LIMBO

prologue

That humming sound was the first thing Berwald noticed when he opened his eyes. The endless humming and beeping that had followed him throughout his dreams. There had been a lot of dreams; he knew that.

What he didn't know was that he had been in a coma for nearly two days.

"Berwald?"

"Pappa…?" the five-year-old murmured, shifting between the sheets, stretching out his lanky little body.

"Berwald!" His father quickly enveloped him in a hug, letting out a laugh of joy. "Sigrid, he's awake!" Beside him, Berwald's mother drifted out of her uneasy sleep, but all the anxiety on her face evaporated when she saw her son with his eyes open and even bright, bright with life.

Both parents cuddled their son close, cooing over him, stroking his short, wheat-blond hair. Between them, Berwald snuggled up contentedly, and decided that his parents were so happy that he wasn't going to make them sad by telling them he still felt sick – like his head was in the clouds while his body was there in bed.

"Your son is a miracle," the doctor told them, happily noting down that Berwald seemed completely recovered. "I have to confess that when you brought him in, Mr. Oxenstierna –"

"Call me Sven," Berwald's father interrupted, a big smile - a rare sight – on his face. "We've been through enough together."

" – Sven, then, when you brought him in I was worried that he wouldn't make it. He has been to the edge of death and back…"

"We don't need to think about that anymore," Sigrid said quickly, running her hand through Berwald's hair over and over as she helped him eat some soup that had just been brought for him. "All that matters is that he is here now." She rubbed his back lovingly, though part of her was still worried. He was pale as death, after all.

chapter one
(recommended listening: 'hungry face' by mogwai)

Twelve years later

"Berwald, are you all right?" His mother, Sigrid, leant over the breakfast table to feel her son's forehead. Now seventeen, Berwald was several inches taller than her and broadly muscular, but nothing would stop him from still being her adored son. "You look pale," she said worriedly.

"'m always pale," he murmured, gently pushing her hand off. "Don' worry."

"All mothers worry," she chuckled, standing up to clear the dishes away. Berwald stood up to help her – always a dutiful son – before picking up his rucksack and shouldering it, straightening his glasses on his slightly crooked nose. Sigrid looked up to give him a goodbye kiss on the cheek, and smiled sadly.

"You look more like your father every day…"

"Bye, Mamma," Berwald said softly, leaning down to kiss her cheek before leaving the house. It was only a short walk to school in their tiny town, and the wind whipped his face in a way that wasn't wholly unpleasant – it woke him up, since he had had the most horrible night's sleep.

"You look awful." His supposed best friend, Lukas Bondevik, met him at the school gates. Lukas was leaning back against the high wall, looking utterly bored, and his Arctic blue eyes scrutinised Berwald's face in a way that made him look far crueller than Berwald knew he really was. Well, Lukas was blunt, at the most.

"Thanks," Berwald mumbled, a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

"No, I mean it," the Norwegian said, in a tone you might call earnest by some stretch of the imagination, as they walked into the building together. "You actually look quite ill. Were you watching the news this morning or something?"

"What was the news?"

"Some woman got stabbed last night. Apparently her intestines were all over the pavement." Lukas' voice was quiet, and even though his words were callous, his tone was soft.

Berwald shuddered. "Didn' know that. But…" he paused, wondering if Lukas would ridicule him if he decided to say what he had dreamt about the previous night.

"Sve. Spill." Well, when Lukas gave an order like that, 'no' wasn't an option.

"Dreamt abou' a woman gettin' stabbed las' night." It had been the worst type of nightmare, one where Berwald had been frozen in bed, unable to move or run or even wake himself up as he watched a shadowy figure driving a knife repeatedly into the body of a screaming young woman –

"You're a prophet, obviously," Lukas told him dryly. "Go and write your holy book while I prepare everyone else for the coming of the new Messiah."

Berwald didn't even pretend to find that funny, and Lukas smirked faintly. This was their friendship.

Registration came as a shock to everyone because there was someone new sitting at the front of the class. This simply did not happen at their school; nobody moved to this town. You were here because you were born here, and that in itself was punishment enough – according to Lukas at least.

But no, there he was, sitting comfortably in a seat: a boy with bright blonde hair, a bright blue sweater, and a big, bright smile. Everything about him was just… bright.

Berwald was starstruck.

"I'm Tino," he introduced himself to a group of curious classmates, with a friendly smile that verged on charming – at least in Berwald's eyes. "I'm from Finland. We used to move around a lot because my father was in the military, but now we've decided to settle here." It was a perfect introduction, seemingly rather ordinary, yet Berwald, listening in from the back of the classroom, was intrigued and desperate to know more.

The Finn seemed happy enough to answer his brief questions, even if it was with a hint of nervousness and confusion as to why the tall, stoic boy was so interested in him. Berwald didn't think his questions were strange at all; he was smitten, even though he wasn't quite sure of it yet.

"I really like ice hockey! I've always tried to be on a team whenever we've lived in a place that had one," Tino was saying, his tone enthusiastic.

"Ice hockey?" Berwald was surprised. Their ice hockey team, as small as it was, was composed of the likes of lanky Matthew Williams and big, broad Ivan Braginsky – and Tino certainly wasn't the tallest person around! "Don't y'get hurt?"

"Of course I do!" Tino laughed. "But so does everyone else! That's just a part of the game!" He patted Berwald's arm innocently, as if to reassure him that he wasn't going to get killed out on the ice. "Do you do any sort of sports, then?"

When he was answered with a shake of the head, Tino asked, "Then what do you do in your free time?"

"I'm in the drama club."

"Drama? You act?" Judging by the wide eyes and slightly open mouth, Tino was in complete disbelief. "Really?"

Berwald shook his head again. "I build props. An' work the lights and sound."

"Oh! Oh, I see!" The Finn started laughing, brushing his thick fringe out of his eyes, closing his eyes for a brief second and showcasing his long eyelashes for Berwald without quite realising it. "My mistake…" he trailed off with a little chuckle. "But that's a very important job! You have a lot of responsibility in every single performance."

"It's a small group," Berwald murmured, a hint of amusement playing on his lips. Led by Mathias and Lukas, the group only usually did one play per year, sometimes two if they were especially organised. Most of the time it was Mathias leading group games with the younger students and Lukas sitting on the side reading a book.

"Still! I'd love to see how the lights and sound are controlled in a play sometime…" Tino flashed him a big smile, and Berwald felt his heart flutter. That smile wiped out all the bad things in the world.

I'm back! This is a much darker setting than 'What a Man Needs', but I hope you'll all still like it! This is also the first time I've really tried to write something dark and suspenseful in this way, so bear with me...