Chapter 2:
"What are we gonna do?"
Nina's eyes cut to Dieter, her hand covering her mouth. She feels strange. Detached, almost. Like this isn't really happening. Isn't really happening to her.
She's standing in the center of the room, and she doesn't know how much time has passed since the policemen left, informing her and Dieter of what she had always known in her heart was a possibility, despite the certainty of the doctors that he brother would never wake.
Johann had woken up from his coma after nearly a year and a half and had vanished from his room at the hospital sometime during the last night. They didn't know where he was. They were out looking for him now.
"Nina, what are we gonna do!?" Dieter insists, and she doesn't know.
She doesn't know what they're going to do. She doesn't even know what it is she's feeling.
There had been times she'd felt so powerfully desperate for her brother to wake up. For her to know he would live. That he would have his life, even if... even if it meant spending the rest of it inside a prison cell. There were other times she'd felt certain it would be better for him never to wake at all. To her awful shame, times even she'd hoped he would simply die, there in the hospital. For all their sakes.
He had woken though, and had escaped, and somehow she'd always known, deep down, that was the only way it could be with Johann. He was too much. Too much of everything to succumb to his own, mortal frailty.
She's terrified, she thinks. She should be. Her brother was insane. And so horrifically dangerous. As dangerous as any person ever could be.
She doesn't know what he'll be thinking. What he'll do, or plan on doing. In truth, she doesn't even know if he's okay. Physically okay.
He'd been in a coma for so long. He'd been shot in the head, for Christ's sake! The second time in his life, he'd been shot in the head. There was no way he would have just been able to... to pop awake and walk away from all that without some sort of damage. As inhuman as Johann had at times seemed to her, she knows that wasn't ever really true. She'd seen enough with her own eyes how very human he really was. God, she... she remembers what he had looked like, that night in Ruhenheim, when the bullet had impacted the side of his head, and he'd gone down, collapsing to the rain soaked ground, his body crumpling, and his head bouncing up as it hit the pavement. She remembers his hair. His beautiful, white blonde hair tousling as it was jarred out of place by the impact of the ground, and then watching as that hair had splattered over with thick blood. And then he'd been still. So still. He'd seemed so small to her then. Frail and weak, and she could only see him as a boy, lying at her feet. The same, awful image of his hair, soaked in his own blood, his pale skin somehow paler still, his face somehow still beautiful as an angel.
Some part of her feels an almost overwhelming relief. And with that feeling, an awful sense of guilt. Johann had killed so many people. He had killed her own parents. So many people who didn't deserve to die. So many people who would feel Johan himself deserved to die, then, and Nina couldn't really argue against them if they did. She couldn't blame them, if that's what they thought.
Only she couldn't control how she felt either. Couldn't control her love for her brother, no matter what he had done. She doesn't know if she should apologize for that. She doesn't know if she even could, or if it would even matter.
Like everything else with Johan, this all in some way felt like an abstraction. Detached. Knowing Johan was alive and out there wouldn't be the same as having him standing here before her. She knows that. And she doesn't know how she would feel were he to suddenly appear, now, in the flesh.
"We should call Tenma. We need to tell him!" Dieter keeps talking, and Nina snaps out of her thoughts, looking at him. He's standing in front of her, his face lined in obvious fear and panic.
Dieter had grown a lot in the last year. Taller than her now. But still he looked as young as he was, only 14.
She shakes her head, her mouth feeling dry.
"We won't be able to reach him. Not by phone anyway." She says. And that was true. Tenma was, last she heard, in the Sudan. It took months just for letters to arrive there, and there was no internet access where he was. Beyond that, what would Tenma do, if he heard Johan had woken and escaped?
Tenma's relationship with Johan was, in some ways, as complex as her own.
In some ways, Tenma had formed a closer bond with her brother than she had ever had.
It was something Nina didn't like to think about too much. What Tenma meant to Johan.
If she thought about it too much, the same answer always came back to her, and it made her throat tight with such a sickening sense of guilt and regret.
