(Is this long enough?
)
Mikki's head ached. She had had no idea that all this crazy stuff was going to happen. She stared into space, kind of zoning out, until the door opened and someone who looked exactly like her little sister walked in. Mikki shut her eyes, shocked, but when she opened them Aya was still there.
You're imagining things, Mikki! Stop! But Aya was still there.
This is impossible! Aya's dead! Even thinking her name brought a fresh wave of grief over Mikki. Her younger sister had died in the car crash that had killed her and Mikki's parents when Aya was only 8. Mikki had been 13. She had been in foster care ever since, and it had taken years of counciling to get over the surviver's guilt. Yet here Aya was, standing in front of her.
"Aya? Is that you?" Mikki's voice came out as a croak, and she was on the verge of tears. "Wait, no, it can't be. You're- I mean- she's
dead!" It was the first time she had verbally acknowledged it since Aya's death, and it made her start sobbing uncontrollably. Suddenly she felt a hand stroking her back, and heard a strange voice softly saying,
"I told you it'd be to much!. Hey, stop, stop." Rage suddenly filled Mikki. They had gone too far. Shaking with anger, she stood, and the chair she had been sitting on flew into the air and hovered over the strange woman standing next to her.
"To all those listening, I will drop this!" she yelled. A panicked voice came over the speaker.
"STOP! Stop, please, calm down. Put the chair down. Onto the ground. Slowly."
"No more shape-shifting?! No more messing with me, okay? Or I
will hurt her."
"Yes. No more of that stuff, okay?"
"Okay..." Mikki slowly lowered the chair to the ground, but stayed standing. So did the stranger. "Just ask me the questions. Get it over with." She was trembling from grief and mostly rage, and her eyes were almost black. "And
don't tell me to calm down."
"Okay." The woman took a seat, but stayed ready to jump up and run if need be. "So, here's the first one. What do you think of this group of 'heroes' that you've been running around with?"
"I think that they're good people who've set out to do good things. This last mission went a little- okay- very crazy, but overall they're trying to do good."
"Okay," the woman replied, scribbling in her notebook. "Which person do you wish you were closer to, and why?"
"No one in particular. I want to become better friends with all of them."
"What do you measure success by? Like money, career, family, happiness, etc. Have you found it with this group?"
"Family," Mikki answered immediately, "happiness, and love. That's why I like spending time with this group of 'heroes'. It's like we're all one big family. That's also why I like helping people. To give them what I've missed out on for three and a half years." Her eyes filled with tears.
Why did I just say all that? She wondered. Her interrogator stared at her with hard eyes.
"What pets did you have growing up? What were their names?"
"One dog. Her name was Sissy. Like, short for Sister." Mikki gulped back a sob. "She was in the car crash."
"Last one. What is something you would
never do again?"
"Um, I don't know... break into someones apartment and kill them?"
"Thank you for your cooperation." The women left the room as two policemen came to bring her back to her cell.
*
