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vehemently. “I know the truth about life. It’s filled with people who lie and cheat their way through it at the expense of the innocent. There is no compassion for the weak, only heartbreak and disappointment.”
    “So sad,” he said shaking his head. “I pity you.”
    “I don’t want your pity!” she screamed.
    “What do you want?”
    “I want… I want to die. Do you have a knife? Give it to me and I will finish this now instead of listening to you debate what I really want. You can be my one and only mourner. Tell me, will you grieve for me? Will you shed a tear for me when I am gone?”
    “You will not kill yourself,” he said. “What you need is time to heal and to forgive.”
    “Ha,” she said and laughed. “Give me your knife,” she repeated.
    He removed a knife from his belt and tossed it on the ground near her.
    As she reached for it, he was suddenly on top her with his hands on her throat. She didn’t know how he had done it; it was almost mystical. She wondered if perhaps she was dreaming all of this. She had to be. Earlier, when she heard his voice and his lips did not move, and now the way he had moved from one spot to another meant it was all a dream. She tried to convince herself it was all result from her hunger. She was becoming delirious.
    “Not real,” she murmured.
    “Oh yes, my poor soul, this is real,” he said. She felt his hands tighten on her throat as if to prove what he had said, slowly squeezing the flesh.
    “The knife would be too easy for you,” he said. “You are such a fool to be so eager to give up what you possess. I won’t let you waste life without meaning when you could give it to me. But perhaps I can change your mind about what life really is.”
    “Not life,” she murmured.
    “Life. Yes. This is life as you perceive it, isn’t it? Cruel and uncaring. Perhaps you need to feel what you so desire,” he said. “A small taste of death.”
    She stared into the face of the man that held her tightly by the throat. The moon was behind him and she couldn’t make out his features as they were bathed in the darkness. But she saw his eyes: they were a bright and deep red and looked as if they were on fire. She felt herself shudder involuntarily at the sight and her anger began to dissipate as it grew into its brother: Fear.
    “Not real,” she said softly, trying to convince herself.
    “We shall see what is real and what is not, what we think we want and what we really want.”
    He moved his face close to hers now and she smelled his breath. Her mind instantly associated the smell with that of damp earth when one entered a root cellar. It was not an unpleasant smell, but that of old earth damp with moisture. A dream, she insisted. It was all a dream.
    He was going to kiss her, she thought as his lips neared her own. But then he moved toward where his hands held her at the neck. She felt the pressure begin to lessen and then felt his lips touch her skin. She had the strangest reaction then, the odd sensation of cold, numbing her skin in a matter of seconds. Then there was a slight pinch and the world exploded in her mind.

C HAPTER E IGHT
    ***
    “Whatever remains must be true…” the man said. The memory of the saying of the classic detective was another reminder of his own past. His father had been an avid reader of Arthur Conan Doyle as evident by the books in their library at home. As a child, he had found those books in the library and read them as well. Was it a father’s passion passed down to a son? Just like the agency?
    A father who had worked for the agency and who had gone missing during the war; his body never found according to what he had been told. A father whose handwriting looked very similar to what he was looking at right now. But in his mind, all of these similarities were not a certainty but only increased the possibility of getting to know someone that contributed to his birth fifty plus years ago. Time alone dictated that it was now a