Blackwater (Episode X)
CLOSE THE LOOP (Part B)
Please, be advised: this episode contains very dark themes involving the death of a child.
Previously in Jack and Sari’s journey
For other Blackwater Files, click here.
“I’ll make it easy for you, Jack. Don’t run.”
That’s what his father—or someone who appeared like his father had said.
Now, Jack turned away from his childhood bedroom. He was back on the lake’s beach.
No.
He was on the roof. The sun was shining and birds sang.
Jack stood on the edge of the roof. “It’s like the cartoons,” he said as he held up the jump rope “I’ll jump and you hold this end.”
Benjamin was born first. He received none of the respect of an elder brother, however. His entry into this world was followed less than thirty seconds later by Jack. “Hot on his heels,” his father proudly claimed.
A stolen birthright through competition and chaos.
Nervous, Benji peered down from their place three stories above the ground. He’d acquired a timidity that somehow biased his mother toward him. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” he muttered.
“Chicken,” jeered Jack. His father’s favorite, he’d inherited his physical strength and taste for adventure.
Benji stomped his foot. “I am not!”
“Yeah, you are.” Jack pointed to their open bedroom window. “Go back inside and tell mom. She always believes you since you’re such a mommy’s boy.” Jack sneered at Benji’s Peter Rabbit t-shirt. “Mom chose that shirt too, didn’t she?”
Benji snatched the jump rope from Jack. “I’ll go first.”
Jack scowled. For a moment he thought about wrestling for it. Then, he had a better idea. Jack smiled. “Fine,” he said. “You can go first. Even though it was my idea.”
Warily, Benji eyed Jack. “Okay,” he mumbled. He wrapped the rope around his waist and handed Jack the other end.
Jack crouched and tied the rope to the gutter. “Face the lake and count to ten. Then, jump.”
One,
Two,
Three…
Benji never hit the ground, the jump-rope was too strong for that.
Jack was wrong.
It was not like the cartoons.
Jack collapsed on the rocky beach.
Standing over him, Benji hissed, “you run from guilt!”
Yet, more than anger the little boy sounded scared. “I only jumped because you made me. You might’s well have pushed me. It should’ve been you that jumped. Why did you get to grow up?”
Dad said not to run, thought Jack. So, don’t run.
“It’s not even fair,” scoffed Benji. “You got to grow up and look what you did with your life? Nothing. No wife, no house. Do you even still talk to mom and dad? No. You’re a waste of life.”
Don’t run. Don’t run. Don’t run. I want to, but I shouldn’t.
But if I’m not supposed to run? What do I do?
“You forgot me,” Benji accused.
“No, I didn’t. I carry you with me every day.”
“So what? Am I too heavy for you? Are you too weak?”
Jack forced himself to look at his brother. No, not his brother’s but his own face in the reflection of the lake’s water.
They say that twins feel each other’s pain. Of course, there’s no scientific evidence for such a thing. The link between twins signified parallel minds rather than telepathic inclinations. Yet, right now, Jack felt like Benji and he were the same person. Their anger, sadness, fear; it was all the same.
For so long, Jack had avoided thinking of Benjamin, his brother’s face had faded from his eyes. Yet, had it really gone? The mirror said otherwise.
Jack paused. Then, he took a shaky breath. “Yeah, you are.”
There was silence.
Eyes glassy, Jack raised his head. “I’m sorry.”
Benji looked down his nose. “This is not a haven for you to come to terms with your sins. This is a punishment. You deserve this; deserve to be stuck here forever and ever.”
“I know.”
Benjamin hesitated. “What?”
Don’t run.
Grunting, Jack got to his feet. “I might deserve this place.” He wiped his sweat with the back of his shaking hand. “But I can’t stay. I’m sorry, Benji.” He pressed the same hand to his chest in an attempt to calm his breathing. “I have to leave you here. I’m so sorry.” Jack started to cry. “I… I can’t take you with me.”
Jack knelt and wrapped his twin brother in a tight embrace. He swallowed thickly. “I’m sorry.”
Jack thought he felt Benjamin’s small hand raise to return the hug.
“It’s okay,” whispered the boy.
Jack sat up straight in the hospital bed. He gasped for air, reaching for nothing. An alarm was going off and everything was a dreadful red—the same shade, Jack recognized, from Money’s theater.
The life vest was on the floor.
He was free.
Jack pushed himself to his feet and looked around the room. It was a disaster. Broken glass was everywhere. A thick and sticky, black substance was bubbling up from a nearby grate. Standing over the grate was a dark-haired woman. The back of her hair was matted with blood.
“Rosario?”
She turned. Her skin was a deadly white, her lips were blue, and jutting from her shoulder was the hilt of a wicked looking dagger. She broke into a wide, genuine smile. “You’re alive!” she cheered.
Sari took a step toward him and faltered.
Quickly, Jack crossed the room to her and caught her by the arm. She allowed his help, allowing him to accept her full weight.
