AN: Welcome to my newest fic! The idea of a Mohinder-themed spin-off of Dreams never really got off the ground, but maybe some day... Anyway, enjoy this 5YG story - an incredibly fun to write exploration of insanity!

Touch of Death

Chapter One

She could still feel it in her mind – the beating of their hearts, their life force draining out of them and filling her with power, her head pounding and her ears ringing as, screaming for her to stop, they slowly died. She would always be able to feel it. The pounding never stopped, just dimmed. The ringing became softer, almost inaudible, but it was still there. The memory would remain for ever. It would plague her...for ever.

-

It was midnight, and a freezing wind blew through the desolate streets of New York City, sending dust and rubble skittering across the ground. The great city, once thriving and alive, had died in the explosion five years ago, like so many hundreds of thousands of its citizens. Some remained, though. After the Linderman Act had been passed, ordering the arrest and imprisonment of all people with unusual abilities, many of the so-called 'Specials' had gone into hiding. The ruins of New York were one of a handful of places where they came, as large and full of places to hide as it was.

One such person, a young woman named Joanna Mooney, stood on the roof of the abandoned Deveaux Building, staring out over the distant and half-collapsed rooftops to the crater that had once been Kirby Plaza. Even though it was the middle of the night, she had no desire to sleep. She never did, not for the past two years. Fatigue plagued her constantly, made her go strange in the head, but she considered what happened when she slept to be much worse. Sleeping led to dreams – but, for her, they were always nightmares.

Joanna was finding, lately, that the nightmares continued even when she was awake. When she blinked, she could see them, the shadows and demons of the past. Out of the corner of her eye she saw monsters sneaking up on her, but whenever she turned to catch them out they disappeared. It was them, she knew, she could feel it; they'd come back to haunt her because of what she'd done. And they were everywhere.

-

This was it. After all this time, centuries, he would finally have his revenge...

The Deveaux Building was there, before him, tall and dark and weighted with his expectations. I have you now, Hiro, thought Adam gleefully. I have you. And I am going to savour killing you.

-

Joanna walked back inside to get out of the cold air, grabbing a blue jacket from the open suitcase on the floor near the doorway to the roof. All of her clothes were blue; it made her feel calmer. She heard a sound from the direction of the elevator and whirled around, shuffling back cautiously with her hands raised like talons, but there was nothing there. It was dismissed as one of the shadow creatures trying to frighten her, and she wandered over to the mangy, threadbare blue reclining chair that she'd stolen from the home of someone she presumed was now dead, sitting down on it with a sigh and closing her eyes. Moonlight seeped into the building like thick syrup, having to struggle to penetrate the gloom, and she could see its glow on the inside of her eyelids. The usual grey shadows tangled with it, hiding screaming faces in their depths, but there was one, right in the middle, that was darker than the rest and didn't move, as they did. It seemed more solid, more real. Joanna, eyes still shut tight, frowned in puzzlement. There had never been one like that before...

She carefully opened her eyes. Then she let out a yell of surprise, leapt from the chair and dove behind it.

Adam stood, staring at the chair with cold, disappointed eyes, although 'disappointed' isn't a very accurate description; it was more like a searing pain and rage and agony, the crushing of all his hopes and desires, a desperate starvation, the most terrible thing he had ever felt. This was the last floor. The last floor in the entire building, and Hiro wasn't here.

Lost for the words to describe his feelings, Adam instead said, 'Who are you?' He decided that this lacked a certain something, and added, 'Where is Hiro Nakamura?'

From behind the chair, he heard a squeaked, fearful reply. 'You stay away from me! You can't get me! I killed you once, I can do it again!'

Adam's brow furrowed. '"Killed" me? What are you talking about?' He took a tentative step forward and paid for it. Joanna sprang to her feet and, in a blur, Adam was laying flat on his back, the girl kneeling on his chest and looking down at him fiercely, terror in her eyes. She put her hands on his face and hissed, 'Die, you bastard!'

It was the last thing he knew before the world turned white.