Tenma had saved Johan's life. The life Nina herself had taken, or nearly, anyway. And Nina had forgotten Johan. She had forgotten he ever existed.
Tenma had never done that. Tenma had never betrayed Johan, in spite of everything.
She can't assume what it is that was going on inside her brother's head. She knows that. She can't ever really hope to understand him. But maybe that was it. Maybe that was why Johan felt so drawn to Tenma.
Maybe Tenma was the one person whom Johan felt understood him at all. Understood what he felt, and saw.
She doesn't know. All she knows is Tenma would feel the need to come back home immediately if he heard the news about her brother. And what would happen after that, she has no idea.
She knows Johan would find out. She knows her brother would probably already know where Tenma was, even now. Just like she felt sure he probably had already found her.
It's like Dieter's reading her mind when he decides to remind her of this.
"But we've gotta tell him somehow! What if Johan decides to go after him!? What if he tries to kill him!" He cries.
"He won't." Nina says, and it's so automatic she surprises herself. She hadn't even thought about it. It had just slipped out, like she knew it to be true, somehow. She couldn't explain why. It was just something she felt so sure of suddenly.
Johan wouldn't try to kill Tenma. Like she knew Johan wouldn't try to kill her.
She wasn't even remotely sure about anyone else though, and the thought of that possibility, of Johan going on another killing spree, has her feeling sick to the stomach.
Dieter doesn't look convinced of her reassurances either, and Nina sighs, already feeling exhausted from it all.
"I'll try to get in touch with somebody over there to let him know." She promises. "Okay?"
"Don't try. Do." Dieter says, crossing his arms. "We've gotta tell Dr. Reichwein too. Man, he's gonna be upset."
That was probably the world's biggest understatement.
Dr. Reichwein was terrified of Johan and what he was. Of what he was capable of. He had been strongly opposed to leaving Johan under such slack security conditions at the hospital, despite the doctor's being certain of his continuing comatose state, and despite that for the first year they had routinely had his wrist cuffed to the bed rail.
Nina knows as soon as he found out, the doctor was going to blow his top. She wouldn't be able to blame him for that either.
She closes her eyes, covering her face with her hands.
Oh Johan, Johan... she thinks dismally of him out there.
Johan, what's going to become of us...?
/
"It was lonely for you growing up, wasn't it?"
He can feel the falter of the man's hands as he's strapping his legs down. The short hesitation before he continues, not replying.
"Not that you didn't have friends. Well, you had friends, but they never really felt like real friends, am I right?"
Again the man hesitates, his frame tensing.
"Stop talking." He says, and Johan looks up at him with a furrowed brow.
He'd been studying this man for a few minutes. He was new. At least, new to Johan's detail. He didn't interact well with the other orderlies and nurses around him. Stood aloof from them. Never made eye contact. It wasn't that he was shy. Johan could see the resentment in him right away. The frustration. The man felt he was too good for this job. Felt he was too good to be taking orders of any kind. He felt annoyed and disgusted by what he thought was the mundane and frivolous stupidity of other people. No doubt the man thought of himself as a secret intellectual. Thought of himself as someone who had lofty and original thoughts. Was of a higher ideal. If only someone would recognize his superior talent and intellect.
Johan could do that for him.
The man begins to pull the strap's taught against his wrists.
They were going to run electroshock treatment on him again today. The agony of it was overwhelming. Johan would scream his throat hoarse and crack his teeth, he knows, if they didn't force that piece of wood into his mouth before each session, pressing his tongue down. After they would lock him in that room with bright lights. At unpredictable, random times, they would feed a loud buzzing noise through that rooms speakers at ear splitting decimals, imitating the sound of the machine that delivered the electric shocks. It was meant to keep the test subjects in a state of high stress and anxiety. They would keep you awake like this for a period of 12, 13, 14 hours sometimes. Until you lost track. It was effective. Johan had been put through this more times than he can remember now. He always felt deeply sick at the end. Disoriented and physically weak, his thoughts fracturing and running away from him, his limbs refusing to work right. He often threw up during the period they had him in there, too, painful nausea turning his stomach, his eyes burning and dry from the unrelenting lights, and he would try to hide from them by pressing into a corner and burying his head underneath his arms, but it never really worked. Loud noises would cause him to jump and flinch away for days afterward.
