Broken Masks

Chapter 38 - The Transfusion Setter

Klaus was still struggling to understand what had happened; his face was marred with confusion as he sat on the chair of the Transfusion Setter, his expression never shifting even as sensors were attached to his temples and over his heart.

He was brought out of his musings when Lena cleared her throat.

"You ready?" She asked, and Klaus felt a spike of adrenaline pass through him. His eyes flicked to TJ, who smiled very slightly and gave him a nod. Klaus took a long, deep breath and leaned back into the chair, biting his lip and flinching as a switch was flipped and the machine above him tumbled to life, a dull blue light appearing from the panels of the machine.

"Remember, all you're doing is pinpointing A2M's location. Don't touch her, don't connect with her, and especially don't let her see you." Lena explained, her voice as tense as Klaus felt.

"You'll be ok," TJ murmured, traces of comfort leaking in through his voice. Klaus closed his eyes and steeled his mind.

"Let's do this."

There was a bang, a blast of blue white light, and then silence. Lena and TJ, squinting, stared at Klaus. But Klaus didn't move, his face was relaxed, and to anyone watching he could have been sleeping, if not for his closed eyelid, under which his eye seemed to be rolling; zipping back and forth and searching.

From Klaus's perspective, a shack was appearing before him from the inky blackness, as if a photo of it was being raised slowly from the dark water it had been submerged in. He moved carefully towards it, each step bringing the place more into focus till he was stood outside the door.

"What can you see?" A voice said, sounding echoey and muted, as if speaking through a door. Klaus jumped slightly and the image before him wavered slightly as his concentration slipped.

"A shack..." he murmured, knowing that TJ and Lena could hear him. Now prepared for the voice, he didn't jump at the reply.

"Do you know where?"

Klaus turned his head, looking out toward the void behind him. The inky blackness swirled slightly as a street sign seemed to emerge from it. However, only half of it was visible.

"Fenthum..." he answered. The answer was there, but muted to the point he couldn't hear it. Klaus felt a tickling in his mind, recalling a scenario like this happening before, but try as he could, he couldn't remember what the fading voice meant.

Assuming what he was meant to do next, he turned back to the door. Taking a deep breath, he moved through it into the shack, passing through the wooden door like a ghost.

Emerging in an empty room, he scanned the space with his eye. The floor was coated in a thick layer of dust, but there was an area where that was disturbed. The dust seemed blown back from the shape of the sides of a square, and a wipe seemed to be taken out of it in the shape of a hand.

A trapdoor.

Moving to step over it, he took a deep breath and, as he had done with the front door, passed through it into the room below.

Klaus saw three things when he landed.

The first was the stone walls, covered in red finger paintings of people. A crude classroom with a woman at the front, a cage with a child crammed inside it, and a mother with a broken neck holding the hands of two children.

The second was Jess, huddled in the corner of the stone room, cradling her arm, which seemed to be broken. Her foot was chained to the wall, and she was crying silently.

The third, and worst, was Her. Annie. A2M herself. She had her back to Klaus in that moment, humming a strange tune as the fiddled with something.

Klaus froze as he felt a charge appear to fly between them. A2M's head snapped up like a snake. Her head slowly began to turn, her eyes searching. Klaus knew she wouldn't see him. She couldn't see him. Her head tipped to the side, her lips pulling into a Cheshire Cat grin.

And eyes landed on him all the same.