I've been anxiously awaiting my turn to meet you; the lovely (Name) that has caused so much mayhem amongst my children.
I knew I hadn't died, but I also knew that somehow, I had. The barrel of Brian's gun had been pointed directly toward my chest, and he had pulled the trigger. I remembered rather vividly the searing pain of his bullet tearing through my flesh and entering my body; yet somehow, my heart beat in my chest ever yet.
I had tried to reach up to caress the teary-eyed face of Jack, only to see his expression contort from one of desolate sadness to one of pure horror. He had stared at my fingertip, as I now found myself doing, with one of the most dejected, fallen looks I had ever seen. It had been enough to shatter my heart on the spot; he had known something that he wasn't quite ready to share with me yet, and knowing that he had hidden such important information from me had been disheartening to say the least. Though, it would hypocritical to chastise him for it; I hadn't told him about my encounter with the mysterious BEN, either.
So, you've seen your mark.
I nodded, unwilling to look again into the gaze of the faceless creature I had been in the care of for the last few days or so. Time had become such a foreign concept since my death; I didn't bother to ask about it and couldn't focus enough energy on really caring about it.
He had introduced himself to me, rather briefly, and had told me that Jack would be responsible for further explaining how much importance the little foreign mark actually held. And at the mention of the man I had found myself completely in love with, my thoughts instantly became overrun with images and questions about and in regards to him.
I wondered if he had known that this was going to happen, if he had known that letting it go so far would lead it to an end that would never truly end; I had died. I knew I had died. But, as fate would have it, I breathed again. I would have been more than content to die in the arms of the man I loved, but in good fashion, it would have never been that easy.
Go now, to him. Your thoughts encircle him, and you will not be ready to embrace us until you two have spoken.
Perhaps the best part about meeting the faceless being was that, now, I had somewhere to fully place the blame of how it had all happened. Though I knew Jack was somewhat at fault, as was everybody else, it was much easier to place the blame on some otherworldly being I had never met until now than to face the truth; whilst they had all helped me find myself, they had all played a part in helping me lose myself as well.
As I slowly stood, I looked directly into the face of the unknown being as I stood before him, my gaze locked directly on his unseen one.
I gave a small wave as I turned my body toward the exit of the small room I had been kept in for an uncomfortable amount of time.
"Thank you,"
He stood, lanky and unnervingly thin, before me, not breathing nor speaking as he watched me leave.
Closing the door behind me, I let out an exasperated sigh as my heart thrummed in my chest, the sound beating at my eardrums. It had been one of the first things I had noticed about myself when I had came back; every single one of my senses had been incredibly heightened.
My heartbeat, as unsteady as it had been, was far too loud for me to bear when I had first woke, and the man, the Operator, had to place sound-proof earphones over my head so I would stop writhing in pain at the much too-boisterous noises that had been, at one point in my life, completely unheard to me.
With my mind swirling around the thoughts of the only person I wanted to see, my legs moved before I even had to give them a direction.
I moved about the decrepit mansion as if I had lived there my entire life; not one hallway was unknown to me as I descended multiple sets of staircases; I somehow just knew the contents of every single room and exactly how to get there. Though, I wasn't focused at all on entering any bedrooms or forgotten dining halls; I needed to get out the front door as fast as humanly possible. Or, inhumanly.
All at once, I understood why Jack had been so hesitant to let me into his world fully. In a body where the limbs moved faster than the mind, a basic interaction to most had become a cautiously and meticulously planned one to us. All at once, I understood that it was no longer me against the various men I had met and had been able to capture the attention of; it was us against the rest of the world. Never having anywhere to belong, never having somebody to really understand me? Those days were long gone, as was the threshold of the front door as my bare foot grazed over it for barely half of a second before I halted so quickly in my tracks that the burning earth from the heat of the afternoon spit up onto the cuffs of my jeans.
Mary-Lynn. She lied sprawled out onto the dirt and gravel driveway in front of the mansion, covered in her own blood. And right beside her lied the body of Brian; the man who had not only shot me, but had more than likely been the cause of Mary-Lynn's death as well.
