Fractured
Nagi tried to sleep. It shouldn't be hard, not after nights of nightmares and days of dreams. Rammi was at his side almost constantly, but that didn't seem to help. Dark fingers ran through darker hair as Rammi tried to soothe the agitated boy. The stroking was calming, Nagi decided, but that wasn't going to be nearly enough.
He was twelve. He was rapidly becoming an adult. He was thinking about Farfarello and shuddered under his own touch, pretending to himself that it was the Irishman stroking his hair. The gentle hand paused for a second, and he heard a grunt of suppressed laughter, then it resumed.
Somewhere barely overhead, a storm boomed. The cloud surrounded the top of the mountain on which Rosenkreuz squatted. Lightening flashed through windows at the same level as it. Occasionally the rumbles of thunder would even come from below. Nagi felt light-headed.
Somewhere in the labs Farfarello had closed his single eye. The lightening was running through the equipment, the technicians fleeing the sparks and arcs of electricity. Apparently the lightning conductor couldn't do its job when hit from beneath. The shocks made him tingle. Schuldig had ruined him somehow, but it was good to know that when the loss of his sense became too much there was a release. God had punished his transgressions by taking away his connection to his nerves. The devil had stirred a storm to show him what he could take back. Even the light touch of pain was enough to have him straining in his bonds. He'd worked hard to deserve this.
Schuldig had chucked a bunch of third years out of their room to get as close to Rammi as possible without the other boy picking up with emotions. He picked threads from the blanket. In the back of his head he could feel Farfarello trembling with the weight of the storm. Somewhere else, so far back it didn't even feel like his head he could feel Crawford, faint and lonely. The feelings were dug in so deep he couldn't shield from them. Still, he wasn't a telempath. His own volatile emotions, like waves stirred by the storm outside, flooded Brad's meagre offerings. He wondered if he'd be able to do what he'd have to, tonight.
Brad put away the second bottle of wine in the now powerless refrigerator. He couldn't remember if it was red or white that was best served chilled, or both, but he told himself it didn't matter because he wasn't going to drink it. He listened to the thunder. It connected them, he thought muzzily. It connected everyone in the castle, because now the power's out, and the roar is deafening and the wind could be felt in every corridor. He enjoyed storms like this. If the power wasn't out, he'd go to his room and watch it, playing some suitably melodramatic piece of classic music. The Ride of the Valkyries tonight, maybe. But he didn't go in that room any more. Instead, he sat on the makeshift bed he'd made from the couch, and watched the wall. He didn't know what he was waiting for, but he knew it would come soon. Perhaps if he'd been a little more sober he'd have seen it. He didn't really care, when it got right down to it.
Hertz looked over his desk at the Englishman, who nodded almost imperceptibly. Madame Dubois tugged at her hair and winced when a handful came out, but she hid it before either of the men noticed. Well, Greg had probably noticed, but he was too much gentleman to mention it. Greg reached out. This was something only the eldest trio had perfected, they'd once been told. It was the pinnacle of any telepath's career, and of great credit to those who managed the self-composure to meld with him or her. Hertz felt it reflected their suitability as the next in line.
Nagi stretched once and settled. Rammi smiled as the eyes closed with a certain finality. It would still be about an hour before he settled into that dreaming portion of sleep which scientists couldn't distinguish from wakefulness. A ripple of alertness spread through the institution, though who was projecting it accidentally was a matter for debate. Minds watched minds. Each knew their own limits.
It was the mental equivalent of a wet dog shaking itself. It almost caught Schuldig by surprise. And then it reached out and the world inverted as he followed.
Nagi's dream had all those elements of a dream, things seen during the day, things seen years ago, people never met and people seen every day. Schuldig and Farfarello were both present, acting out some role. Schuldig cursed. The attacker would notice the switch. Of course, both brought elements of their own psyche. Already there was gun fire outside and children screaming.
Wait…
'Reached out'?
Schuldig gave Farfarello a cursory nod, slightly disturbed that Nagi's subconscious had chosen to dress him as one of the Lab assistants, and left him behind.
