The shout was lost in the destruction as she pushed his chest with strength that did not befit her small form. He was thrown backwards as the crane crashed its way through the construction site, tearing through metal and concrete. There was arguing but he could not focus. The pain was getting to him despite his best attempts to hide it. She was clutching him, surprisingly warm, surprisingly protective. For a moment it seemed as if the destruction had stopped. For a moment. Then everything fell all as one, a sandcastle hit by a wave.

He fell and he fell hard, concrete barraging him and metal clanging off his bones. When he finally came to a rest, it was by pure unadulterated luck. He slowly breathed in and out as if to confirm he was really alive. She was nowhere to be seen. There was no one to be seen anywhere, just rubble and distraction.

After a couple of blackouts, he came to again. Something felt broken in his leg and the pain in his face was undeniable but nevertheless he forced himself to his feet and dragged his broken leg as he walked wordlessly through the destruction. He passed a pair of bodies that he recognised somewhere in the back of his mind, but they weren't important. No, his eye focused in on another body and this one was more familiar.

When he got to her side, he felt something unrecognisable in his chest. He fell to the ground, broken leg buckling beneath him, and he stared at her. Other than a few scrapes and bruises, she looked fine from the neck down. But above that… He had never seen something so disastrous, so destroyed. If there had been a human face, then there was no evidence of it now. The crimson was vivid in his eyes, the stench piercing him, the buzz growing louder and louder in his head. He couldn't understand what this feeling was. It didn't make sense. It felt peculiar, unknown, alien.

He knew, however, that this was his fault. He knew it was. Whatever had happened to her had happened because she would be his shadow and had been for the majority of her life. Something deep in his chest twisted and he bent over her corpse, breathing hard, trying to figure out what this feeling was. Something wet dripped from his eyes to her blood-stained shirt and he realised with a start that he was crying.

Crying? Him? Not possible. He didn't cry. Crying was weakness. Crying was admitting that you were human. He was above human. This wasn't right.

The tears did not stop. The pain in his chest did not stop.

Just what was this feeling?

"Wakey wakey, rise and shine. Things aren't looking too hot out here."

"Kidnapping!? We're supposed to stay in the shadows! If they hear about this, then everything will be for nothing!"

"Who the hell are you people? Get me out of here right now!"

"We needed leverage! Lists are no joke, man!"

"Th-This isn't happening, this isn't happening, no, no, no…"

"I don't think I've ever seen you sleep this long. You're getting old."

"He's waking up, shut up and do what we're told! I figured out how we can use them."

"My father will have your guts for garters!"

"S-Somebody stop this, somebody help!"

"Seriously, wake up!"

Amongst the cacophony of voices, John slowly opened his eyes, teasing his neck back and forth from where it had been stiff. He glanced down at his bare chest and his resident slacks and made a mental note of the dull throbbing in his side where he had been stung with the taser.

"Aha, there he is. Enjoy your nap?"

John ignored the voice and the figure it belonged to as he noted where he was and what his condition was. His hands were tied behind his back with zip-ties and he was sitting on a chair beside two others who were both squawking – one angrily and the other fearfully. They were in some kind of concrete basement with no particular features to speak of except for a door that no doubt exited the room.

Other than his fellow prisoners, there were three other people in the room. They had grown quiet as John had awoken, and all three of them stood and faced him although with the masks they were wearing John had no way of reading their expressions. The broadest figure was a man with the three stripes on his mask. There was another figure that could either have been male or female whose mask had a single vertical stripe.

The third and final figure was one that John had become recently acquainted with, a mask with three small black stars on the forehead but otherwise blank. John had no doubt she was female, as she was wearing a tank-top under her half-zipped hoody, with the sleeves rolled up to show floral tattoos. John made a mental note of these tattoos – could be useful for identification later. People only wear masks to hide who they were.

"Or beards," the sarcastic voice echoed in his ear and for a moment John could almost swear he could feel her breath tickling his earlobe. He ignored the sensation and the voice. "And you wanted to have, what did you say to the guy, fun? Does this look like fun to you? Looks like a whole lotta trouble to me."

"Who are you people, you are done, you hear me, done! I will personally make sure my father hunts you down and destroys you!" The woman tied next to John fought desperately at her bonds, eyes furious and arms straining. John did not recognise her but that was not entirely unsurprising as he had rarely left his room in all his stay at Hearthome. He had spoken with Finley Sullivan before, as well as Paulie, an orderly who John knew sometimes shared his cigarettes with the residents, not that John had any interest in that.

"Smoking's bad for your health but you know what else is bad for your health? Being tied up by crazy people in masks. This is why we don't involve ourselves in things that have nothing to do with us."