I hadn't ever been a weak sort; I had been able to handle every and any obstacle that life had thrown my way. I had been able to survive Henry, my extremely manipulative, abusive, and lying bastard of an ex-fiancé. I had been able to survive a cannibalistic murderer's kidnapping assignment, given to him from a faceless man with a mysterious and unwarranted vendetta toward all human life. I had been able to survive confrontations with some of the most renowned serial killers, and had made it out with nothing more than a few bruises to show for it. But even the strongest had their breaking points; seeing my best-friend dead because of what I had found myself tangled into was it for me. She had been there for me every single time I had called, crying about how Henry had treated me or how he had been gone for three months and I wasn't going to be able to make our mortgage payment. She had been the one to share her troubles with me, the one who cried beside me, the one who had confided in me, and had been the only one to love me unconditionally, even way before Jack had been around.
For the briefest of moments, I felt as if I had chosen to give her life away had it meant being with Jack. I had dragged her into this by not reaching out to her sooner; as I held Jack's phone in my hand a few days ago, I had more than enough liberty to text her and tell her I was fine. But I knew better.
She would have come to find me one way or another; she wouldn't have stopped trying to find me. She didn't ever need to prove her loyalty, yet it wasn't in her nature not to, either.
I sank to my knees as I pushed her to lay on her side, and then, I followed suit. I wrapped my arms around her cold body, which had already begun to smell of rot since she had undoubtedly been laying here for all the time I had been stashed away with the faceless man, and squeezed her tightly. Tears fell from my eyes, and I didn't make a move to stop them. Her and I had been through so much together that I was sure we would die together; sisters of choice, not of blood.
And as I held my chosen blood in my arms, I mourned her, and at the same time, I celebrated her. Had she not been by my side during my bouts with Henry, I would have never had enough confidence to survive here. But then, I mourned her. We were supposed to be dead together. I wasn't meant to be breathing still, I was meant to be laughing with her somewhere up in the billows of clouds, looking down on life as it went by beneath us, laughing about how much we had cared about such little things. But caring about Jack wasn't a little thing; I had finally found a love much deeper than just being in it. We had found ourselves surrounded by it, encapsulated in a never-ceasing circulation of it. I had seen her look between him and I, how disgusted she had seemed at first glance, but as she considered me a little longer, she instantly accepted us. Not just me, but us; Jack being a part of me now was something she had been able to not only see, but had been able to accept.
She had been my best-friend, and she had been that dutifully. I decided to remember her in that way rather than the way I was gazing upon her now.
After all, this was only her body; her soul had been the truly defining feature about her.
As I released her from my grasp and rolled onto my back, looking up into the sky, I felt my vision pulling a little at the edges; being familiar with the feeling, I embraced it.
Just before my vision was fully overtaken by darkness, I smiled bitterly at the clouds looming over me as they seemingly took notice of my half-assed smile; separating from each other, the sun shone down on me from in between them. For once in my life, I had finally been able to see the sun from just beyond the clouds.
--Jack POV--
I hadn't slept, nor even moved, since she had been admitted into the care of him.
I paced the cold floor of the cabin, staring down at my phone for any alerts regarding her progress; after the third day, I finally received word of her.
'She's outside with the body of that girl. You better come get her, Jack'-sent at 12:53 P.M.
Surprisingly enough, Toby had been the one to update me in regards to her condition; she had been successfully converted. But, on the other side of that same coin, she had been successfully converted.
She was no longer the girl who had to be afraid of everything; she was one of us now. One of them.
I had been told by him that should she awaken, she would be given the title of fourth-tier proxy, and she would become the partner of Toby to keep him stable and on course at all times. It was going to be my duty to inform her on just how much that little mark meant, and for some reason, I knew she wouldn't take it well. I was hoping for someone to have moved the body of the girl that had somehow came to mean so much to (Name), but of course, no one had taken the time to. We had all been anticipating the news of (Name)'s recovery, and had been awaiting the revival of Brian; we were too focused on them to pay any mind to the poor soul who had lost her life seeking revenge for her friend.
But, I could never blame her. All she had wanted to do was protect (Name); that's how she had even found herself entangled in the mix in the first place. And with that reasoning, I resonated.