Rammi was tired, and slightly unfocused. His shields were strong, but Schuldig was pleased to feel them. If they were that strong, and he was right, there'd have to be some kind of hole.
When he found it, he regretted being right. He didn't bother slip in. The Indian boy's psyche was of no interest to him. Perhaps he'd had some motivation or justification for what he'd done, what he was doing, but Schuldig wasn't interested. He fought to centre himself, eventually focussing himself in his own body with enough will to cast out those pesky voices that tended to move in whenever he was slightly distracted. And then he set off down the corridor.
Nagi looked between Rammi and Farfarello, aware that something had gone wrong somewhere. Dreams might not make sense, but they usually had narrative, which this did not. Nagi was older, in his dream. At least, other people perceived him as older. He knew that like knew the dream was set in Japan, even though everything looked just like Rosenkreuz. Except... except it wasn't any more. He knew that it was Ireland. He knew that it was India. He knew that it was Germany. He knew that it was Rosenkreuz and it was older than he'd ever dreamed.
Somewhere children were screaming. Farfarello shrugged apologetically, and Nagi walked over to him, wrapping himself around the older boy suddenly. Rammi fumed. Someone laughed.
"Hello, Nagi," the old man smiled.
"Herr Hertz?" Farfarello frowned, curling an arm protectively around the younger boy.
"Brother of."
"Ah," Farfarello shrugged.
"Rammi's going to cast you out of my head," Nagi said calmly.
"Quite," Rammi said dryly. Nagi spun around, away from Farfarello. Farfarello felt the dream fracture further. Rammi was standing in a jungle, tiger roaming around him. Smoke was rising somewhere behind him, and there were screams. And when Farfarello looked behind himself, a cold church filled the landscape, full of shivering children and a large man with a gun. Though they were all silent, Farfarello could still hear the shrieks in his mind. Behind the old man were pits. Nagi craned his neck to look into them, and Rammi copied. Farfarello didn't need to look to recognise a picture he'd seen in history books every time they did World War Two at school.
They all stood separately, apart from Nagi and Farfarello. Each time one of them stepped closer the landscape became crazier, like a broken mirror. The dreams seeped into each other. Tigers roamed Catholic churches, throwing children into pits. All around was smoke. Nagi pulled away from Farfarello, and the smoke suddenly worsened, pouring from burning flesh and exploding bombs and summer-dry villages. And it thickened until it was all there was.
"Clever bairn," Farfarello smirked at fog.
"We're in his head. It's not possible for him to get away," the older man stated calmly. Rammi was shooting sideways looks at Farfarello. "He has no power here," the old man explained. "He's vulnerable."
"Who does have power here?" Farfarello asked.
"Mentals only," the old man shrugged. "I'm an illusionist. He's a telempath."
"What am I?" Farfarello murmured.
"A wanderer," the old man frowned. "Funny, we haven't had one of you for a long time. Usually related to the old religions."
"The Christian God is the one true God, and the sole being responsible for all of the suffering in the world," Farfarello said seriously. Nagi giggled, somewhere in the smoke. It was a hysterical giggle. Occasionally, Farfarello noticed, the smoke curled into human shapes. Whether they were just the remnants of dreams or whether they were Nagi, they were disturbing and not something Farfarello wanted to draw attention to.
"Irish, aren't you? Probably the descendant of some druid or other," the old man shrugged. "You know, I'm descended form the Marquis de Sade."
Farfarello looked blank.
"Ever heard of Sadism? The word comes from his name."
The Irish boy wasn't particularly impressed.
Nagi's voice came through the smoke, "Come on, Rammi, now!"
Rammi didn't move. Farfarello snarled silently, but his growl was backed by the roar of a tiger, lost and confused in the thick smoke. A child cried.
"Rammi?" Nagi's voice faltered. "The plan?"
"We're working to different plans," Rammi said softly. "I'm sorry, Nagi. I was really getting to like you as well. But this is Rosenkreuz. You have to put yourself first. No hard feelings."
