You’d seen many different forms of death in your job, yet this felt like a different level altogether.

As an FBI agent, being thrown into the most horrific circumstances and being expected to come out unscathed was an average day on the job. You’d seen more than enough approaches on murder for a lifetime, the methodologies of numerous serial killers. Yet, you were sure that this would be the moment that kills you. The gun pointed at you is not death, no, this death is one of the metaphorical kind, the abstract. It didn’t matter, anyway, because this would kill you; you were sure of it.

The suffocating, metallic scent of blood and gunpowder hang heavy in the air. The sound of gunshots, past now, still ring in your ear. This all started simply enough. An UnSub was killing those correlated with a traumatic event from his past, involving Truth or Dare. When asking his intended next victim— who was now sealed in a bank with you, the manager, Spencer, and the UnSub, Casey— to choose one of you to shoot, you or Spencer, you knew you couldn’t stand by any longer. You’d never forgive yourself, really, if he died because of your tolerance. So, you offered to play. What a terrible mistake.

He asked you the question the game was named after, and you’d decided Truth; much better than the alternative. After each of you gets a round, it goes back to him, and he asks you something you wouldn’t expect; he demands that you say something you’re afraid to say. You try two, weak, attempts, to avoid saying what is really on the tip of your tongue, and has been for a while now. The gun pointed at you isn’t half as deadly as words are.

“Last chance. Something you’d never say aloud,” Casey demands, after sitting you back down on the ground in frustration at your previous attempts. Not much you can do about it with your hands tied— literally. “Your deepest, darkest secret,” Casey continues, “Impress me, or I kill him.” He’s forcing your hand. Though, when you look over at Spencer, you know these words would have been forced out of you, one way or another. The truth always does have a way of betraying itself. Even under the cruelest of circumstances.