A door slam. A latch turning. Footsteps pattering slowly across the floor.
Sylar didn't open his eyes. He didn't know who had entered, and he didn't much care at the moment. Burning with anger and shame at having been bested by his own brother, Sylar was finding it difficult not to be apathetic toward anything right now. His mother — his real mother, Angela — had been trying to convince him to go after Peter, to save him from Pinehearst, but Sylar had refused and was determined to keep on refusing, no matter what she said to him. Had she returned? What would she try on him this time?
Presently there was a voice. Not Angela's; adult, male. "Hello, Sylar."
Sylar exhaled and finally opened his eyes, raising his head. For a moment, it didn't register that the person in front of him had been the one to speak, because no voice like that should come from someone so young. A child, a young boy, eleven or twelve years old, with a haunting sadness in his eyes years older than he. He had sat on the edge of Sylar's table and crossed his legs, and was regarding the man with a neutral expression.
Sylar raised his eyebrows. If this was what his mother was trying, it was certainly something new. "Who are you?"
The child laughed, and it was a humorless laugh, devoid of any sense of glee or happiness. His voice was terrible, a forty-five-year old's weary monotone coming out of a twelve-year-old's mouth. "That's not important, is it?"
He turned away from Sylar, swinging his legs idly. "Judging by the buzz around here, you're the important one. You've made quite a name for yourself, haven't you? Going around, killing people, murdering innocent bystanders ... all just so you can be special. Natural selection. A perfectly humane process. That's all it is, right?"
"Who are you?" Sylar asked again, voice lower, murderous.
The boy smiled tauntingly. "Again, not important. They've been keeping freaks like us here and sending us to you one by one, and no one ever comes back. I'm not stupid, not by a long shot, Sylar. Not after what I've experienced. I know what's going on here. You're going to kill me, and then take my ability, and that will be that. Isn't that right?"
Sylar shook his head, looking away from the boy. "I'm not doing that anymore. I'm trying to be different. Why would I want your ability?"
The boy hopped off the table and began pacing around it, keeping his eyes on Sylar the whole time, that terrible smile still on his face as he spoke. "Oh, you wouldn't. You won't like it, Sylar. Not one bit. I wouldn't call it an ability so much as a curse."
"Yeah, well, join the club," Sylar grunted, following the boy with his eyes.
The boy pretended not to have heard him, and stopped at the end of the table, resting his hands on either side of it and leaning forward. "I can take emotions. I can feel what anybody on Earth is feeling or has ever felt, and then I can channel it into other people."
Sylar privately felt that this didn't live up to the hype that the boy had given it, but didn't say anything at first, still just watching the boy. It was odd how he didn't seem to need to blink.
"How do you think I got this way?" the boy continued in that horrible voice, tilting his head to look at Sylar, like a curious puppy would. "I felt too much. All that's going on in the world ... war ... famine ... death ... tragedy ... anger ... grief... I felt all of it. I was young. I didn't know how to control it yet. A natural disaster strikes, I feel the pain, agony and sorrow of every single one of the millions of people involved. It aged me. Rather quickly, as it were. And I'm like you, Sylar. I'm different. I see the world for what it really is, a festering hellhole where only the precious strong few survive. I had to become one of those few. I had to fight for myself. Whether these emotions were mine or not, I had to control them and not let them get the best of me."
He seated himself on the side of Sylar's table again. "So I ran. I ran until I couldn't feel anything anymore, until I passed out from sheer exhaustion, and the Company found me. They took me away from my parents, taught me how to control my ability and use it to my advantage ... and now ... here I am."
Silence descended on the two of them, the boy idly swinging his legs again. Finally Sylar broke the quiet. "Here you are," he repeated, slowly sitting up, though cautiously. "And what do you want with me?"
The boy laughed that terrible laugh again. "My desires aren't really part of the equation, Sylar. The Company feels like you've lost your way, and so I'm your bait. You're supposed to rediscover how much you love killing others and taking their powers, and I'm the means to get you there. They want you dangerous; they want you to be their weapon."
"No," Sylar growled, lowly. "My mother wouldn't do that, she knows I'm trying to be different. She knows that that's not who I am anymore."