As much as I wanted to see her before I had fully decided to leave, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. To see her was to change my mind, and right now, we needed distance. She needed to have a level head while she trained, that or she'd be killed, and I wouldn't be able to stomach myself had I been the cause of her death for a second time.
Setting the folded piece of paper on the newly-rebuilt table, I left all of my belongings in the cabin with not even a parting glance as I swung the front door to the cabin open.
As if it couldn't have possibly been any harder for me to decide to leave, there she stood.
She faced me, dried tears staining her cheeks as new ones threatened to fall from her soft, doe eyes.
I tried to reason with myself, telling myself I could stay, that I could help her train, but I knew that it wouldn't be possible.
"Jack, I died, but, I'm-alive?"
Her tears spilled down her cheeks as he spoke her truth. She had been asking me, but in way, she also wasn't.
Still, I nodded ever so slightly, confirming her fears.
She took a single step closer to me, then another, until finally she had closed the distance between us, embracing me in a bone-crushing hug. To which I had no choice but to happily return.
She cried into the fabric of my sweatshirt for what seemed like an eternity; I didn't want to leave. I had to swallow that, or at the very least, acknowledge that the feeling was there.
But I had to. I wouldn't put her life at risk a second time knowing it would be the last. She had to endure her training with a clear mind, with no distractions, and I knew I'd serve as an interruption to both of those things.
"You're leaving, aren't you?"
I didn't nod. I didn't speak. I didn't even breathe.
And, as I had taught her from the very beginning, no answer was all the answer that she'd ever need.
--(Name) POV--
It had been an excruciatingly long and grueling four days since Jack had left. He had left a handwritten note upon the dining room table; I hadn't been able to stop rereading it since the moment he had left. The hauntingly beautiful script could belong to not a soul other than Jack.
It read, 'Waiting an eternity for you is nothing compared to having to leave your side. I leave you with my cabin, and the promise that this is not the last time we will meet. Forever yours, Jack.'
Though the thought of having to be without him was manageable, it was the act of actually having to be in the absence of him that was devastating. I knew his words were true; I would see him again, for if Jack was anything, he was a terrible liar.
"You done crying yet, (Name)?"
Though the presence of Jack was one that was entirely unreplaceable, Tim and Toby had made up for it in the only ways they had known how; by just being there. They had explained to me a little more in depth of what I'd be doing with my eternal days; I'd become the partner of Toby, or better known as a fourth-tier proxy. Tim, when he had finally somehow found a moment where Toby had graciously left my side, told me that Toby had been a nightmare to work alongside, but that in some ways, he considered us to be much more compatible partners than having to babysit him themselves. Brian had woke, and though he was still in recovery from the vicious beating he had received from Tim and Toby, he had still requested my presence from time to time to explain the rules of loyalty and devotion to the Operator.
They knew how hard Jack's leaving had hit me, and they also knew how hard I'd be punished if I kept refusing to train alongside them for any longer. And so, I had finally agreed to begin.
"Hey, she's been through a lot, man,"
Toby and Tim, on the outside, were brutal, hardened individuals with little to no respect for mortal lives. They didn't care for the living, and they didn't care who they left dead. But, on the inside, Tim and Toby were still playful, sarcastic teenagers who had grown up just a little too fast for their own good and had seen much more than they were ever meant to. And in that way, I felt for them, as I had also seen way more of the world than I had ever meant to, and had grown up far too fast; too young I had said yes to the proposal of Henry. Though, the outcome of it all was still more than a little confusing, it had made sense all the same.
As I took the hand of Tim in one, and the hand of Toby in my other, I walked through the front threshold of the cabin, and for the first time in four, whole days, I didn't feel compelled to turn back for one long, last stare.
Jack had left to help me maintain my focus so I wouldn't be reconsidered as a proxy, and for that, I was grateful. Even when it had hurt him most, he would still look out for me. And, until we finally met again, I'd be on the look out for him as well. He had taught me how to be strong in the face of fear, and as I brave-faced the unknown road ahead of me, I smiled.
Here's to being a little too young, a little too naïve, and a little too in love.
--End--
For the final time in Glass Eye, I bid you a good night, and as always, if you're going to Meatball, you better fucking do it Extravagantly.--