The other prisoner had now devolved into sobs, a younger man hunched over and shamelessly crying. John didn't have time to feel sympathy for the boy.

John had already made the conclusion that the orderly and the resident were both collateral. The masks were facing in his direction. They wanted him.

"Always the popular one. We both know why you're here, don't we? Being all wise-man and talking about the List. The List is bad news – we should know better. We would have been fine in that room with each other, writing music and sketching stories. It was nice. Peaceful. We both need peace."

"…Peace has gone on long enough…" John muttered in a voice quiet enough for only the voices in his head to hear. He heard an exasperated sigh and she walked out of his vision.

"Imogen Banks, would you kindly be quiet?" The woman said. Much like when she had attacked John, her voice was modulated under that mask.

"Excuse me? If you know my name then you know my father and—"

"I couldn't give two shits about your father. He's probably rotting in an open grave. So be quiet."

"Wh-What? What are you—"

"Daddy's likely dead, sweetheart." The mask with a single stripe said. Despite the modulation, there was a tone that shut Banks up beside John. "And you, kid, stop the crying." This only seemed to make him cry harder.

"Oscar, don't worry, you'll be okay," the woman said with almost a sense of caring behind the modulation. The boy, Oscar, looked up with wide, wet, surprised eyes. "Yes, I know your name. All three of your names. What's happening here is just temporary. It will be over before you know it." Despite the fact that it was some freak in a mask, Oscar did indeed reduce his cries to sniffles.

"Good, with the two of you quiet, let's move on to the main course," the mask with the single stripe said. He and the woman both stood in front of John, but John noted the larger man staying back. From what he had gathered already, the woman was the talker, the single stripe was the threat-giver, and the larger man would have been the knee-breaker. John had been in a scuffle or two but even despite his height and reach advantage he doubted he would stand a chance in a fight. It was a good thing John was good with his words.

"How's the head?" John asked, looking directly at the woman. He liked to imagine a look of indignation on her face behind the mask but instead had to settle with the slight squeeze of her fists. John immediately noted that she would likely be quite easy to rile up. And people who were riled up made mistakes. "So do you have names or do I have to refer to you by idiots numbers one, two, and three?"

"You got a mouth on you, man, how about I cut it out?" The man with the single stripe stepped forward.

"Give it a go. See where that gets you."

"Don't tempt me!"

"No temptation, just an invite," John smirked. It had been a while since he had felt quite so rebellious. It felt good, much better than swapping words with her.

"Enough," the woman raised her hand. "Certainly, we'll share our names. My name is Pigritia. This fellow is named Invidia. And that one is Irae. Now, if we are sharing our names, what is yours?"

John smirked. "John."

"We both know that isn't your real name."

"And your mother named you Pigritia? She must've hated you."

There was a pause and John was even more eager to see her expression. "Your name isn't important. We have other questions for you."

"Nah, let me ask my own a second. Masks, modulators, the whole ten yards. Latin codenames? Real original. Yeah, I know Latin, learned it when I was eight." John looked at Pigritia. "Sloth." He turned to Invidia. "Envy." Finally nodded towards Irae. "Wrath." John smirked. "Sins, real scary. Sounds to me like a gang of little kids. You don't choose the Sins for a group of three, so where are the other four of you?"

"Enough!" Pigritia finally lost her cool. Both she and Invidia reached forward, grabbing John's shoulders and lifting him from his chair. They man-handled him and threw him on the floor in front of both Banks and Oscar. Banks had grown pale now – it seemed all her talk was just that, talk, and now in the face of a real threat she had gummed up. Oscar's eyes were wet and he seemed timid as a shrew. "The List, what do you know of it?"

"The List?" The smirk had become almost plastered on John's face at this point. He was enjoying irritating these people. Irritation was the best way to get people to let their guards down. It was something he had learned from her, after all, she was the expert of irritation. "Like a shopping list?"

"I hate people who like to play it cool," Invidia said and pulled something from his belt. It took a moment for John to realise that it was a pistol, black and modern. Invidia pressed the pistol against Banks' head and the orderly stiffened up, fear draining her features of whatever colour she had left. "Just tell us about the List and we'll let you go."

"Let us go? With a gun pointed at somebody's head? You make a very convincing argument. Why do you want to know about the List?"

"We are the ones asking the questions," Pigritia said.

"And why ask me about the List? How do you know that I know about it? If you knew that I knew about the List, you would know who I am. You don't know who I am so that means you somehow know I know about the List and the only way that would be is if you were present when I spoke to Noah." John shrugged. "And you're definitely not Noah. So who are you?"

"You have no more chances, John. Tell us about the List. Tell us what you know. Tell us why the List has re-emerged. Tell us how to stop it."

