Not the way she wanted it to

For dinner, Jen prepared hamburgers as a main dish, served with french fries, pasta salad and corn on the cob. For Emery and Anne, the two vegetarians in the room, she also put together a minestrone soup, and for dessert, she offered the group some fruit salad and ice cream. To drink, she got Anne to purchase plenty of beer, wine, soda and water, to each of which she secretly added the **** Tim had told her to purchase from the shop.

After dinner, the group split up, and quickly they found themselves growing dizzy and tired, until all but Jen were asleep, before the lights had even started dimming. Jen found the key to Tim's cell in Frank's pocket, and let him out. Together, they brought Anne into the second room and Tim woke her with a few violent slaps to the face and a splash of cold water.

The first thing Anne heard when she was startled awake was Jen, complaining to Tim about him being too rough. Tim told her it was necessary, and asked her to go wait in the other room, and make sure nobody interrupted. Then, he turned back to Anne.

"Well then, miss, I think it's about time for you to tell me the truth, don't you agree?"

"What?" Her cheeks stung, and her head was pounding.

He slapped her again and she cried out. "The truth! Tell me how to get out of these goddamned, fucking rooms!"

Anne started crying, tears rolling down her reddened cheeks. She was afraid. She didn't know anything about the rooms, but she did know that he wouldn't believe her. She knew he was going to hurt her, but she could hardly even see straight from the **** she'd been given, and she couldn't think of any way to get away from him.

She tried to tell him the truth anyways, that she didn't know anything, but he hit her again. She told him what she knew, that the way matter phased through the walls didn't make sense, but he hit her. She even tried telling him her theory, that the voice was telling the truth and that they weren't on Earth anymore, but he hit her.

"Stop acting!" He shouted, spraying spittle on her crying, bruised face. He held her neck between his hands, ignoring the pain in his fractured knuckles, and **** her to face him.

She couldn't turn her head, but her eyes drifted towards the door. "Jen! Jack! Please!"

Tim's hands closed around her throat, cutting off her cries. "They can't hear you, Anne. These walls are thick. Now, tell me the truth. One last chance. How! Do! We! Get! Out!"

His grip around her neck loosened. Anne's half-closed, teary, dark brown eyes stared into Tim's wider, brighter, redder pair. "I… don't… know…"

He tightened his grip again, making those her last words. As he stole her life with his hands, he glared up at the walls, and the ceiling, wondering where their captor was watching from. "Are you happy, you bastards?!" He shouted. "Is this what you wanted?!"

After he felt her pulse stop, he got up from her lifeless body, and looked around again, confused. Previously, he had felt sure that they would stop him. Whoever was out there, he didn't believe that they would let anyone die for the sake of an experiment. They just wanted to watch them squirm, see how they would react, and how long it would take them to try and kill one another. And then they would stop the experiment when things got too dangerous. Wouldn't they?

But they hadn't. No one had stopped him. Anne was dead. Tim looked at his hands. They felt numb. He didn't even feel the pain of his broken knuckles anymore. Tim had fired a gun before. In his line of work, he had been in plenty of dangerous, life and **** situations. But, somehow, he had never killed anyone. Until now.

The bald, tired old man fell to his knees. He closed Anne's empty eyes with a brush of his fingers, and whispered, "Forgive me. Forgive me."

A while later, a nervous Jen entered the room, wondering what was taking so long with the interrogation. Tim looked up from his hands, and Jen saw his tired, defeated expression. She saw the body, still as stone, and brought a hand to her face. Her voice was tight and quiet. "God."

"Forgive me," Tim said again.