Mayhem 2019 (JackSepticEye Prompts)

Day 16: A Way Out

Jackie was tempted to cough from the dust settling around him, but he held it in. Just because the explosion knocked him down didn't mean it had done the same to his enemy.

Carefully, Jackie adjusted his position on the ground only to be met with a sharp pain just above his knee. He managed to keep quiet as he looked back at the wooden beam laying on top of him, keeping him securely pinned down. Most--if not, all--of the tools on his belt seemed to be broken, meaning he'd have to find a way out of this predicament himself.

Jackie started to push up into more of a kneeling position, but a voice began to talk from somewhere far away. Or maybe it was close by. He couldn't tell beneath all the rubble; at this point, he was just glad only his knee was damaged.

Just as he had the thought, one of the rocks holding up the slabs of concrete above him started to slip, causing a small wave of dust to fall on Jackie's head. Great, now he had a time limit for his impending death.

Gently, he pushed himself up into a kneeling position, trying to move as fast as he could without making any noise. Turning at an angle to lift up the beam proved more difficult than he thought, unable to get a good grip on it without breaking his spine. The beam didn't seem to be too heavy but with his legs out of commission, he would have to spin and quickly throw it off to free himself.

This was going to be a gamble. The voice was coming closer every second and lifting up the beam would definitely make noise, especially with how fast he'd have to move it. The small cave-like opening he was hidden under could very easily collapse; not only that, but there was no guarantee he could even stand up once he got the beam off. It wasn't a very good plan, but it was his only option and he had just one shot to get it right.

"--know you're here," the voice was saying. "Alive or not, I'll find you and rip your body shreds!"

Jackie braced himself, then whipped around and threw the beam off his legs, sliding away before it crashed back to the floor again. As he suspected, the tiny cavern he was in started to cave and he pushed his way through some debris before it could crush him.

 Another cloud of dust erupted around Jackie and he took advantage of it, glad the adrenaline dulled the stabbing pain in his legs as he leaped behind a large slab of concrete. He was barely out of the way before something blew up where he'd been moments earlier, causing him to instinctively hold his breath.

"You can't hide forever! Come out and end this once and for all!"

The building was useless t help him. His grappling hook was broken. He couldn't run fast enough to make it out alive. There were no other options; Jackie only had one way out of this and a high chance that it wouldn't work. This would be his last shot.

"Please, let's talk through this!" Jackie begged, a bit of blood dripping into his eye as he spoke. "Maybe I can help--"

An explosion just above his head sent Jackie into the fetal position, hands covering his head from the blast. "You could have helped sooner, but you let him die. Now, there's nothing you can do to bring him back!"

Uh oh. Jackie was certain he knew what peron he'd failed to save, but "saving" him seemed to be his way out. This could ruin everything he'd spent years to build, an identity he'd learned to love. Which did he care about more; his life or his heroism? To him, they were the same thing.

However, Jackie asked the question he dreaded anyway, though he already knew the answer. "Who is he?"

"Who do you think?!" Jackie could hear the hum of magic charging up behind him as his arch nemesis made his way closer. "Your inadequacy caused my best friend to burn alive in that fire and now he's gone because of you!"

"What if he wasn't?" Jackie yelled.

The footsteps stopped, though the magical humming continued. "How could he be? I was there that night, you told me he died!"

"I--" Jackie gulped. Words were hard to form when they would speak betrayals to his very being. "I faked his death! When the building was burning, he pleaded for me to tell everyone he'd died so he could start over. He didn't know how badly it would hurt you!"

It was quiet for a moment, then he said, "Prove it."

That's what he was afraid of. His eyes stinging with regrets yet to come, Jackie climbed out from behind his hiding spot and looked at the magician standing across from him, defeat infecting him like a disease.

Marvin glared at him coldly, his hands burning with purple fire ready to burn Jackie alive if he didn't get what he wanted. "Well?"

Slowly, Jackie pulled down his hood and slid off the mask he'd protected for so long, exposing his face along with his identity.

"I'm here, Marvin."

~~~

I wanted to make this one longer (I had more planned for it), but it was already getting kinda long for one of these. I've been trying to keep them around 1,000 words or less and these little bits at the end take up some of the word count, which I consider to be a necessary evil in this case.

It's May 29th. No way I'm finishing these prompts in time, but the stories will continue! Btw, if you didn't pick up on it, this chapter was a continuation of Day 2's prompt "Lost" where I had Jackie meeting Marvin for the first time. The roommate Jackie tried to meet was actually Marvin and the two got along great until Jackie's secret identity supposedly died. That conflict caused Jackie's greatest arch-nemesis to arise, ironically because of his desire to move on. Kinda wanna flesh out more of this idea tbh.

This chapter felt like a breath of fresh air. I feel like I've kind of been writing clone chapters with the same repeating concepts, but this was new and exciting to work with! I hope you guys like it as much as I do!

Remember to keep reading, y'all!

- a lonely rock in a collection of rubble