Broken Masks

Chapter 16 - The Woman with Red

(A/N: The last chapter originally ended with Klaus waking up, but I decided to change that to deepen the plot, haha!)

As days turned into weeks, TJ could feel his resolve crumbling. He was scared. Terrified even.

What if Klaus died? What if Machiavellian made another attack while he was with Klaus? Would Klaus ever wake up or would TJ be asked to pull the plug on him and let his boyfriend, his partner, his soulmate float away?

These thoughts, never ending and spiralling into worse ones, clouded TJ's mind as he sat there in the darkness of the hospital room, one hand holding Klaus's, the other rolling a marble, which he had found on the floor in the corridor, between his thumb and index finger.

Sighing, TJ tipped his head back against the wall behind him, the cool plaster making his scalp tingle. He closed his eyes, concentrating on Klaus's slow breathing through the tube in his mouth. TJ hated looking at Klaus like this, coated in wires and tubing and IV drips. He looked so small. So helpless.

The doctor had explained that due to his body's state, the coma was necessary to help his healing. Yet somehow it was taking a lot longer then expected. He had lost so much blood and gone through so much pain, it was just better to let him stop. Otherwise, the stress out of his brain from that lack of blood could destroy him. TJ didn't want that. He wanted his Klaus back. For things to be back to how they were before, with sweet nights cuddled up together on the sofa and shy, blushing glances at each other over breakfast.

Shifting in his chair, TJ repositioned himself so that he was leaning against the edge of the hospital bed, his head resting against Klaus's arm, pretending it was just another night at home, where they were both tired from university but totally and forever together.

* * *

The woman was giggling, painting away on the wall with her fingers like a toddler. Her 'special paint' shimmered on the wall in the glow of the dim lightbulb that flickered every so often.

She started humming a nonsense song, the sound echoing and bouncing off the concrete walls of the room. Other paintings were splayed across the walls, all in the same paint her fingers were dripping with. Some were of little people running about with swords and knives, others of enormous men with big muscles and bigger machine guns.

But this one?

This one was special.

It was two stick-people. One big, one small, holding each other's hands. The faces were blank, and the hair was strange and cropped and uniform.

"My little brother was always smaller then me!" She said happily in a sing-song voice, addressing the man on the floor next to her, "He got so scared of the big men he would cling to me like a little lost rabbit!"

The man on the floor grunted, his hands clamped over his bleeding stomach.

"I wonder what he's like now? Is he tall? Taller then me? I hope he isn't, that would be too much!" She continued, giggling away at her own words.

The man shut his eyes tightly, trying to ignore the pain he was in.

"Mr Person?! I need more paint!" Sang the woman, a strange sadistic glint framing her childish voice.

"P... please... no more..." the man whimpered.

"Oh no! I need more now! Come on, move those fingers!" She answered, before squatting down and prying the man's hands off his stomach. She then dug her fingers into the stab wound in the man's belly, coating her fingers more in her special paint, and making the fat little man scream like the pig he was.

"There! All topped up! I can do Momma now!" She squealed, her delight showing to be almost sadistic in it's tone. The woman then began on a third figure; a taller, more rumpled figure, with long legs and a slim waist. She continued to sing her gibberish song as she started on the woman's clothes. A thick belt, a gun holster, little badges on it's left breast. Then she began the figure's head. But it wasn't right! Momma didn't have a neck like that last time the woman saw her! Her neck was bent, tipped right back and sideways like that of an under-stuffed rag doll. So that's what the woman did. Before she could get onto her Momma's hair, she realised her paint had run out.

"Oh Mr Person!" She sang, childish and vicious all at once.

"Please... don't..." The man on the floor begged weakly.

"But I want to!" The woman answered, sounding distraught. She kicked the man's blooded hands away from his belly before going to get her paint. But she paused.

"You know, I'm almost finished with my picture! I won't be needing my paint again after this. I hope you don't mind!"

And she plunged her hand into his gut. The man screamed as he watched the woman start dragging out his intestines, muscle and fat sticking to it like glue before peeling away like hot wax. The man took a shaky breath. A final gasp. A death rattle.

"Well that was disappointing." The woman stated bluntly. Her voice suddenly mature, like that of a woman her age. But that didn't last long. Her face split into a toddler's grin before she turned around and finished painting her Momma, the body of a deceased man laying next to her, his eyes wide and mouth dripping saliva and red.

(A/N: Hey who likes the new character!)