"That's a lot of questions," John sighed. "Fine, so when I make a List, I tend to start with bullet points—" Invidia's finger twitched and John realised with a certainty that these people weren't playing around. "Alright, stop! Fine." John breathed out. Invidia had held his finger, although Banks looked almost pitiful at realising how close she had been to death.

"Good boy," Pigritia said. "Now tell us what you know."

"How do I know you'll hold up your end of the bargain. What if myself, or either of those two tell about what happened here?"

Pigritia crouched down in front of John so he could see the details in those painted stars. Her eyes shone behind her mask. "Well first, who would believe you? You and Oscar are both residents of a psychiatric hospital. Kidnapped by men in masks sounds awfully… crazy. Only two other people have seen us and they are residents as well. Just patients having fun. There is one little wrinkle though…"

"You," Invidia pushed the pistol against the frightened Banks' cheek. "Daddy's little girl. You tend to work with Finley Sullivan, correct? Do you think he'd believe such a story?"

"W-What?" Banks' voice quivered as the pistol was pushed against her flesh. "Th-The guys a do-gooder. He'll do anything to help. He-He might not believe it but he'd research just on the whim, I know that."

Pigritia turned to Banks. "So you need to persuade him that it is all just a crazy delusion. Maybe throw in a rumour that Conner Shepherd used to wear masks like that in his past. Anyone would believe a man like him could break down doors and attack patients without discrimination. Which brings me to my second proof that we want you alive." Pigritia reached beneath her hoody and John glimpsed a leather holster of some kind that held the end of a knife. Pigritia drew this knife and held it in front of his face. It gleamed with sharpness, serrated edges like teeth of the devil. "What do you think John, would you like to keep your face intact?"

John chose not to speak this time.

"That's a first. You've learned not to piss them off." She appeared again, walking up to where Invidia was and studying his mask. "I wish we could do it like the old days. Turn off the lights, beat them up. Well, you don't like that anymore, do you?"

Pigritia reached the tip of the knife to John's cheek, and gently pulled his hair to the side. John usually kept his hair and beard long, well-kept and maintained, but the styling was faded from all the rough-housing of his kidnapping. He felt the tip trail from his nose to his cheek as light as the wind's breeze as Pigritia pulled the hair away from the right side of his face. "Well now, I think you've had more than enough done to your face."

Without warning, Pigritia suddenly plunged the knife deep into John's left shoulder. John let out an involuntary gasp as the blade dug halfway in. Pigritia slid the blade an inch down towards his chest before pulling the blade free again.

"Fucking bitch! How dare she!"

Pigritia didn't waste a moment as she plunged the knife above John's left knee. John hissed in air as pain wracked his long limbs. Pigritia pulled the knife free once again. She then whipped the knife across John's hairless chest and while this cut wasn't as deep as the two others, his skin opened as if from a scalpel, beads of blood slipping down his slender stomach.

"I'll fuckin' kill her! I don't know how, but I fuckin' will!"

"Oscar!" Pigritia suddenly stood away from John, leaving him to control the pain in his body and walked over to the wet-eyed young man. She held the knife in front of his eyes. "I know you. I know Owen. I know Ollie. I know your room. I know what Owen likes to do in the morning. I know how Ollie spends his days. I know that you are the conduit for fear. So Oscar – be scared. Know that every time you close your eyes that we are watching. Every time you go to bed, we are watching. When you eat, when you read, when you cry – know that we are there. Do you understand? This fear you feel right now, Oscar, don't you ever forget it!"

Oscar let out a noise halfway between a choke and a cry and shrunk his body as best he could tied to the chair. Pigritia turned around and walked towards John once more.

"So you see, this is proof that I want those two alive. They have their uses. And those wounds I just gave you – all you need to do is say that Conner Shepherd did that to you. Again, anyone would believe it. The man likes his knives. But if all that isn't enough to sway your mind – I haven't shown you my face." Pigritia put her fingers on the bottom of the mask. "Would you like to see it?"

"If she shows you her face, you are dead. You owe nothing to Noah. You offered your help for fun, well, the fun is all gone now. They've obviously got a plan and they want all three of you to play your parts. Just tell her what she wants to know and be done with all of this. Remember when you only ever cared about yourself? Bring that guy back."

"Fine," John spat back at her. "Fine…" He looked to Pigritia. "Here's what I know about the List. I hope it satisfies you. Ask whatever questions you want."

"You told them what they wanted. It was the right thing to do. Preservation of self is important."

"I still want to help."

"And where would that get you? I used to want to help. Remember where that got me?"

"How could I forget?"

