I

The room was very cold, I felt like I was seeing stars. The world spun in circles before my eyes, there was no doubt about my location: a juvenile detention center.

There was a burly man sitting outside the room, I could make out his vague expression through the frosted glass sticker. Unhappy, perhaps disgusted at my behaviour.

"You're awake. You've slept for long enough, so long that Nakamura's calling from the graves. Tell me. What did you do to her?"

The interrogator leaned into his knees, "Did you eat her? Hide her dismembered body parts? Chop her up and stuff her in the furniture?"

I swallowed.

"How could a perfectly whole existence suddenly disappear from the earth? Are you fucking listening?" The interrogator leaned back into the chair taking in a deep breath before changing his tone, "The police has found plenty of biological evidence, her DNA, your DNA, fingerprints, shoe prints, hair particles. From what they analysed, she died whilst struggling. Whether it was you… or a supernatural phenomenon, mind explaining it for me?"

What if it was both?

"No, there is nothing to explain. Like I said in the past, it's just a coincidence."

"Don't be difficult. We both know very well no coincidence is going to have you standing in the same room as her last breath. Couldn't you have at least helped her? She was your best friend since grade 1."

"Best friend…"

"Yes," He crossed his arms, "Best friends. Do friends treat each other like this?"

"No. They don't." I say. The words helped moisten up my dry throat clearing up distant thoughts. That's right. Hina-chan was such a good best friend. Perhaps her good deeds could carry through in the 9th circle of Dante's Inferno.

"Gentle there," He reminded as I pushed myself into a sitting position, "There's still wounds on your back."

"Are we done here? Can't I go back?"

"Not necessarily," He glanced at his watch, "4 more hours."

I fumbled around my back, there was no apparent pain.

"No?"

The interrogator laughed, "Of course you don't know, it's not as if eyes grow on the back of your head. The nurses put some numbing lotion on, when we found you… you were lying in a puddle of broken mirror shards."

He continued, "If a missing person's case related to you- wasn't filed earlier," He took out a box of cigarettes, "We would've mopped all the evidence clean that night."

"Because at first glance, they thought you were the victim."

Pity was written all over his face. I dared not accept it.

"Did you do it? Were you forced to? Or is this some kind of satisfactory rant?"

I hated the way his eyes looked, how they squinted with mock and disregard. I said nothing for the remaining 4 hours. After all she had not been proclaimed dead, nor has her body been discovered, it was still a missing persons case.

With me as the prime suspect to her alleged death.