It was effective.
"I understand what that feels like." Johan keeps talking, his voice soft and sad. "When no one understands what you see. It's lonely, but it also makes you angry. Right? Why can't people be smarter? It's frustrating how shallow people can be. The way they would rather distract themselves from having to use their brains. They just want to sit there and stare at mindless trash so they don't have to think, or put any effort in. It's so stupid, isn't it? I think it's stupid."
The man glances down at him, frowning. Thinking. Johan has him.
"Well you ain't wrong about that kid." He says, beginning to pull the strap across his forehead to keep his head in place. The electroshock always caused violent spams.
"I can tell you're different though." Johan says. "Your smart. Really smart, actually. Smarter than all the other people in here. They don't see it, because they're not very bright. Or because they're intimidated by you. That's what being intelligent does. It scares people away because they don't want to have to face the fact there's someone better than they are. That's why I said I think you were probably lonely growing up. Because even though you had friends, none of them really understood you, and eventually they stopped wanting to be around you because they felt bad about themselves when you were around. Even if they didn't understand why, they could sense it. You're being superior to them."
The man hesitates in what he's doing again, his hands stopping as he looks down at Johan once more, really regarding him this time. Johan can see the pride in his eyes. The growing confidence. His ego's stroked, getting bigger.
"Heh. You're pretty smart yourself, huh kid? What's your name anyway?"
Johan smiles at him.
"Johan." He answers. "But they don't like us to have names in here. So I'm not supposed to tell."
"You told me though." The man says, and Johan looks away, eyes going distant.
"... You won't tell anyone though. Right?" He asks, his voice small, almost pleading. "I'll get in trouble if they find out."
The man scoffs.
"I wouldn't tell these bozos jack shit, even if they asked me directly. Don't worry about that."
"Thank you." Johan looks back at him, his face relieved. Hopeful. A moment later he can feel his expression drop, brow crumpling with stress. The man frowns, standing up straighter.
"What is it?" He asks.
"... Nothing. I'm just a little scared." Johan answers after a pause.
The man continues looking at him, his hands slipping away from the straps as he steps back.
"... I'm sorry kid. I don't want to have to do this to you. It's just..."
"I know. It's your job." Johan tells him, looking away again. "I know it's not your fault, I just..."
He trails off, and the man shifts.
"What?" He asks after a moment and Johan looks back to him.
"I get really scared before the treatment, and I... I need to use the restroom. I'm embarrassed I'll soil myself if I can't use the restroom first. But nobody ever listens to me. I guess because I'm just a little boy. I wish somebody would just..."
"Understand?" The man supplies, and Johan looks up at him with bright eyes. As if the man had come to that conclusion himself.
"Yes." He says, hopeful. "But you understand. Don't you?"
The man nods.
"Yeah." He says. I do."
Johan smiles up at him again. He giggles.
"I knew you would. You're too smart for this place. You shouldn't even have to work for these people. I wish you were the one in charge."
"Pff, far as I'm concerned I already am." The man announces.
Johan looks at him with a puzzled expression.
"Really?" He asks, and the man grins, slapping his own chest.
"I'm the one in charge of hooking you up to this thing. I could decide to just let you up from this table right now if I wanted. Nobody could stop me, if I wanted to do that."
"... I guess that's true." Johan says, voice filled with a kind of wonderment. "You are in charge, aren't you?"
The man's grin widens, eyes burning with pride and arrogance.
"Damn straight I am. I could do anything I want."
Johan smiles at him like he's special. Like he's a great man.
"You know what, I think I will." The man announces with determined certainty. "I'll let you walk around for a few minutes. Use a bathroom. How about that?"
"... You won't get in trouble?" Johan asks, sounding scared, he knows.
"Hell no!" The man assures him. "Even if they try to say something, I'll just talk my way outta it. These clowns are so easy to mess with."
Johan giggles.
"You're right. It was silly of me to doubt you."
