WARNING: References to rape in the nightmare. Nothing graphic though.

This chapter rambles randomly from topic to topic. I tried to capture Johan's shattered mental state with this writing style.

XxXxx

Tenma.

Kenzou Tenma.

Kenzou Motherfucking Tenma.

Johan gave a bitter smile at the profanity, stretching out like a cat on his narrow hospital bed.

His room was dark, seeming to compress him from all sides.

They had somehow neglected to give him his medication that night- the strange little white pills that forced Johan into an inky blackness, his nightmares suppressed by whatever they were made of.

They had forgotten to give it to him.

(So that meant no sleep for Johan.)

He sure as Hell wasn't going to risk falling asleep and waking up screaming. He did that sometimes.

…Okay, he did that a lot. So much so that they had given him the God damned medicine in the first place. As if that could cure him. As if that could somehow miraculously transform him into a better person.

(He was a monster. Those people at the Kinderheim had told him so.)

But Tenma…Tenma didn't seem to think so. It was hard for Johan to tell.

He had come to visit him. Why? Why? Johan had fretted and agonized about this for hours. Johan had hurt Tenma, taken from him- his happiness, his reputation-everything- and yet…he came.

He came.

"I couldn't just let you die."

The man puzzled, intrigued and infuriated Johan to no end. He had saved him, helped him. Saved his life again. Why?

He remembered the faces that Tenma had made when he was upset at Johan for shooting his patient. He had gone home and practiced making those expressions in the bathroom mirror, trying to feel some of what Tenma may have felt.

It didn't work.

It never did.

He still felt just as empty as ever.

(Anna shot him. Anna shot him. He knew she would; he had asked her to do it. And yet, he was still shocked by it.)

"Damn," Johan cursed under his breath. Of all times, why did he have to pick now to get his feelings back? Those emotions…he thought he had hidden them. Locked them away deep inside his heart (…to protect them from the monster.)

If the monster found them, found his feelings, it would eat them. Crush them and tear them apart until there was nothing left.

Until Johan was nothing at all.

(Tenma saved me. I should have died…)

In an uncharacteristic fit of rage, Johan rolled over and punched the wall (the only solid thing left in the room). He wanted to punch a hole in it, to break it down like the Magnificent Steiner always did. All he succeeded in doing was hurting his fist.

He fell against the pillow again, sighing deeply.

(It was tiring feeling this much emotion.)

Thick lashes fluttered over blue eyes, despite all efforts to keep them open.

What time was it? Midnight? Later? There was no clock in this little room.

(No mirrors either- Johan hated mirrors. No, there hadn't been a mirror in this room since the first day, when he had punched it out in a blind rage. The scars on his knuckles were proof to that.)

Rage overtook him every time they didn't pump him full of antipsychotics and sedatives, but those made him tired and took away his appetite. (Feeling as sick physically as he was mentally.) When he wasn't angry, he was crying. When he wasn't crying, he was numb.

Oh, so very numb.

Reichwein was too kind; trying to shine some light into his dark, dark mind. (Johan hasn't seen light for so very long.) Trying to pry into Johan's mind, trying to find what was wrong. What was broken.

(Little does he know that everything is broken.)

Johan fights, but he falls asleep despite his efforts.

Screaming

Screaming

Cutting

Bleeding

Killing

Burning

Crying

Dying

"No, stop it! Don't touch me there! Stop, I don't like this!"

"Don't touch it! Ow! Don't!"

"…Please…stop…"

No heed to his words. Shattering innocence. Stealing chastity.

When they are through with him, he is left next to the broken bodies of three other boys. Two of them are dead. One is unconscious, but he is breathing shallowly.

Johan feels blood between his thighs. He draws in on himself, fighting back tears.

He wakes up screaming (just like he knew he would.)

They give him medication. It numbs his body, sending him into that cool blackness where no nightmare can touch him.

(It's as close as he can get to dying for now.)

XxXxx

Reviews are loved :D:D