with why you are asking all of a sudden," Nick said.
The captain looked into Nick's eyes for several seconds.
"Our interview ends here," the captain suddenly said.
Nick's eyebrows rose in surprise.
The next moment, the captain stood up and walked towards the door.
"Somebody else will be talking to you soon. Until then, don't say anything about what you have seen. Not even in here."
This made Nick even more nervous.
"Why? Why are you leaving?" Nick asked.
The captain opened the door with a solemn expression.
"I'm not sure if I am allowed to know these things."
Then, the door closed, and Nick was left alone in the Containment Unit.
