You only have three seconds

Five months ago.

At a military training base.

"So cadets, you only have nine seconds to decide whether or not to believe anyone who is beside you. It doesn't matter if it's true or not, you only have nine seconds to figure it out."

"What happens if we don't come to a concrete result?" A woman raised her hand among the crowd and asked.

"Cadet Emma, you have the best deduction skills among the cadets in this battalion... I'll be brief with my answer, if you have a man who is an enemy of our organization and you need to interrogate him, you have to ask him questions and you only have nine seconds to believe him or not..."

"Listen, if you don't believe him, you have to ask the same question again... You have to be sure that the person is answering with the truth and only the truth, if you're not sure, that man or woman would have deceived you."

Emma remained silent, talking about torture and interrogation was something very extreme that she had never even thought about. Will it be necessary to reach such situations when she is active as a soldier?

"And for this, there is an effective method, if there are two people it will work, otherwise, you won't be able to use this method. This method is called the two questions, tie the two people facing each other and ask them the same question, but the answer has to be written. Once one gives you the answer, you have to ask the other and if the questions match, they're telling the truth."

"And if they don't match, they're lying..." Emma murmured quietly and soon after those same words were said by the chief instructor.

...

"What is this, Frank?" Aitor asked as blood filled his throat and he struggled to breathe.

Frank, who had remained silent, watched as the huge rat moved across Aitor's stomach, looking around to see where he was.

Emma, who was standing next to Jack, was motionless. She never thought that this kind of torture could be inflicted on these people. But looking at Airon and Daryl's indifferent expressions, Emma remained on the sidelines.

"I want you to write the answers to the following questions! Where is your base and how many people are inside?" Airon signaled to the soldiers and they untied one of Frank's hands.

Airon looked at Frank and warned him, "Listen, I want you to know that it depends on whether your answer is true or not that your companion's life will remain with us!"

When Frank heard these words, he frowned and tried to make eye contact with Aitor to find out whether this man had told the truth or not. They had never been in this situation before, but as they were part of the Fireflies, they always had a way out of it, and immediately he thought about what Aitor had pointed out.

"While you're thinking, I want to tell you a story..."

After saying those words, Airon lit the blowtorch and the strong flame illuminated his face slightly. "The world, both in the past and now, is incredibly crazy, full of deaths, incidents that will be remembered by history and unnecessary wars. But if we learned anything, it was to be cruel and experienced."

"Learn from your mistakes and never be so stupid as to commit them in the future! Great, I'll put that into practice. You know, if we believe that today, with the undead walking the streets, it's worse than in times of war, we're very wrong."

"Airon left the pliers on the table where Aitor was lying and said, 'Today I will tell you about of the rat torture, originally used by the Chinese, put into practice by the Holy Inquisition and the Dutch Revolution... This torture consisted of putting the condemned man lying face up and completely immobilized...'"

As Airon spoke these words, he held the ropes that held Aitor immobile on the table tightly. "A cage with a rat inside was placed on top of the man. To make this work, it had to be open underneath and attached by chains to the victim's abdomen, just like your friend is right now."

"You're a fucking son of a bitch!"

Airon ignored Frank's insulting words and said, "These people would light the top of the cage on fire, causing the rodent to go crazy in search of an escape, and how to escape from a cage where the only way out is through a man's body..."

When these last words reached everyone's ears, Airon snapped his fingers and said, "Exactly, through the same abdomen! The rat, driven mad by the flames, could gnaw its way through a man's abdomen, piercing the guts and sometimes even coming out of one side of the body."

"Like a hungry walker, the rodent cannot stop devouring soft tissues in order to find a way out. I think everyone in this room can imagine such pain. The rat would bite and bite, damaging important organs in its path and bleeding the victim, who would inevitably die."

As Airon told the story, he walked over to Aitor and said, "Write the answer, you only have three seconds."

As Airon said this, the flame of the torch slowly lowered and the cage began to heat up. Frank was immobile, his body covered in cold sweat, unable to react in time, and when he heard Aitor's screams of fear, he finally reacted.

"All right, I'll do it!" Frank wrote the answers with difficulty and anxiety. As each word was written on the paper he was given, Airon watched as the rat scratched Aitor's stomach.

When Frank finished writing the answer, Daryl handed the paper to Airon, and his face was tense. When Airon read the content of the sheet, they had the right place, but the number of people was different.

"It's a shame..."

"What?" Frank asked immediately.

"The location was correct, congratulations, but the number of people was written very badly... Between 300 to 500 people, how do they not know how many people are in their base, Aitor? Another answered, between 600 to 900 people, who should I believe?"

Airon dropped the paper to the ground and just then a voice came from the radio: "Zz... The drones identified the location, what are your orders?"

"Get ready, once we visit that place, we'll have to reach the beaver community..." Airon gave the order to retreat, then looked at Jack and Emma: "You two go with the people you saved, they trust you..."

"Yes..."

"Understood, sir..."

"Ah!" But at that moment, a roar of pain echoed and Aitor, who had serious wounds in his stomach, was shaking aggressively. However, Airon was indifferent to the monster and instead made the flame more intense.

"Tell me, Frank! How many people are in your base?"

Frank was speechless, watching as a simple rat was drilling into his subordinate's stomach. Each bite was fierce and aggressive, the rat was desperately looking for a way out through the neck, feeling the fire that burned its body.

But Airon had no plans to stop, he had to leave a traumatic mark on Frank's aggressive mentality. He wanted to make it clear the punishment for his actions, everyone had to know the consequences of killing his soldiers.

"You, fucking idiot, killed my soldiers! Did you really think you would come out of this place alive? This is just a small part of my fury for trying to do something against my people..."

Airon looked at Daryl and said, "Daryl, you decide, his hand or head!"

"Yes!" Daryl took a machete and walked towards Frank step by step.

"No, please!"

Airon wasn't looking for how many people were in the enemy base, he just needed to know the location and he had obtained it. If the situation is really untenable, he would kill everyone, but he knows that there is always a way out.

"No, have mercy!"

"Ah!"

The heartbreaking screams were heard one after another, and then there was nothing but silence. Daryl came out of the room cleaning his machete, while Airon wiped the blood from his face.

Bang, Bang!

A few seconds later, two shots were heard and the two soldiers came out of the room dragging two corpses, one had a large hole in his stomach and the other had no head.

All the enemies had been eliminated.