I came back into my consciousness slowly, probably due to inevitable brain damage from all the strangling and unnatural loss of it in the first place.
I knew I was still in the forest; the fallen leaves gave way to Jack's bare feet as under his weight, they were crushed. He had slung me over his shoulder at a point I couldn't recall, and was headed in a direction I didn't know. Though, with my very limited consciousness, I conjured up the only reasonable explanation I could in that state; he was taking me back to that awful house to give to Jeff as I had finally broken his patience. His flicker of hope had diminished inside of him at the crushing responsibility of having to constantly chase after me, and finally, he had broken.
I started thrashing about, trying in mock desperation to free myself of his constricting grip.
He mumbled a few harsh words I was too frantic to try and listen to and readjusted his hand to further secure me to his shoulder, yet I wouldn't give in that easily. In my attempts of freeing myself, I had swung my arm just a little too far and had made harsh contact with the side of his face, earning a terrifying hiss from him.
In an instant, I was thrown from his shoulder onto the ground below, the impact sending shockwaves of pain up my spine and down it again. He hadn't thrown me lightly, and in all honesty, I didn't blame him.
It wasn't like Jack and I were close. We hadn't had more than two or three conversations, and none of them were really that pleasant. So why did I feel so inexplicably attached to the creature? He had done nothing but hurt me. He had done nothing but rip my life as I knew it away from me; he took away any chance at normalcy I had. I hadn't even been able to properly grieve the death of Henry, who I was still immensely confused about. Had I loved him? Had I hated him? Had I even really known him?
But as I looked up into the mask of Jack, the mesh, black sockets oozing a dark and ominous glaze, I had my answer.
There was no answer.
My answer was that there was no answer, and there would probably never be one. I could justify myself by saying that I saw hope in Jack, and that that's what was so attractive, as I had been telling myself since I started feeling that way toward him, but the truth was that I didn't have an answer.
He had encapsulated me even before I knew him. I had dreamt of him; I had seen into his gruesome past with my own eyes, and instead of feeling repulsed by a monster who had decimated a group of people, I felt sympathetic. Of course, anyone would have been nauseated just by the pure gory nature of the scene, but how it had happened in the first place, how he had came to be, it wasn't right. I couldn't quite explain it, but I knew that I was meant to meet Jack. We hadn't nearly gone through the same thing, yet it seemed to me that we had both met in a time of mourning; he was still mourning the loss of himself and all he used to know, while I was in mourning of Henry.
But was I really in mourning of Henry? Or was I mourning a finite comfortability? When Henry was around, I knew what to expect. I knew what the day was going to hold, and I knew what my future was going to be. I'd pretend to be happy by his side until he finally sobered up, which wouldn't have ever happened, and I would have become his lawfully wedded wife.
The thought nearly brought bile into my mouth; I had to cough back the intense urge to puke, earning a tilt of the head from Jack, who stood above me.
Now that Henry was gone, the fact I had to face was that for once, I didn't know. I didn't know anything. I didn't know what the day was going to hold. I didn't know what my future was. And I didn't know why I felt for Jack so strongly.
But I did know that now, I had the freedom to choose my future. And that's what I was going to do.
"Jack?"
He continued boring holes into my very being from above me, but kept his head tilted in curiosity.
"We need to have a conversation,"
A chuckle escaped him as he comically ran a hand over his mask exasperatedly.
"You sound too proper, like a librarian or something,"
There was no demonic edge to his voice, which I instantly noted. He sounded just like a regular man; not a man who had pale gray skin, or razor sharp teeth, nor claws comparable to a mountain lion. He sounded normal; like an average guy. The tone was soft, almost sweet, yet was still masculine in nature and semi-deep. It was a welcome sound.
"But I think you're right. We have some things to lay out, yeah?"
