They're back in Dan's kitchen after a patrol, sharing coffee and talking tactics, when Dan notices the blood. It's dripping out from under Rorschach's coat, forming a puddle on the floor beneath his chair one sinister drop at a time. Rorschach hasn't noticed, intent on the chess pieces he's co-opted as gangsters, and Dan stares at him almost able to believe he's imagining things.
'Uh, buddy?' he says. 'You're bleeding.'
'Don't feel anything,' says Rorschach. He turns, looks under his chair, and even without an expression he looks like he's wondering where the blood has come from. He shrugs out of his coat. 'Better take a look.'
There is blood on his vest, but no slash in it. Nor in his shirt, nor undervest although the back of it is almost entirely red. Dan peels them off as gently as possible, although Rorschach seems numb to any pain. Underneath there is a gash, right down the line of Rorschach's spine and gaping wide, the edges of the skin peeling back from each other.
'God,' says Dan. He doesn't know whether to call an ambulance or try to stitch it himself, it can't be as deep as it looks or Rorschach would be dead. Grabbing a teatowel to try and stem the bleeding comes first, and if Dan can just stop it enough to run for the first aid kit then maybe he can fix this. Pressing the teatowel to the gash he sees something caught in it, a piece of cellophane wrap waving from the edge of the wound. It makes no sense, none of this does, and with a sense of unreality Dan reaches out to pull it away from the gash. It almost doesn't surprise him when it comes and comes, like a handkerchief from a magician's pocket, as large as a towel, and then a tablecloth, a second piece starting to unspool alongside the first. And then the whole kitchen is filled with shimmering waving transparency, like thin silk scarves.
Rorschach turns to look at them too, puzzled and alarmed, and then his head falls forward, dangling from a neck that looks broken. The steady drip of blood becomes a gush, spreading and splashing over Dan's floor, over his feet in their brown leather slippers. Dan yells, tries to staunch the bleeding but the strange silky stuff is in the way. Tries to catch Rorschach as he slumps, landing on the floor with a thunk of his lolling head. His body starts twitching, spasming as he rolls in his own blood. Dan grabs for the telephone, never mind that Rorschach's still in uniform and in Dan's house. He's bleeding to death and having some kind of fit, it doesn't matter if he never forgives him. Before he can hit the numbers the gash in Rorschach's back splits open and something emerges.
It's small, barely larger than a child, and with a disproportionally large head. Spindly, barely there, with arms and legs like twigs. Tail with a sting, like a scorpion, skin stretched and white like a burn scar. Its face is hideous, almost human lips grey-blue and stretched around mandibles, forehead bulging to accommodate huge, lidless, coppery eyes. The transparent stuff is resolving into wings, shimmering and trembling around the monstrous creature at their centre.
It looks like something from a horror movie, or the nastier kind of fairy tale, but Dan is too angry to be afraid. Whatever this thing is it just killed Rorschach, and he grabs the biggest knife from his rack as it chitters at him. The knife hits the edge of one wing and the creature grunts, tries to bundle them behind it. When Dan strikes again, half blinded by tears but aiming at the narrow ribcage, it swings its stinger at him, missing by yards, and runs for the stairs.
It's still clumsy and takes the stairs on all fours, chittering frantically. Dan grabs the back of a wing and hauls it down, pinning the frail body. He manages to trap the tail under one knee, the other pressing between its shoulderblades to pin it to the stairs, surprised he managed that without being stung. He pulls its head back with one hand, baring its neck to his knife. It makes a sound and, even through a mouth that can't manage human speech and from a chest he could almost get his hands around, Dan recognises it as a sob. It hasn't tried to hurt him, that stinger never came anywhere near him, only to frighten him and get away. Dan eases back the pressure on it.
'Rorschach,' he says, quietly. 'That you, buddy?'
It nods and, when Dan pulls away, sits up and wipes its nose on the back of its hand. The gesture's human enough to somehow dispel all doubts. Dan drops the knife and puts his head in his hands.
'I thought you were dead, eaten from the inside out like a grub with an ichneumon wasp,' says Dan. Rorschach makes that odd chittering again, although the rhythm suggests he's trying to form words. Dan smiles at him and risks brushing his hand against one sunken, distorted cheekbone. 'I'm so glad you're not.'
'Hurm.' It's not a word but it's a recognisable sound at least and it gives Dan hope that Rorschach may figure out how to form words later. For now he'll find him some writing paper.
'You know, our coffee's probably still warm,' says Dan. 'I'll bring it and your chess board through to the living room.'
Later he'll clean up the macabre state of his kitchen. Later he'll try to figure out what just happened and why, and what the hell Rorschach is now. Later. For now he's going to fetch their coffee and sit in the living room with his partner and pretend that nothing's changed. Because Rorschach's alive and for now that's really all that matters.