Broken Masks

Chapter 31 - Shadow Manipulation

(A/N: I had the idea for shadow manipulation a little while ago when lying in bed at ass o'clock in the morning when I turned off my phone and was completely blind from how dark it was. It's concept kinda spoopy but I love it! Also, my bf is now reading this and doesn't know how or why someone would use semicolons [;], so I made an effort to use them as much as possible in this chapter!)

A crowd of officers huddled around the one way window of the interrogation room Klaus was in, which blocked the corridor as Lena, TJ and Tommy ran over. The crowd parted like the Red Sea when Lena got to them, and the three ran in, not looking through the glass before hand.

TJ got through the door first, followed closely by Lena and Tommy, and what he saw was straight out of a horror movie.

Klaus was on his back, suspended in the air. His arms were slung back wide like wings, his legs hanging down like chords, his hair floating around his head. The room seemed to shake with sound as a thunderous roar blared and echoed around it, the winds of a cyclone battering the trio as they stood in horror staring at Klaus's body. And all around the ebony haired boy; holding him up like a doll, snaking over his limbs and feeling their way along the walls and the floor below, were inky tendrils. They didn't seem to be smoke or liquid, but a mix of the two, and radiated wisps of blackish gas. The tendrils themselves were pitch black; they seemed to absorb all the light around them.

They looked like nothingness.

Klaus's lips was open in a silent scream as the smoke poured into his mouth, his one eye bulging with shock and fear.

TJ went to run to him, but Lena grabbed his arm.

"Don't!" She shouted over the howl of the wind, with seemed to be coming from the darkness itself.

"I have to help him!" TJ yelled back, turning his head to face her desperately. She looked terrified, her ponytail flapping like a flag in the clangoring gale.

"You can't! Look at the stuff around him! It's shadows! Shadow manipulation is being used! We don't know what it will do!"

At that moment, the shadow tendrils diffused outward; dispersing and thinning and finally disappearing. When the blackness cleared, Klaus hung in the air a second longer, before crashing to the ground with a sickening bang, like he had been thrown down like a brick, on top of the table in the middle of the room. The thing shattered beneath the force of his body, and fragments of wood exploding outward. A shard flew at TJ, slicing him along the cheek, which caused the cut to start oozing blood.

But TJ didn't care. He ripped his arm out of Lena's grip and ran to Klaus, Machiavellian be damned, and dragged him out of the wreckage of the table. Kneeling down, he rested his beloved's head on his lap, and scanned his face desperately. Klaus's face was paper white, and his eye was closed. A single, pitch black tear ran down his face, smearing a tar trail across his temple and into his hair.

"Klaus?" TJ whisper-yelled, stroking to boy's ebony strands out of his face.

Klaus's eye snapped open.

They were pools of coal. Completely and utterly black.

"The god of war arrives." He spat, his voice hoarse, mutated and disfigured into that of a demon. Then his body lurched to the side, and Klaus vomited black.

* * *

At this point, TJ had a feeling he had been in the hospital way too much. After throwing up what Lena suspected to be 'shadow remnant', Klaus had lost consciousness. Luckily he wasn't in the same condition he had been in before, and was simply laying in the hospital bed; breathing on his own, and appearing to just be sleeping. Dr Carter had explained to TJ, Lena, Tommy and Jess, who had come along after her girlfriend had told her what had happened, that Klaus was likely severely fatigued after the incident, and just needed to rest. Even with this reassurance, Jess insisted Klaus be kept in the hospital till he woke up so they could monitor him incase whatever had happened to him in the interrogation room caused any damage.

TJ hated himself.

His best friend, his love, his soulmate, was a criminal. A killer. Everyday, Klaus had woken up, and consciously decided to murder someone. And everyday, Klaus would come home to the apartment and eat dinner, play games on his phone, and watch TV shows, with the metaphorical blood caking his hands. Hands which had held and brushed over TJ; had drawn patterns in his skin, slipped over his hips, and run down his arms. Each and every moment, touch and loving kiss, was now splattered in someone's blood.

TJ sat in thought for a long time, his eyes gliding in and out of focus as he stared at nothing, the white walls around him turning into an expanse of void.

"I feel like we've been here a lot." Came a dry, cracked voice. TJ blinked a few times and looked over. Klaus's eyes were open, and he surveyed TJ like the hero was a scared little rabbit that could run away at any moment.

"I guess we have. My broken ribs, your coma, and now this. Dr Carter must be sick of us." TJ murmured back, his voice slightly cold.

Klaus let out a cracked chuckle, but then his face fell.

"You must hate me... you know you don't have to be here right? You can go and live your life, find someone else, forget about me..." he rasped, looking down at his hands. TJ closed his eyes, before answering with a voice that projected sadness.

"I don't hate you," Klaus looked up at TJ, whose eyes were still closed. "I'm disappointed. Disappointed you didn't tell me who you really before hand, that you didn't trust me enough to tell me, and I'm disappointed in myself for not realising sooner. I don't really know who you are, even now. Are you Klaus, are you Alois? I'm so confused..."

"Oh..." Klaus whispered, looking down at his hands again, feeling his eyes well up with tears.

"I should have known it was you when you saved me from that car. I could smell you when you covered my eyes. I could smell that damn lavender soap you use."

Klaus chuckled lightly.

"In that moment, everything I'd learnt, been conditioned and trained to do, was thrown out the window. I was trained to stand by. Watch the destruction I saw, save no lives, leave everything to death. But when I saw you standing there... you were so scared. I couldn't let you die..."

TJ smiled slightly, his lips curving up at the edges in a way that made Klaus himself smile wetly with tiny tears. He sighed, took TJ's hand, and looked him in the eye.

"I trust you. I'm gonna tell you what I really am."

(A/N: I found a copy of the satanic bible and imma summon a hot demon boyfriend.)