I didn't think I wanted to act on my impulse, which was to just fucking kiss him, at least not now. The urge was intense and unwavering, and for a second, I thought I had lost control of my body as I sat up quickly. Much too quickly for him it seemed, as he stepped back on the defensive and scanned over my form for any signs of aggression, and when he didn't find any present in me, he outstretched a hand to help me fully get to my feet. I graciously accepted it; to me, it symbolized a treaty of sorts. We would have a conversation. It wasn't a big step, but it was a step nonetheless.
How it would go was a completely different subject, however.
"I was planning on speaking with you soon anyway,"
He continued. He hadn't let go of my hand after helping me up, he just continued holding it as he led us forward.
He halted in his pace for a split second, as if he was internally debating something, before he resumed in his direction.
"Why did you leave with Tim?"
It wasn't as philosophical of a question as I was used to him asking; at least this one I could answer finitely.
"He offered food, and I was starving. But we had to make our way to his car, which was-,"
"Parked at the mansion."
He cut me off, and I nodded.
"I'm assuming you didn't get food, then?"
I shook my head no, and though he wasn't looking in my direction, he sighed in annoyance.
"Then what happened to Tim?"
I hesitated for a moment. What would be his reaction if I told him the whole story? That Toby and Jeff had ambushed us, that I had pepper-sprayed Jeff, that I had seen my own house and passed it up to go find him, as I thought he had been seen, or worse yet, captured.
I decided to ask him a question of my own.
"How come you didn't even look at Jeff's text?"
He abruptly stopped, my chest coming into contact with his own before I backed up a few steps. Trying to gauge his reaction from behind a mask was nearly impossible, I could only hope he wouldn't turn visceral without warning as he had done before.
After a brief silence, he tilted his head.
"You have my phone?"
I nodded and pointed backward to where we had been just minutes before. During the altercation with him where he had, for some reason, knocked me unconscious, I had dropped the phone.
He sighed, letting go of my hand to turn back in the direction we had just came from.
"You should have told me that you dropped it,"
I followed behind him closely, as if I'd get lost in the woods again if I were even five feet away from him.
"You didn't hear Tim yelling through the phone? I was asking him to come get me, I was thoroughly lost, and I-,"
He turned to face me yet again, his arm harshly jutting out into my shoulder, his index finger pointing sternly at my throat, yet not toughing it.
"With how you've affected them, (Name), you can't trust any of them enough to call them for any sort of assistance. I thought you were smarter than that at least,"
With that, he continued on. I shook off the shock of his sudden aggressive behavior and again followed suit, dodging fallen branches as I did so.
"What was I supposed to do, wait to die out here?" I retorted.
He only sighed in response, which irritated me slightly.
"Either Jeff or Toby was surely following me, and I didn't want to risk getting caught by either of them. They're fucking crazy,"
He bent over to pick up the small device, which was now dead, and gave it a quick once-over before he put it in his pocket.
His mask turned toward me now, a deep sigh sounding from behind the thick material.
"They are murderers, trained not to bat an eye at any living thing. Then you came along, and corrupted each and every one of them as soon as you came into contact with them. They are occupational murderers, yes, but they are not crazy. At least, they weren't,"
My eyes widened slightly at his words.
Corrupted each and every one of them?
I hadn't even had a single conversation with Toby. To me, it sounded like he had just proved my point; they were crazy.
But, it made sense in a way. I had begun to feel something for Jack without having many conversations with him the same way they had for me. Who was I to call them crazy for behaving the same way as me? Maybe we were all crazy.
He chuckled a bit, most likely to lighten the mood.
"I mean, Jeff was always a little more unhinged than the rest, so you really never know with him,"
And with that, he started in the direction he had first been leading us in.
--- Yall it has been way too long since my last update, but I've come to present you with this
I'm very excited for these next couple chapters, but we are coming to a close soon! Writing this has been challenging, yet very fun and exciting. I'll definitely be writing a book with Toby and Masky, at least those are the ones I have in mind for the next books coming out.\
It's finally time for this long awaited conversation to happen between (Name) and Jack, and hopefully we can get some answers from it on why some of these things have been happening around here!
And as Always, if you're going to Meatball, do it Extravagantly---