"Poor Sylar," the boy smirked, "poor, innocent, naïve Sylar. Do you really believe that? You really believe that she thinks you've changed?"
"She knows I have," Sylar said, voice rising. "Why would she have sent you in the first place? She's in a goddamn coma!"
"Oh, that's right," the boy said, unconcernedly. "That part's changed since they sent for me. A coma, huh? What a pity. Especially since you couldn't even protect her from —"
"SHUT UP!" Sylar shouted suddenly, and brought his hand up in front of him; the boy was catapulted off of Sylar's table and his back slammed into the opposite wall, body sliding upward and a sliver of blood slowly appearing across his forehead. Sylar moved his finger, and the sliver grew bigger, but this was strange — the boy wasn't screaming. He was laughing. That same terrible, aged, humorless laugh. "Oh, Sylar," he began, saying it with relish, "you have no idea what you're doing, do you?"
"I know exactly what I'm doing," Sylar said lowly, drawing the sliver farther across; it had almost made it past a quarter of the boy's head.
"Do you know how Claire felt when you broke into her house, Sylar?" said the boy, and he was smirking. "Do you know the sheer terror, the concern for her life, and her family, and her father — do you know what that was like to go through? Do you know how she felt when you slammed her against the wall, just like you're doing with me? Let's start with that, shall we?"
And suddenly Sylar was seized with an intense, uncontrollable fear; inhaling sharply, he lost his concentration and the boy dropped from the wall down to the floor, where he stayed, still laughing. Sylar fell on his back and writhed in agony on the table; he told himself that this couldn't be happening, that there was no way he should be fearful of this little eleven-year-old boy — but he was, and it seemed like there was screaming inside his head, it was torture, it was terror, and it was unstoppable. The fear that Claire had felt was now Sylar's, and it was a relentless fear, and Sylar wrestled with the shackles and gritted his teeth —
It was gone. Only a lingering flicker of concern remained; the surge of emotion was over as soon as it began. Sylar raised his head and looked at the boy, who had struggled to his feet and was dabbing at the cut at his head unconcernedly. He smirked as he met Sylar's gaze. "Ah, you're up. Let's see ... shall we move on to Peter's fury at you as he whooped your sorry ass? Do you have any idea how that feels?"
Sylar was about to find out: Seized with emotion again, he thrashed and writhed and turned over on the table, screaming, this time from a pure, seething anger, so powerful it blocked out everything else: He saw only red, and brought his shaking hands to his temples, trying to block it out, trying to concentrate; but just as Claire's emotion had become his, so had Peter's, and so Sylar had become furious at himself. He hated himself, hated everything that his life had stood for, hated everything that he had become, and just as the thought crossed his mind that he should cut open his own head and end it all, the anger was gone. Panting and sweating, Sylar laid crouched on the table, gripping the sides with his hands and raising his head, not looking at the boy behind him.
"Fuck you," Sylar spat, wiping a dribble of blood from his nose.
"Now that would be both disgusting and technically illegal," the boy said, and he walked around the table so that he was in front of Sylar. His hands were crossed, and he looked like he was enjoying this far, far too much. "I've got a couple more good ones in the stockpile, I think... we'll go with Hiro's reaction to Charlie's death."
This time it was sorrow that washed over Sylar, and just as he had wanted to end his own life only seconds before, the feeling returned again, but this time it was different: the sorrow over losing a lover was both an unbearable wrenching feeling in his heart, and a twisted reminder of how alone he really was. No one to understand him, no one he could call friend, no one who would ever really believe in him — and Sylar felt, for some inexplicable reason, that even though such a person could never exist, he was in agony over losing them all the same.
"ENOUGH!" Sylar shouted, and through the haze of gut-wrenching feelings he reached for the telepathy, and the boy was slammed against the wall again and the cut across his head deepened. The flood of terrible emotions ceased once more and Sylar looked up again, watching the sliver of blood slowly make its way across the boy's head, though strangely, he appeared still unconcerned.
"Well, Sylar, would you look at that," he said, and blinked as a trickle of blood made its way into his eye. "You're back to doing what you do best. I guess you were wrong and your mother and I were right. You are nothing but a monster."
