Mayhem 2019 (JackSepticEye Prompts)

Day 18: Childhood

Jack was looking through all of his childhood photographs, remembering days long past and moments temporarily forgotten. There were mostly pictures of him with his family, since he hadn't had many friends when he was a kid, but he'd never minded. After all, Anti had always been there for when he felt down.

At the bottom of the pile was a picture of the woods just outside his family's cabin. There were no people in the picture and his parents didn't even know he'd taken it, but it was the first time he'd tried to take a picture of Anti for memory's sake. He hadn't shown up on the polaroid. Jack remembered his confusion and Anti's nonchalant attitude towards it; he had brushed it off as normal for him and Jack had compared him to a vampire, leading to a detailed conversation about what vampires were.

Jack sighed, looking back on all the fun times he'd had with Anti. The video games they played together, the comfort he brought when Jack felt sad. He remembered the first time they'd met, how he'd bombarded Anti with questions before running off to show him the bog. Good times.

It had been three weeks since Anti last showed his face.

Jack knew it wasn't unusual for Anti to leave for a few days at a time. Where he went, Jack didn't know, but he always came back around eventually. This time though, he'd been gone for much longer and causing Jack to worry. He had no way to contact him and no one to ask for help, due to the fact that he was the only one who had seen Anti. Dropping everything to search for his "imaginary friend" was out of the question. All he could do was wait and it was killing him.

Suddenly, there was a rapping on his window and Jack jumped in fear before taking a breath. He stood up and walked over, pulling aside his curtains to see--speak of the devil--Anti beckoning him to come outside. It was rare for him to come so close to the house during the day, which meant it must be important.

Jack nodded, then threw on his shoes and jacket, yelling that he was going out before rushing out the back door. Anti was nowhere to be seen, but Jack knew he was just staying out of sight. He ran into the woods, checking behind him to make sure the cabin wasn't in view before calling out to his mysterious friend.

"Anti! Where are you?! What--"

"Jack!" a voice said from directly behind him.

Jack jumped again and turned, putting a hand over his chest. "You've gotta stop scaring me like that!"

"Sorry," Anti said, "But you've gotta check this out! Look!"

He opened up his cupped hands to reveal something small and green with a little tail that was floating just above his palm. It turned toward Jack and he saw that it was a strange eyeball creature, with its tail serving as an optic nerve. Though the thought should have been gross, Jack couldn't help but find the eye kind of cute. 

The eye floated toward him cautiously, then seemed to decide Jack was a friend and started flying around his head in giddy circles. Jack laughed, reaching out to gently pet the top of the eye.

"What is this thing?" he asked, tilting his head in curiosity. 

Anti shrugged. "I dunno. I found them in a dumpster while I was out travelling and I swear I heard them say your name, but they haven't spoken since."

The little eye's pupil squished a bit, as if showing happiness at Anti's words. Jacks could feel what it was feeling and sense that it was excited to meet him.

"It's nice to meet you too, bud!" Jack said with a smile. "Have you got a name?"

The eye looked down a little sadly. They didn't.

Jack thought for a moment. "How about I give you one then? Do you like. . . hm, what do you think about Sam?"

The eyeball spun around in excitement; they really seemed to like that name. Sam it was, then.

"Nice to meet you, Sam!"

~~~

Anti watched the exchange with glee, trying to keep his emotions in check as Jack and the newly christened "Sam" got to know each other. This was perfect. Sam didn't remember where they came from and Jack was still none the wiser about his true intentions behind their friendship. Things were going incredibly well.

His left eye twitched a bit and he rubbed it, trying to keep up the illusion that an eye was still there. It might get difficult to keep something like that in check for long periods of time; he would have to be more careful around Jack.

The plan was ready; all he needed to do now was wait.

~~~

Did I mention how many chapters could have gone so much better with different prompts? Because there are a lot of chapters that I should have switched around. Oh well, the consequence for writing instinctively and not planning things out, right?

So some of these are connected again, like I said in chapter 16. This one connects to Day 12, where Anti and Jack met fr the first time. I'm sure most every other chapter can be slotted in somewhere along this timeline. In fact, I think the only one that can't would be Abandoned and Exiled, but even then. . .

Scratch that. I planned everything.

Thanks again for reading! I hope everyone's enjoying these, especially since I stopped my regularly scheduled stories to work on these for a while. Let me know in the comments!

- a tree that has known you since childhood