Princess Callie

Chapter 9: The Truth

I found myself in a small plain room with no windows. The room itself was barely illuminated by small neon lights that were sitting above each door. There was also some kind of reception desk in the middle of the room with two doors. The door to my left was labeled "Cellblocks". The door to my right was labeled "Interrogation Room". Although this section of the palace was abandoned, it looked to have been well maintained. For some reason it felt like I've already been here before.

I went to the door labeled "Interrogation Room" and opened it. There was one chair in the center of the room with a large lamp hanging over it. I looked at the edges of the room and saw what looked to be lab equipment along with various torture devices. What were we doing down here?

Suddenly, my head started to ache. I was getting another one of my headaches. It wasn't too bad at the moment but I was starting to regret giving Sebastian my shades. I did my best to ignore the pain and continue exploring the interrogation room. There was a projector hanging from the ceiling facing the wall in front of the chair. It was hanging low enough for me to turn it on. The projector quickly powered up and projected an oddly familiar video on the wall.

There were two people in the video. One was a girl wearing a green shirt and cap. She had a facemask covering her mouth and nose. The other person was a man wearing a suit. He was probably the host of this talk show.

The host spoke first. "Thank you for coming here today Marie. I know a lot of people have been wanting to see the Squid Sisters on this show." That was Marie? She didn't look at all what I imagined or remembered, and what's this Squid Sisters the host was referring to?

"The pleasure's all mine." Marie replied.

"Tell me Marie we recently found out Callie has disappeared. How do you feel about that?" the host asked. I disappeared? What did he mean by that? Why was he asking Marie this? None of this made any sense. How would this host even know me. It's not like I was a celebrity amongst the Inklings.

"Good riddance I say. Callie was always a handful. I think everyone would benefit if she never came back." Marie answered.

The video looped back to the beginning and started to play the same events again. I decided to watch it again. Maybe I could make sense of it. That was when I noticed something was off about Marie. Her eyes did not have a black line connecting the black circles around her eyes. There was only one explanation, it was an octoling actress playing the role of Marie. This was a clever forgery but it also raises one question. Why would we have a forged video about Marie insulting me? What could possibly be the point?

After my third time watching the video, I turned off the projector. Seems like I would need to look elsewhere for more answers. I looked back at the empty chair with a lamp hanging over it. My head felt like it was going to cave in. I sat on the chair, trying my best to focus but the pain wouldn't stop.

Then as if I was watching a movie. I saw myself being dragged into the room in chains by octolings. They tied me to the chair. I cried and struggled desperately. Then I saw Octavio. I couldn't believe what I was remembering.

I didn't want to see anymore. I quickly got up and retreated from the room. The pain faded away once I was back at the reception area. I leaned against the nearest wall, trying to recover from the pain and confusion. My mind had to be playing some cruel trick on me. Octavio would never do that to me. He took me in when no one else would. He loves me.

I quickly shook my head and pulled myself back into reality. There was still one more area I needed to search.

I went through the door labeled "Cellblocks" and found myself in a long hallway. There were a few branching hallways with small empty cells. Although they were all in good condition, I certainly didn't want to be in any of them. The door at the end of the hallway caught my attention. It was labelled, "VIP Cell" and looked very different compared to any other door in the palace. It was one large reinforced steel door that looked like it could withstand an explosion.