"No hard feelings?" Farfarello stared at him incredulously. "Aye, I'm just going to stand by and let a rapist take over your body and kill you, but never mind, aye?"
Rammi shrugged. "Do you have a point to make?" he asked smoothly.
"No, but I do."
Rammi's eyes shot open and stared down at the foot of wood protruding from his chest. Next to him, Nagi was limp. Inside that soft head there were now only three inhabitants. Schuldig stared at the bedpost he'd shoved straight through Rammi's ribcage. When he had built up the strength to do that?
It didn't take long for Rammi to die. Perhaps he had had some last words, but Schuldig never got to hear them. Blood poured through his lips as he attempted to speak. He died with pure hate in his eyes. Schuldig leant forwards, on a whim, and kissed the hot bloody lips, tasting them. He watched the body collapse backwards. It was strange how quickly someone could make the transition from person to body. Schuldig liked it when things happened fast. He didn't have the attention span to sit and watch someone die.
He wondered what he'd been scared of. He felt like a child who'd been afraid of the plughole. Sure, all that water could pour down it, but he wouldn't fit, not in the state he was in. The blood soaked the sheets. It took him a moment to realise that Nagi was being drenched in it. Well, probably best not to wake the boy just yet. Who knew what was going on in there?
Farfarello knew, and seeing Rammi disappear so abruptly had worried him. The smoke was pouring away through the hole he'd left. Farfarello wasn't any kind of psychiatrist, but holes in a person's subconscious probably weren't good. As the last of the smoke disappeared Nagi faded back into view, curled in a ball. He was naked. That was the vulnerability the old man had mentioned, manifesting itself.
Nagi was biting his arm. Whichever idiot said you couldn't feel pain in dreams deserves a bit of this, he thought viciously. And it certainly wasn't waking him up. But something odd was happening. The old man was fading. No, distorting, like he was oozing away. Nagi wondered if the smoke was something of his as well. But why would an illusionist hide his prey from himself?
The question went unanswered as the melting man began to run. The hole followed him, almost catching Farfarello's ankle. Nagi froze as the man sprinted towards him, the hole trying to drag him back. His skin was being pulled taut. If this was Nagi's head providing these images, he wished fervently that he was less imaginative. If someone had asked what a man being sucked into a black hole would look like, this is what he'd come up with.
Suddenly, Farfarello moved. It had that paralytic quality, the kind you get just as you wake where your body realises that it's actually frozen to keep it from acting out your dreams, and suddenly you can't act in the dreams either. It looked like his legs weren't working. Nagi had a sudden dread that Farfarello would wake up before he reached Nagi, and he'd be left alone with this Sade ancestor.
Time doesn't stand still in dreams. You've got a limited amount of time with them, maybe half an hour, before you slip into another part of the dream cycle. Somewhere outside, Schuldig tasted Rammi's blood, and Rammi's mother wept, and Brad felt disturbing sensations somewhere in the back of his head, and an Englishman was feeling compelled to act.
"Let him be killed," a harsh German voice said over the sound of a woman's sobs.
The tiger appeared in front of Nagi. It seemed to have lost an eye somewhere in the smoke. Maybe to the IRA bomber, Nagi mused dazedly. He grabbed it, clinging to the fragment of dream. It smelt like Rammi. He pulled himself on top of the tiger, and it began to trot towards the running man. Nagi almost scrambled away, but feeling the coarse fur between his fingers, he decided that, for the last time, he would trust Rammi. As they charged, Nagi's confidence faltered. Farfarello had disappeared. He was alone with a dead man and the figment of somebody else's imagination.
The hole caught up with the old man and he leaped desperately. His skin was wrenched from him and Nagi hid his face in thickly red fur. The tiger sprung. Nagi tumbled off backwards. He kept falling, past wherever the ground had been before, and he watched as tiger and old man slammed into each other. There wasn't space in his head, he realised dully, for both of them to be there. Nagi could see a single shape, shrinking with distance. A human shape. He waited for it to come after him.
Thunder snarled around Rosenkreuz, and Nagi woke breathless and scared.