-

Now that she had a good look at him, Joanna realised – too late – that he wasn't a ghost after all. He was just a man. A handsome man, at that, with blonde hair and blue eyes like hers, only lighter. His face was perfect – not symmetrical, but still somehow perfect. She stared intently at him for several minutes, admiring the way that death had no effect on his magnificence. He hadn't even lost the colour in his cheeks. If Joanna looked at him from the right angle and squinted a bit, he looked as though he was still breathing. Carefully, gently, she reached out a hand and stroked his face; funny thing, he was still warm too...

With a huge, deep gasp, the man opened his eyes and sat up straight as an arrow. Joanna squealed in fright and fell back onto her bottom, gaping at him as he clutched at his head, breathing heavily like he'd just run ten miles.

'What did you...do to me?' he spluttered.

'I – I...' Joanna shook her head in disbelief, eyes wide with astonishment. 'I killed you. But you're not dead. You came back to life somehow! How did you do that?'

Adam's breathing settled a little, and he looked Joanna up and down for the first time. She had messy dirty-blonde hair, blue eyes so dark they were almost black, and a small pointed nose that was perfect for looking down at people with. An air of unhingedness hung around her like bees around someone who smashed up their beehive.

He appeared to be hesitating to answer her question. After a while, he said simply, 'It's what I do.'

'Oh.' This seemed to satisfy her, so Adam began an interrogation of his own.

'What about you?' he asked. 'What did—no, first of all, who are you? And where is Hiro?'

'Who?'

Adam sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. His perfect nose, Joanna thought. And he's so different; he does strange things like me. I wonder what he thinks of me, I wonder if he thinks I'm pretty...

However, he wasn't thinking, at that moment, anything about Joanna. He was more concerned with thoughts of Hiro, how that betrayer had slipped away again. He stole the woman I loved, Adam was thinking to himself. He stole her away from me and then just left her. And he goes around free and happy while I've endured four centuries of pain and sadness and I've been imprisoned and killed so many times... But he's the one that deserves to die. He deserves to die!

The fact that Joanna had begun talking to him barely registered in his mind until she reached out and clicked her fingers right under his nose, looking deeply affronted.

'Hey!' she said irritably. 'You asked me who I am, so here am I trying to answer you and you just go and zone out on me! While I'm talking! Talk about rude.' Joanna put her hands on her hips, lips pursed.

'I'm sorry,' said Adam, gesturing for her to continue. 'Please go on, miss.'

'Right then.' With a self-satisfied expression, the girl went into a long monologue about various things, many of which made no sense; there was a lot of mentions of 'shadow things' and 'ghosts from before' and Adam, listening with polite blankness, wondered vaguely what these were. From the parts of it that had been a bit less nonsensical, he'd managed to glean that her name was Joanna Mooney, she was eighteen and had been living in New York for three of those years, and her family was dead. That wasn't very much information for as long as she took to impart it.

'And what about your ability?' Adam interrupted, in the middle of a seemingly never-ending sentence about the quality of the produce in Florida. 'I mean that thing you did to me?'

'Oh, that,' she said dismissively, waving a hand as if to indicate that killing Adam had been a very minor point in her day. 'I can kill people if I want to. I've just got to touch them, then pop – dead as a doornail. Just like that.'

It was difficult for him to hide the awe on his face and the greed in his voice. 'Incredible,' he breathed, grinning like a fox tailing a slow rabbit. Then something Joanna had said jumped to the forefront of his train of thought. 'You said your family died? Did you...?' He let his voice trail off; in that context, the words 'did you' can say a lot.

Joanna's face went pale suddenly, and she glanced around into the corners of the room. When she spoke, she was looking Adam firmly in the ear, trying to see both him and the space behind him simultaneously. 'They were yelling,' she said, her words barely a whisper; Adam had to lean forward to hear her. 'They yelled at me because I touched the cat and it died. I didn't know it would, but they still were yelling at me... And then I touched them, and they were screaming.' She shivered, eyes flashing with forgotten horrors. 'And then... And then they weren't anymore.'

Joanna turned her head to stare directly at Adam, and her eyes were so wide and mad, she was so obviously deranged, that he instinctively drew back from her.

'But they're still here,' she whispered. 'I see them, when I'm not looking properly. They're always here. In my head. Always screaming.'

To be continued...