Chris had been in the white room for days now. Occasionally, Liz threw food through the portal but apart from that, nothing happened. Chris went through a habitual routine of systematically working out each group of muscles before sitting in the middle of the room with his legs crossed, pondering on his situation.
Rewinding back to the interrogation, after Chris' statement, Liz threw his head against the floor and stabbed the knife into his knee.
Unfazed, Chris continued his near-maniacal laughter that echoed throughout the snow white cage.
"AM I A FUCKING JOKE TO YOU?!" she screamed as she violently twisted the knife inside his leg.
Her face now contorted into a bundle of pure anger. But Chris didn't cry out, nor did he scream in pain. "Hahahahaahaha!" Joyous laughter echoed throughout the room. However his laughter quickly faded as his vision darkened and he slipped into the embrace of dreams.
When Chris came to, he was no longer in a white room. He sat on a chair in the middle of what appeared to be a highly advanced control room. The walls were lined from end to end with sprawling monitors each displaying various pieces of data. In the room with Chris was 4 other people. They were Liz, a tanned man with jet black hair and a muscular build, a shorter boy with blonde hair and wild eyes and finally, a girl who cloaked herself in a long robe that hide most of her features. Chris opened his mouth to speak but, the tanned man cut him off.
"Christopher Blutzki. 24 years old, grew up in western Eifledom and moved to The Hub in search of work. Lived here for 5 years. No recorded relatives due to your prior status as an orphan and no next of kin. No recorded arrests or infractions. By all know accounts of you, you were as average as can be... But, you see, you died 6 years ago."
A monitor in front of Chris changed to display the death certificate. Chris' words stuck in his throat as he tried to process everything. However the tanned man didn't notice or didn't care as he calmly continued.
"To be honest, your resurrection is the least of my interests. These days, anybody can fake their death. I want to know how you got into one of the most secure buildings in The Hub. I want to know how long you were here, what you did while you were here, why you didn't leave and... how you managed to de-age. And before you say anything, we already tested your blood. We checked your alkaline phosphatase and deduced that you're around 19."
Chris took a deep breath. The previous excitement in his eyes was nowhere to be seen. Internally, Chris had already figured out 7 different explanations for the current series of events but so far, only 2 seemed logical. However, Chris quickly ruled out the first possibility before settling on his last option. He raised his head slightly and began to speak with a deflated voice.
"You're right... Not about everything but... well..." Chris thought for a second before opening his mouth.
"Actually, you're not right. I'm Christopher but.... I'm not Christopher Blutzki. From what I've gathered, I've either traveled back in time or traveled to a parallel world. If you ask me, traveling back in time is pretty unlikely..."
The tanned man raised his hand, interrupting Chris.
"You don't seriously expect us to believe you, do you?"
The robed woman stepped forward, drawing everyone's attention.
"I don't... think... he's lying... His temporal signature... different..."
Although the robed woman didn't say much, everybody seemed to regard her words with heavy weight. They all exchanged glances and with a cursory "Excuse us", they left the room.
Chris tilted his head back until he was staring at the roof. He wondered how much of his story he could give away. or if it even mattered. after all that time in the white room, he decided to live a normal life. Or something similar to that at least.
'I need to give the response that best allows me a normal life. something under the radar.'
Chris, however, instantly realized how ridiculously idiotic that sentence was.
'I just appeared in a high security room and laughed like a deranged person while Liz tortured me... yep, so not going away with a 'sorry I'm lost' excuse.'
Chris narrowed his eyes.
'Alright then... yeah, lets go with that.'
A few minutes later the blonde boy stepped back into the room and squatted down in front of Chris.
"Hey Chris, can I call you Chris?"
"Sure."
"Okay Chris, here's the rub. We believe you on the whole dimension jumping Terminator shi-"
"Didn't the Terminator time-travel though?" Chris interrupted.
"Uh well... maybe in your world but in ours, he totally jumps dimensions" The blonde boy averted his eyes before continuing.
"A-Anyway, we believe your story, but we don't know anything about you as a person. So we can't just let you go, you know? I mean trust me, I'd like to be at home right now eating Basda Bass chips and watching cable but until we can gather enough evidence that you're not a threat to our world, we kinda need to keep you under observation."
Chris nodded then nonchalantly asked.
"Why don't you just read my memories though? Or even better, check my karmic alignment?"
The blonde boy was taken aback.
"What? um, well... because we...didn't think of it? I mean, in our world, checking those things is very disrespectful."
Chris' eye twitched.
'Dude. You just admitted you didn't even consider it...'
"Well, in my world it is too. However these are rather special circumstances, don't you agree?"
The blonde boy glanced at a screen behind Chris for a few moments before turning back to Chris.
"Alright, we'll check your karmic alignment then. I assume you know what to do?"
Chris rolled his eyes. "What do you mean? You do nothing. It's not exactly an eye exam."
However the blonde boy gave him a frown.
"Uh, dude? I don't know how K-tests worked for you but we can't test your aura unless you're unconscious."
"oh...shit."
"sorry man."
The blonde boy was nice enough to close the door behind him before the entire room flooded with sleeping gas.
One last thought that ran through Chris' mind before he slipped away.
'I'm seriously gonna have to figure out what's different here.'