Broken Masks

Chapter 34 - The Spree

(A/N: Went on a walk. Made myself a house. Found a toad. Made the toad a house. Productivity.)

The reflection of the city lights caused the woman's eyes to glitter as if they held the night sky within. Across the river that split the city in half, the sounds of laughter, movement and life drifted along the waves like little paper boats.

She wanted to burn them.

The cigarette she held between delicate fingers stained red by blood was almost out, she noticed. Taking a final drag of tar and cancer, she pressed the bright cherry-like ember to the skin of her exposed forearm, the sleeve of the floral shirt that floated around her rolled up to her skeletal elbow. She didn't hiss in pain as her skin burned. She didn't flinch as she brushed the remnant ash off the burn. She didn't even blink as the burnt skin blistered, flaked, and healed, the skin around it knitting over the hole.

She was waiting. A lioness in the brush. A serpent in the grass. A spider on a web. Waiting for her prey to round the corner. Any second.....

Now

A plump, petite woman, with long, straight brown hair and square rimmed glasses rounded the corner of a close by building. She wore a light blue denim jacket and black jeans, and in her soft looking hands she held a wad of paper, scrawled over in a mixture of computer text and hand written notes. An actress maybe? Or perhaps a film director.

A2M didn't care. This woman was her victim, as the poor, cuddly woman didn't even know it.

A rabbit and a fox... let the game begin! The woman thought.

A flick of the wrist, a horrified scream, and both women were gone. The papers fluttered away silently in the wind as the river washed away the slivering ashes of shadow remnant.

* * *

"We open the news today with the distressing news of the death of the beloved actress Holly Evans. The famous singer, performer, and frequenter of many high class stages around the world went missing 5 days ago after rehearsals for the upcoming musical 'Egyptian Dream', in which she was set to be playing the starring role of the drag-king Pharaoh. Her body was discovered early this morning outside the Fellowship Building on the edge of the south side of the river. Handing over to the case's lead investigator, Louis Redips..."

Klaus shut off the radio of his room and fell backward onto his bed. The thing bounced slightly beneath him, but didn't creak as the bed in the prison had. Covering his eyes with his hand, he thought back to the past month.

Since he had been admitted into the psychiatric hospital, A2M had began a mass killing spree. There had been four victims so far, five now including Evans, each disappearing off the street during the night, only to turn up again in the last place they were seen; mangled, tortured and dead. Klaus knew from the moment the first victim's injuries were described that A2M was behind it all.

The torture methods used were all ones they were taught about at UNIT. The rope burn on the victims wrists, distraction of the eyes and eardrums, the stab wounds strategically placed to avoid all vital organs and arteries, the bruises of strangulation but not to the point of killing. No, they were killed with a clinically clean slice through the throat; a far contrast from the messy, jagged wounds that littered the rest of the bodies.

Klaus closed his eyes and disassociated, entering his head space.

A headspace, as therapist at the psychiatric hospital had told him, was a visualisation tool to help him communicate with his other sides, or alters. His headspace was built as if it were a university dorm room; with main room, occupying a sofa and a table with three chairs around it. Off the main room were three doors, each leading to an alter's personal room.

Klaus's room was full of soft and hard colours and edges. The walls were a flat grey, the bed was made of black metal with white sheets, and the small black table next to it held a metal framed picture of TJ and Klaus outside the university; arms around each other, TJ leaning into Klaus's side, and splitting grins on each of their faces.

From what Klaus had seem of Machiavellian's room, through the flashes when the alter entered or left it, the room was set out like one of the rooms at UNIT; dark, shadowy and holding a single chair and desk.

As for the third room, belonging to Alois, Klaus didn't know. The room was always locked and the alter never left the room. Neither Klaus nor Machiavellian had ever seen the third member of the system, and both always tried to speak to him, though both for different reasons. Klaus wanted to meet him because the therapist had told him it could help. Machiavellian wanted to meet him to, as Machiavellian had said, 'remove the weakness'. No wonder Alois never showed himself.

As for the alters themselves, each looked different. While Klaus much looked like how he looked on the outside, Machiavellian appeared much different. He was wearing his suit. The alter's features were a lot sharper then Klaus's, his eyes were pitch black, and his body was much more muscular. This was the body Klaus had once had when he was a part of UNIT.

Sitting down at the table in the main room, Klaus pulled out a pencil and started tapping it on the table. He would do his every day, awaiting the entrance of Machiavellian. Just then, the door of the alter's room opened.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear, Klaus thought.

The looming figure seemed to glide out of his room, his onyx eye surveying Klaus with a mix of hatred and tolerance.

Machiavellian had made it very clear from the start of their interactions that he disliked Klaus. He wanted to be in control; to be the only alter, but he knew that if he destroyed Klaus, he would never be able to get out of the psychiatric hospital. He hated how he was barred from fronting whenever he wanted, and being locked inside the headspace until he heard a certain ring tone, or Klaus put on the mask.

Machiavellian fell into the chair across from Klaus, his arm splayed over the back of the chair and his leg across the empty chair next to him.

"What do you want this time, Klausey-mousey?", the alter grimaced sarcastically. Klaus glowered.

"As much as I hate being near you, we have to talk and you know it." Klaus answered bitterly.

"Also known as you want me to disappear from our mind so that you can be all goody goody and destroy our sister." Machiavellian answered with equal hatred.

"We have to do it. She's murdering innocent people. That goes against our conditioning, rememberer? Murder whe-"

"When ordered and the kill is of use to the order of destruction. Yes, I know. You forget I was there too. I was born there, and so were you. And we got rid of Alois together-"

"SHUT UP!" Klaus yelled, slamming his hands on the table as he stood.

"So sensitive. How weak it makes you." Machiavellian snickered, standing gracefully before returning to his room, slamming the door behind him.