"Envisage that scene and replace me with you. That's what the end result will be. You are the most important thing to me. You need to be the most important thing for you too. You can stay cooped up here."

"I can't," John looked up into the mirror of his bathroom, staring back at his reflection. His hair had lost all style now, long strands coating his face and eyes. The group in masks had thrown some kind of bag over his head and before he had even realised it, he had the bag ripped off and had somehow ended up in his room again. The masks went as quick as they had gone but John had no desire to chase after them. She sat behind him on the cabinet, swinging her legs in the reflection. "And I won't."

"Why did you come here in the first place?"

"To get you out of my head."

"You know that's not going to happen."

"I don't know anything."

"I do. You didn't come here to get rid of me. You came here to get rid of you." The girl hopped off the counter and walked closer to John in the reflection of the mirror. "What a name. John. It doesn't have the classicism of the first. It doesn't have the gravitas of the second. It's just… normal."

"Is normal so bad?"

"Yes!" The girl's sharp features grew enraged as she got close to John's ear. "You were the epitome of an enigma! You dressed how you wanted, you acted how you wanted, you sang as you wanted! You despised being normal and I would never have followed you if you were."

"All the more reason."

"Look at your face, John," She said his name as if it were a great insult. "You will never be normal! Even those pricks in masks didn't want to touch it!" John stared at the girl in the mirror, at her exasperated expression. She looked the same as she had seven years ago, never aging in his mind, never changing. Her blonde hair styled in the same way, the childish yet mature way she combatted him. She had always been his Achilles heel, his weakness, the anchor to his humanity. She had never left his side, both physically and now, apparently, spiritually. "Go on, look at it, and tell me what you think of normal!"

Despite himself John moved his hand to the black hair covering his face. He slowly slid his hair backwards over his head, letting the long hair fall to his shoulders. John stared at his reflection. The right side of his face was twisted and grotesque, skin melted and warped. He had no lips on the right side of his face, only a skeletal grin that mocked him underneath the growth of beard. His eyebrow had long since disappeared, the fringe of his hair fusing with his skull. His eye was wide and cloudy, unseeing. It was a face he was ashamed of. A vibrant reminder of his first mistake.

"You will never be normal. Can you see yourself standing at a till at a supermarket? Working in an office? Doing a nine-to-five? No. You belong on the stage, with a guitar in your hands, or sitting behind the drums, or singing into a microphone! Come on Gerald, don't you miss that!"

"Do not call me that!" John grimaced, his burnt skin twisting back on itself. He spun and glared with his one good eye at the girl whose shoulders were heaving, despite the fact she was not physically present in this room.

"Not a problem, you want to bury Gerald? Then should I call you by what the world knows you as? Come on, Bridge, see some sense in that thick skull of yours!"

"That is not my name, Lily!" John could feel his anger surging, bubbling within him. He swung errantly at the girl taunting him but he met only air. John fell to his knees, the wounds in his leg and shoulder pulsing from where he had been stabbed.

Lily crouched down in front of John, her eyes narrowed but filled with something far from anger, far from hate. "John is not your name either. You cast out your real name. You cast out your stage name. Do you really want to settle on John Doe? Do you really want to settle on the name of a dead body? You are far from dead. You are enigmatic. You shine. You are a beacon to people like me whose only love was the power that you gave us."

"You are the one that's dead," John panted, crawling over to the cabinet under the mirror. He pulled open the cabinet, reached deep inside and pulled out a small wooden box. When John had entered Hearthome, he had been allowed to keep the box under the pretence it was a family heirloom. In some senses, it was. The box itself had been crafted by his father long ago. "You talk to me with a dead girl's voice. You are a curse to me, Lily."

"A curse? For all I did for you? I protected you! I fought for you! I died for you… I loved you." There were tears in Lily's eyes now but John ignored them, fiddling with the close-cut lid of the wooden box. "You always dismissed me. You always told me I was an annoyance. Yet you never really tried to be rid of me. You had all the power your status afforded you. You could have put me away for stalking or had me arrested for sneaking into your concerts. You never did. You never got rid of me then so why would you get rid of me now? I am here for a reason and that reason is to look over you."

"You are not an angel," John prised open the lid and shook the contents out onto his palm. A collection of coloured beads. "You are the devil on my shoulder, corrupting me, promising me I can go back to the way I was." John threw the beads at Lily, and they pinged and bounced off the wall and scattered across the bathroom floor. "These were all that were left of you when I found you! Your face… Your face…" John could barely summon the words. He stared up at Lily. "You died because of me. I killed you."

"You didn't kill me, Bridge."

"Bridge is dead. You are dead." John's long and slender frame slid against the bathroom floor amidst the beads and he stared up at the ceiling blankly. "We are dead."