"Come back one more time."

"No offense, Mr. Martin, but uh...after last time, let's just say I'm not too keen on the idea of another interview."

"Then send the new girl."

"Sorry?"

"Send the new girl, Sayors! One camera, one interviewer. Answers."

---

[REC]

"--assigned on the story of the man who robbed the second largest bank in France. With only a ballpoint pen. Clever, they thought he was. Mad, is more the case. Tracked him to a dingy apartment in Limoges. Photos plastered to the wall, caked in dried semen and what appeared to be mustard, all of them of women in assorted stages of bondage, blindfolded, fear spattered across their faces. This was the most brilliant man in all of the Centre-Ouest region, and he was living in this sty. Old Italian newspapers piled halfway to the ceiling, random clippings scattered about the floor, talking about wines and child kidnappings. Found him in his bed, if I can call it that. Smoking crater in the center, as though he had set fire to it in the night just to watch it burn. Raoul had a butterfly knife on him, but we had suspected the worst."

David leaned forward in his chair, excited at the notion of his story. The camera could pick up the tiny beads of sweat adorning his forehead. Odd that he might be sweating, considering the chill that had spread into the room from the cool October night outside. Yes, this was the fever of intensity. How he knew it well.

"The guy goes on and on when I ask him. He rambles about some Chinese puzzle box, and his ancestors, how his grandfather was the best baker in all of Grenoble. Finally got him to talk about the robbery, and all he could say in regard to a motive?

I was bored and wanted to control something in my life.

Bloody madness. I took the story back to Redditch, and they threw it out. Said it was a bunch of rubbish. Tossed me back in my cubicle and gave me an editing job, throwing letters here and there, slowly growing tired of the repetition of life on a keyboard.

A few weeks later, the Limoges inspectors find this girl floating in the Vienne river. Throat cut, wrists and ankles showing burns associated with ropes. She was a pretty one, too, from what I saw in the office's photo folders. Brunette. Wide blue eyes, glossed over in an eternal white stare into oblivion. Skin like wheat in the sun. Throat cut. Tied up and bled like a pig.

So my story doesn't seem so odd in hindsight. The paper looks into it more. The police arrest the guy I interviewed. And you want to know what his reason was? His motivation for tying this beautiful girl up and cutting her throat like an animal?

Said he was young, drunk on power, and didn't know he loved her."

From behind the lens of the camera, a young-sounding girl addresses David.

"That's all a fine and dandy story, Mr. Martin, but you uh...didn't exactly answer the question I asked."

"Oh, but didn't I?" David replies, reaching into his suit jacket's pocket and removing a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He gingerly places one between his thick lips and lights it.

"I wasn't aware you smoked, Mr. Martin."

"He doesn't," came the deep-voiced, callous reply. Mystica exhales a thick puff of smoke, obscuring the camera's view for an instant. "You really think I beckoned you here to ask me questions?"

"It's sort of my job, but--"

"No, luv. I'll be asking the questions."

He chuckles, locking eyes with the unseen girl. Something in the reflection of his eyes reveals quite more than he had planned. This one was clever. This young, new face in the interviewing circuit had clambered right on in and was mentally dissecting him. Oh, but he would not stand for that. Take the high ground and come out swinging. Wasn't that Dad's advice...?

"What is your impression of Steve Sayors? Nice guy? Bit awkward? Prone to secrets?"

"In that order...I think he's an alright guy. Not friendly, but certainly not a jerk. Awkward in the extreme. But secrets? No. He's an open book, I'd think."

"And just like that," Mystica laughed, flicking the ash from the cigarette onto the desk before him. In the dim light of the room, the ash fluttered in view, momentarily stealing the spotlight from him as it ever-so-gently fell to the wood below.

"You fell right into my word trap. See, you're a smart one, but not that smart. It's all on camera, dear. You speaking ill of your superior. What, you can't be much higher in rank than an intern, can you? You look barely old enough to be out of college. First rule of journalism, luv. When the camera's rolling, you are a drone to the will of the higher-ups. Watch your mouth."

There is silence from the opposite side of the camera. Mystica gives off one of his signature smirks, and seems to lock eyes with her across the desk. He leans forward in his chair, and blows a breath of smoke toward her.

"So now I have you right where I need you. Camera off..."

He reaches for the camera, and clumsily fumbles with it for a moment. Falsely believing he has turned the device off, he leans back in his chair, smugly satisfied with his clever little word play.

"And here's the rub."

"The rub?"

"Read up on Shakespeare, girl," Mystica scoffed in disbelief. "The rub. I have you in the corner. Now, we can edit that last bit out...if you get me what I require."

A pause. Then:

"What is it you require?"

"Access to the information the Network has been accumulating about me. I know it's classified, but if they're feeding you information about David's past, you must have a number. An email address. A bloody P.O. box. Anything."

There comes another moment of silence as the girl muses it over, thinking. Mystica, clearly anxious, leans back toward her, ignoring his lit cigarette, which slowly burns away, staining his fingertips with the delightful smoke. It flies about in wisps, decorating the air in erratic, otherworldly designs. The girl clears her throat. She has a power play of her own.

"I was instructed to ask you about September 23rd, 1998. A date I was told you'd remember vividly."

And indeed, it seems he does. Without a conscious thought, Mystica sits back in his chair, closing his eyes, and begins spouting off in a mad stream of consciousness.

"September 23rd, the train tracks. Black around us, our huddled figures, as she steps over me, facing toward, her knees straddled on either side of my lap. Rocking back and forth, her flesh sending a pulse; a drumbeat into the night as it slides against the leather of the Bristol 603. Fingers through my hair, flailing, reaching for something in vain. It is not there. Just past 11 now, and the train rolls past, unaware, off to deliver something inconsequential to somewhere unknown. But the headlight, in those few seconds, gives me that glimpse of heaven. Her milky-white skin, illuminated in the instant, like a ghost in the night."

He suddenly snaps out of it, shaking his head violently. He seems to have been unnerved by this sudden rush of a memory. But...

"September 23rd, 1998. No. No. Contradiction. I was sixteen then. Couldn't have owned a car, then. No money. No friends. No...lovers... Then...where did that come from? Not mine. Not mine at all."

"I was just told to mention it."

David, regaining his composure, flips his bangs to one side and out of his eyes. He focuses on the girl opposite him for a moment, straining his eyes, as if to see something that isn't quite there anymore. It was all done in a flash. Like a train's light in the night.

He smothers his cigarette into the desk's surface.

"Do you plan on dying a virgin?"

"Sorry? What?"

He looks around suspiciously. Thinking. Thinking. Thought.

"Well, we can't die without doing something bad, right? Show me your phone. Give me your portfolio."





[End of recording]

Achievements

• 1x Tag Team Champion
  
• August 2013 Superstar of the Month (Thank you all so much!)
  
• 1x US Champion
  
• 1x X-treme Champion