The man continues grinning, pride twisting his features into smugness, his voice taking on an air of consoling patronization.
"It's alright Johan. You're smarter than most of the people in this place. Here, I'll just get you outta this thing and then we'll go find a bathroom."
He waits as the man loosens the straps, patient. Unhurried.
He waits as he'd picked up by the man underneath his arms and lowered to the floor, on his feet, the man continuing to chatter away about something or other. Likely about his own brilliance and what a fool he'll make of everyone. But Johan is no longer listening. He doesn't need to. The man doesn't notice as Johan slips away from his side, starting toward the array of medical tools, recklessly left out on one of the room's counters. He picks up a scalpel and thinks it will do fine.
He's back at the man's side without his having left ever being noticed, and holds the scalpel between his fingers, pressed to the inside of his palm and wrist.
"Excuse me Sir." He says. The man continues talking, not noticing, and Johan repeats himself more loudly. The man stops, glancing down at him. Johan makes himself look unsure, shy, and he waves the man to bend closer, as if to whisper something into his ear.
The man bends, and Johan waits until he's close enough before he swings up, slashing the scalpel hard across the man's throat.
There's a look of shocked disbelief on the man's face a moment. He doesn't understand what's just happened yet. He sputters, and blood comes thick from his lips. He reaches up, trembling hands, grasping at his throat, forcing the wound to part, and thicker blood comes pressing through his fingers.
Johan steps back, and turns, making his way towards the room's exit. He hears the man's body collapse to the ground, and doesn't look back.
He has to get out of here. He has to find Anna. Get her somewhere safe...
/
He hadn't made it far, that day. He hadn't really planned to. Had only needed to see the layout of the floor he was on for when he did decide to leave. Figure out where to go to get back up top, to where the other boys were kept. Time was important then.
He had hated Kinderheim 511. The experiments they had done on the children there. The abuse.
He understood now it was those experiments which had confused him about his and his sisters memories. Which had made him believe it was him who had been taken that day from their home. Him who was brought to the Red Rose Mansion.
He remembers a sick fear he had felt, that he would forget Anna then. That he would lose all memory of her.
He hadn't. He had been able to keep them from taking her from him. But everything else... he hadn't been able to remember his life at all before arriving at that place.
He sits in front of the window of the hotel room he's rented, watching the outside.
He thinks of Anna, and Dr. Tenma.
Dr. Tenma...
Dr. Tenma hadn't shot him, in the end. But Johan knew... he knew still Tenma could see what he saw. Had seen it. It had been there, in the doctor's eyes. That scenery of a doomsday. That world of nothing. Dr. Tenma had seen it, at last.
They were alike, he and Dr. Tenma. Johan knew, from the beginning. Even Anna hadn't been able to see it. But Tenma could. All people were equal. Only Tenma was delusional about the thing that made them so. Not life. Only death. It was death that made them equal. Johan had tried to make him understand. The same ending to every story.
Only still the doctor hadn't killed him. Instead restored him to life once more.
Johan smiles to himself with the thought.
Dr. Tenma felt like a father to him. He hadn't been lying, when he'd told the doctor that. Like General Wolf. He had wanted to make them understand. To see. People suffered because they struggled. They killed one another to avoid the same fate. Inevitable. Inexorable. Their fear driving them faster towards it. Death was an abstract concept to them. Something beyond their ability to imagine. That drove their fear higher still. No way to envision the end, for them.
Johan saw it so many times though. Knew it. Felt it. Saw it still.
He thinks about dying. He thinks about killing himself.
He glances away from the window finally, standing and moving towards the room's bed.
His head hurts. He's been getting terrible migraines, since he woke up. Vicious, cracking pain that makes him go blind sometimes. Dizziness plagues him too. More than a few times he's lost his balance and fallen. It happened once while he was out walking the streets. So many people came rushing up to him, asking him if he was alright, helping him get back to his feet.
He pulls the covers back and gets into the bed. He'll sleep, for a while.
When he wakes, he'll go out, and think about his sister. Go stand outside her home and watch for her to appear.