Jack

Chapter Five: Revelations

Jack's left eye opened. He blinked once. His vision was blurry and tilted. His head ached with pain. Thousands of needles of discomfort shot through his skull, red hot. He attempted to move his arms. They didn't move. He frantically tried to lift his legs, also without success. 

Jack couldn't see his surroundings. His eyesight was severely damaged at the moment, and he could only detect black broken occasionally by flecks of light that wavered and disappeared. It was eerily tranquil; it reminded him of floating belly-up at the bottom of a lake, looking up through the water at the sunlight piercing the surface. It gave him a momentary sense of peace. That was when he remembered that he couldn't move his body. 

He thrashed and twisted-or tried. For all the things he thought he was doing, he could just barely feel that his body stayed completely still. It was as if his brain had been tricked into believing it still had control over him; its connection had been severed, yet it had no knowledge of the fact. Jack certainly did, and it terrified him.  

Suddenly he felt a rushing sensation overtake his senses and his head was filled with the sound of roaring water; his face felt it as it fell upon him, cold and invigorating. His nostrils and mouth clogged up with liquid, and he realized the feeling was substantial. He coughed and sputtered and straightened up abruptly-or he would have if he could move. He blinked the water from his eyes and looked around. 

He was lying on the ground where he had been only moments ago, it felt. The bodies lay still, decaying. The secret knowledge they held was lost to him. Jack's eyes picked up flies swarming over the piles of blackened corpses. Their feast was enrapturing, macabre and delightful. A small smile crossed his lips as they hungrily gorged upon the people he had once known. The initial shock of their appearance had long since faded, and all trances of the child Jack seemed to be flickered and died away. 

With a glance to the side, he discovered why he could not move his limbs. A leather strip held each to the ground around either a wrist or an ankle, fastened down on the ends with large rocks. His mind could not even begin to formulate how they had gotten there. He instead tried again, unsuccessfully, to free himself from the bonds. He fought back a tentative panic that seemed to well up from his toes and took a deep breath. He had to calm down. He had to think. His father had taught him that thought defines a human from a common animal and gives him life; thought enables a man to survive. Therefore Jack lay and thought. Eventually a thought came to him.  

Rather than try to dislodge the rocks, he would instead try to slide his hand out from under the leather. The sheer obviousness of the tactic made him feel rather silly for not coming up with it sooner; nevertheless, he began. The sand stung and scraped his skin, yet he continued to pull. He gritted his teeth with frustration and was about to stop in defeat when suddenly the leather moved. 

Eyes brightening momentarily, he tugged again, harder. His wrist slid an inch out of the strap, scraping the ground. The satisfaction of victory filled his body. He pulled with renewed vigor, determined to get at least one hand free. He felt it give another centimeter when a flicker of movement caught his eye. A large figure was lurching toward him from the left, gargantuan and foreboding. Jack's eyes could not focus on the figure, causing it to appear all the more sinister. It held what appeared to be a small object in its right hand, grasping it loosely; as the figure neared, he could see that it was a knife. In its left, it gripped the handle of what appeared to be a bucket. The panic returned, faster, gripping him and turning his stomach to jelly. He squeezed his eyes shut and pulled again. 

The leather would not budge. After the initial movement, it had remained firmly in the same place. Jack pulled harder and harder, desperate to escape this lonely butchering out in the desert. The vultures would not have him. They would not. He thrashed and kicked, frantic. The figure now stood over him. Tears sprang to his eyes. The hand holding the knife began its descent.