Flashes Of Light

Present Day

Three people stand in a room, looking at each other anxiously.

"You know why I invited you to my talk show," the presenter says. "Six years ago, Logar Iris was arrested for the murder of The Anti. He's spent the last six years in prison, but a detective finally showed up to investigate the murder, and decided to open the case. You are the only possible suspects. We were supposed to have Jonath Cincinnati and Ane Dioretsa over too, but they didn't show up."

"Typical," a dark-haired man in his thirties comments. His name is Percie Tolkien. "I knew Jonath wasn't going to show up."

"Oh, he will," Logar Iris replies. "He's just fashionably late."

"I will explain to the audience what's going on here, even though they're already aware, since you were the six most famous people in the world, seven, if you count The Anti," the presenter says, ignoring the signs that a fight between his three hosts is about to start. "The six of you, even Lix Apophis, who died a gruesome death, have found time to write an autobiography where you describe in detail the experience of being part of the terrorist group called PoS, Power Of Sight."

"Lix should have called her autobiography Sacrificed Young For A Lousy Cause," Logar jokes. "Too bad she couldn't know about it, back then."

Sveta Metis knows she is, in her way, the most important piece of the chessboard. She hasn't spoken yet, but this is only because she can't stand Logar, and has never been able to stand him when he acts like that.

"You wrote your own autobiography while you were in jail," she can't help but finally comment.

"This is the type of tension we encourage to see here!" the presenter comments cheerily.

And Sveta knows. He says he wants to understand who killed The Anti, but the truth is that he won't be happy until all of their secrets are dug out from the earth.

"Either way, those six books have different publishing histories," the presenter adds. "The first of you to publish your book was indeed Lix Apophis, who published Child Soldier right before she died. Then, in the six years after The Anti died, it was one autobiography after the other. Percie Tolkien wasted no time and published The Vision. The same year Ane Dioretsa published A Wretched Tragedy and Sveta Metis No One's Hero: An uncensored story. Only one of those was a commercial success, and it was the one written by Metis. Today marks the release date of The Garden Inside The Park, written by Logar Iris during his time in prison."

Percie laughs. "What the fuck does the title mean?"

"Read the book and you'll find out," Logar says.

"There's always been an aura of mystery surrounding the group," the presenter continues, with great effort. "And a lot of rumours. It is rumoured that at least one of them hasn't written their autobiography themselves, and that who did lied about very important sequences."

Logar looks at Sveta. They both think all of this is very stupid, but they don't let it show.

"Let's start back when you were young," the presenter says. "What kind of students were you at school?"

Sveta chuckles. "I didn't go to school."

"How can I describe myself in just a few words?" Percie wonders.

"I thought the teachers weren't funny," Logar says. "Because they didn't get my jokes."

"I remember you never laughed at your own jokes either," Sveta bites back. "You were always uptight."

"My jokes weren't supposed to make me laugh, but to make other people laugh, and they always delivered. Now that I remember, you never laughed at my jokes, Sveta. Maybe that's why they say you're tough. I've never understood why they said that, before."