'Man, you guys really know how to make an atmosphere! All the candles, the robes. It's so cool!' He noticed the item hanging from the ceiling. It was an X-shaped rune, with a bar at the bottom and a skull in the center. He instantly recognized it.

  'You have a symbol of Khorne?! How great is that'!

  'Thank you,' said one of the hooded figures.

  That was when a blade was thrust into Michael's side. As he felt it, his eyes widened. His breath escaped his mouth as he looked at his side and saw the hilt of the dagger against it. In this moment, there was only one thing he could do.

  He laughed.

  'Alright, alright, you guys got me!' He said to the others. The room has exploded with laughter and cheers, while one of the others switched the lights on. Someone even shouted, 'Blood for the blood god!' In excitement.

  As Mike turned around, the hooded figure pulled back his cowl, revealing his face. It was Adrien.

  'Sorry about this. The others have insisted on a sort of initiation ceremony to be held for the new guy,' he apologized with a toy dagger in his hand.

  'Please, I would have been disappointed otherwise,' replied Michael. 'It is a little dark, but hey, it fits the setting! And you did it great! I mean, the symbol, the hoods, the candles—it's just perfect!'

  'Thank you, we worked really hard on it! Now, are you ready for some roleplaying?' Adrien extended his hand.

  'I was born ready!' Said the new guest while shaking the hand of his host.

  'Great, then there is only one thing left for you to do.'

  'Oh yeah? And what would that be?' Asked Michael.

  'Wake up,' said Adrien, in a voice that was not his own. The room started to feel odd. It got darker; items started to shift in appearance.

  'Wake up!' Said "Adrien" again, louder, almost shouting.

  An image of a mother and a little boy flashed before his eyes.

  'WAKE UP, HERETIC!'

  Michael Zion opened his eyes slowly.

  He turned and looked around. He was in a dark room made from steel, with only a small light giving any brightness to the dim room. There was a table under it, with a bottle and a glass, but nothing else was in the room. He felt cold and realized that he was half naked. He tried to get "up," but quickly realized that he could not do that. He was strapped to the wall by all four of his limbs with shackles, which rendered him unable to move.

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  'Where—where am I?' He asked, scared out of his mind.

  The only answer he got was a hard punch to his face. He looked up dizzily and saw a man with dark skin looking down on him. He wore a power armor—or at least something that looked like it, Michael thought—of gold with a black cape, his eyes filled with contempt and disgust. Like someone who had to deal with a roach he found under his table.

  'Only I get to ask questions here, worm,' he said.

  While Mike gathered his breath, all of the memories came back to him. How the party really went down, what he did, and what he saw. What he had lost. An incredible amount of grief and sadness washed over him. He knew that he was awake, that this was not a dream nor hallucination anymore. The pain on his face reassured him of that. This was his reality. He wanted to cry when he remembered Robert, but he held back his tears for now. For he had noticed two additional things about his interrogator. One was the weapon on his hip, a pistol, which told him that his talking partner was serious. The other was the insignia on his chest. A stylized "i."

  'You are an Inquisitor,' he finally said.

  Lord Inquisitor Lucian smirked a little.

  'Huh. So even on your Emperor-forsaken planet, they know about our great organization. That is interesting.' He turned around and walked over to the table, pouring some of the liquid from the bottle. From the looks of it, it was some kind of wine.

  'That may mean that you know what awaits you should you not answer my questions or if I find the ones you give unsatisfying.'

  Michael looked at the inquisitor with confusion.

  'The Inquisition that I know of would not just strap me to a wall. They would give me a fair trial and questioning. They are the guardians of the Imperium, the righteous protectors from the horrors of the immaterium! Not just some people with power who go around torturing mindlessly'!

  The inquisitor had looked inside his cup, quickly emptying its contents.

  'Well,' he said. 'You are partly correct. I am the protector of the imperium, and I am righteous. I am the shield from the nightmares and threats that would tear apart His holy work. From the xenos, the witch, and the mutant alike. However.'

  He quickly walked back to Michael, slapping him in the face with the back of his hand.

  'I will not back down from using any means necessary to do that. I will not tolerate the remarks of some heretic trash from a world full of godless traitors! You will tell me everything you know of your world, because if you do not, I'm going to show you what torture really means!' He backed away from him, walking back to the table. 'And trust me, compared to other cases, I am being downright gracious with you.'

  Mike looked at the floor. His face was aching; he could feel blood in his mouth. He was supposed to be scared; he was supposed to be angry or sad; he should have begged for mercy from the inquisitor. And yet, he did not. He did not feel... anything, other than the physical pain. How could he? Everything he knew had been turned upside down, stripped away from him. He did not have much, and yet even that was lost now. All he had was his life, and what good would it do for him to keep that at this point? He knew that if the stories were anything to go by, he had not many things to look forward to even if he could get out of this room. The best-case scenario for him would be to be put into the guard on a front line of a far-off world and die to a terrifying creature of the universe.

  If death is the best I can hope for, then let's get on with it. He thought.

  'Alright, inquisitor. If you want information, I will tell you everything I know. I promise I will be honest and that I will tell you no lies. But you may not like what you will hear,' he said.

  Lucian looked at him with contempt.

  'Is that so? And tell me, why?'

  'Because of my knowledge from the universe, you know,' Michael simply stated.

  'Explain.'

  'My world does know the Emperor. It does know the Imperium—albeit in some cases it seems, inaccurately. It does know of the immaterium and various secrets of various xenos species. But not as reality,' he stopped for a moment. He could only guess the reaction to the next thing he will say. 'We only know it as a fairy tale. An idea from some writer's head, which is made up purely for entertainment purposes and to sell products with its name. In other words, everything you know—your organization, the knights, the Emperor himself—is purely fictional for us.'