You were all in on it. You’d all decided together that you would do it. But now here you sat, bound tightly to a chair as snippets of your family before they had been taken away from you played in front of you as Master Lin paced behind you, forcing you to watch what could have become the nice family you deserved. Your face has already felt Lin’s cane slam into your face at a force that made black spots appear in your vision, and blood drip onto your lap.

Lin’s sweet words of comfort and promises of help, if only you confessed and stopped lying, were enticing, slithering their way into your mind. Your torture had gone on for two hours. All because a student who had caused nothing but trouble was killed, and it led back to you and your friends. Of course, you weren’t the only one Master Lin and Madam Gao could torment till the truth came out, but they’d both seen the loyalty tied so strongly to each other, and they knew it wouldn’t do much for the truth to interrogate them individually. No. Instead, they had dragged Marcus, Saya, Billy, and Maria into the room next to where you were, forcing the four to watch as you slowly but surely lost your mind, hoping that one of them would confess to save you from your own mind eating you up.

Maria had tears in her eyes as her guilt ate her up. It was her idea to terminate the student, yet you were the one begging Master Lin to turn off the videotape. Saya’s eyes were cold as always, but her fists were clenched tightly enough to cut off circulation to her fingertips. Billy was focusing on anything but you. Marcus had already yelled his lungs out, screaming at Master Lin or Madam Gao or whoever could hear him to stop the torture. You'd lasted much longer than any of them knows they would have been able to last. And Marcus can see in your eyes. You'd been so quiet the whole time, your voice cracking the few times you'd spoken. They all knew it was only a question of when you'd snap.

Marcus flinches as Lin's cane finds its way to your face again with newfound harshness.