"My mother would never believe that of me," Sylar gasped angrily, increasing the speed of the incision.
"You know what, Sylar?" the boy said thoughtfully. "You're probably right. I lied. Oops, secret's out."
"What ... you mean this was all a trick?" Sylar bellowed, and in his anger he stopped the telepathy; the boy remained pressed against the wall, but the rest of his head remained intact.
"Of course it was," the boy said, rolling his eyes. "Somebody has to stop you, and since no one's been able to manage it just yet I appointed myself to the task." He lowered his voice and stared deep into Sylar's eyes. "You need to be destroyed, for good, and only I have the ability to make you do it yourself."
"You won't be able to do that once I'm finished with you," Sylar said, beginning to deepen the incision again, but still the boy didn't scream.
"Nikki's dead, Sylar," he said, very softly. "Do you know how Micah feels about that? Let's check."
Sylar knew it was coming, and though he tried to brace himself he couldn't stop the sorrow and all its pain and agony washing over him again. Gritting his teeth and lowering his head, he tried to think through it, to remind himself that this was all a trick, a device put in place by the boy in front of him; in his concentration, he dropped the telepathy once more and the boy fell to the ground, where he remained sitting there and crossed his legs, staring frankly up at Sylar.
"Now let's add to the mix," he said, voice dangerous. "Let's throw in some of Peter's anger."
Sylar let out a yell; it seemed like his entire mind was a whirlwind, and all of this anger and sadness again began to take the form of an intense hatred for himself. Sylar fought it, and landed on his back on the table again as he writhed: He was hearing all the thoughts that went along with the emotions the boy was projecting on him, and it was a neverending torment of sound and feeling. Through it, a voice rose above the rest, and it seemed to be a combination of the boy's, Sylar's own voice, and the voices of all his victims. It was saying something: not exact words, but a single thought that would help him end all of this. The evil within you must be destroyed...
"Hiro's agony over Charlie," the boy said, and his voice — his real voice — sounded so far away and could barely be heard over the torrent of others. Sylar felt the added emotions; everything was being magnified tenfold — he never would have even thought it was possible — There is a way to end it all... it's what you deserve...
"Claire's fear," the boy said, and now Sylar was afraid, too: Afraid of the boy, afraid of his mother, afraid of this cell, afraid of himself. His hands dug into the metal table, denting it, slowly crushing it inward. It's the only means to the end... End your life, Sylar ... Do yourself and the world a favor...
Suddenly the rush of feelings lifted slightly, but only for a moment: As Sylar raised his head to gaze into the boy's eyes, their cold, bodiless emptiness looked back. "I've saved the best for last."
Sylar struggled to breathe. "W-What ... do you mean?" he rasped.
The boy was smirking evilly again. "Let's see how you affected the woman who raised you from a boy ... right before you killed her."
Sylar let out another scream, his grip on the table intensifying; he could never have prepared for it, the combination of everything, all his victims, all the suffering he had caused, and now the agony of the woman he had loved as his mother — all of it was closing in on him, it was a thunderstorm of sounds and sights and emotions and it was crushing him, it was a worse feeling than death, and he knew it would only end in one way—
"KILL ME!" Sylar shouted over the noise in his mind, tears and sweat rolling down his face as he looked at the boy. "KILL ME!"
"Now you're talking," the boy said in that deadly quiet voice. "A little more, Sylar. If I try to physically hurt you, you'll just heal ... so let's see if I can't get you to do it yourself."
"KILL ME!" Sylar shouted one last time, and he drew up, kneeling on the table as he clenched his fists and threw his head back; a light was glowing under his skin, and as he yelled in sheer agony, the light intensified until it was a blinding glow, pure white and deadly in its heat and force.
"That's it," the boy said quietly. "Good, Sylar."
Distantly, through the ever-present haze of thoughts and feelings, Sylar caught himself wondering. Had this been the boy's plan all along? Had he known that he wouldn't survive this encounter, and that he'd set himself on a mission that would end in his own death along with Sylar's? Had that been what he wanted to do?
And as Sylar screamed wrathfully, and at last let loose with the force of energy gathered from the entire flood of countless emotions, he realized that he may never know.