Jack’s eyes lowered and saw a pair of surgeon’s scissors sticking from her leg. “What happened?” he demanded.
With great effort, Sari lifted her head. “There was a woman here and… It’s hard to explain.” Sari’s voice was weak. “She was good.”
His stomach lurched. “You look like a pincushion,” he said.
Sari tried to laugh, but it devolved into a hacking. Jack winced as he noted the sound of her labored breaths. Without warning, she spat—or vomited—scarlet.
“Okay,” said Jack, patting her back. “Let’s get you into a wheelchair… or something.”
“Ah, no,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s all going to be submerged in a moment. Riptide’s here.”
Her words almost didn’t register.
“What?”
“Riptide,” grunted Sari. “But it’s okay. I came to save you.”
Despite the situation, Jack grinned. “You’re not exactly doing a great job.”
“Yeah, I know,” she sighed without jest. She reached for the scissors in her leg as though to pull it out.
“No, no,” said Jack, “you have to leave that in right now. Let’s get you on the gurney. We don’t want you moving.”
In his mind, the leg was not as worrying as the massive wound in the back of her head. He couldn’t see the extent of the damage. Sari was responding semi-normally. Until they got to a normal hospital, however, he wouldn’t know how scared he should be.
He lifted Sari onto the hospital bed and unlocked the wheels.
“Careful. You should stay away from the edge of the grate,” warned Sari. “They keep asking for you.”
“Who?”
“Riptide.”
Jack was silent a moment. “You still hear him?” he asked.
Sari nodded. “I think it might be too late.”
“Don’t say that. We’re getting out of here—”
They turned toward the door just as it opened.
Jack recognized the man. Eddie or Ernie. Something like that. His name tag was too dirty to read. Jack moved to stand between him and Sari. The nurse looked strange. His face was swollen and blue, eyes bloodshot and blackening—like a drowning victim.
He opened his drooling mouth and made an awful sound.
“Yeah, fuck this,” muttered Jack.
On autopilot, he reached into the waistband of his pants and pulled out his service gun. It didn’t occur to him until after he’d fired that it shouldn’t have been there. The clothes on him were not the ones on his body when he went to sleep either.
Chest,
chest,
headshot.
The nurse’s head whipped back. It took a moment for death to fully catch up. He took another tottering step forward, snarling. Then, his legs buckled. His body hit the wall with a thud. He gave a final twitch and was still.
“Bottom feeders,” grumbled Jack.
When he turned, he saw that Sari had gotten up. She was on her hands and knees.
“What are you doing? We need to go.”
“Wait, wait” said Sari. “I’m looking for Ricki’s gun.”
“Who?”
“The woman in white… Aha!” Sari triumphantly held up a golden ray-gun. Then, one-legged, she got to her feet. “Okay, it’s over now.”
Jack released a heavy sigh. “It’s not over until you’re cleared by a doctor.”
Sari’s dark eyes flashed. “Oh, that’s not what we meant.”
Everything grew very still.
“I… am… h̷̠͉̞̝͗̂̚͝e̷̱͓̻̿̄̉̚r̵̤͈̠̗̈͜e̵̤̪̊͜͝,” she finished.
Suddenly, a dark hand reached out from the water and grabbed Sari by the ankle.
Jack had seconds.
He snatched Sari by the wrist. The water drew her in faster; like the unyielding jaws of Charybdis. They hit the floor and were dragged several feet before Jack dug his boots in. He resisted.
The water made keeping his grip difficult. “Don’t let go!” Jack cried.
Sari gritted her teeth. When she raised her eyes to his, Jack could see black water leaking from the corners of her eyes.
He felt his heart sink.
Yet he couldn’t find it in him to release Sari. “C’mon, Sari,” he shouted in frustration. “I need you to help pull yourself up!”
“Let us go, Jack,” she answered, voice calm.
“I am not going to do that!”
He felt her grip slacken.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t!” he screamed. “Please!”
Blackened hands reached out around Sari, but not for her. They grasped at his sleeves and arms.
“The Riptide wants you too,” Sari said. With an air of determination, she began to pry his fingers from her hand. “You’ve got to let us go. We can’t have you.”
He reaffirmed his grip. “No. There’s no ‘we’. Your name is Rosario Allende. You’re my partner at the Bureau… you’re my friend!”
“Let go.”
“Stop it!”
With a final twisting motion, Sari succeeded.
“No!”
The water swallowed her and folded in itself. Jack’s ears popped as a vacuum opened. Lights flashed, the world shuddered and shook. The remaining observation glass shattered and flew into the dark.
In the nothingness, stars were formed. A scorpion that could not help but wreak havoc upon its own self, the stinger turned inward. A moon-eyed woman, whose singlar eye opened. She rose from the sea, her celestial body twisting to cast a great spear. It pierced her abdomen.
Orion and the Scorpion, locked in eternal battle within the deceptive, slackened maw of Ouroboros.
A loop, created to seal the serpent.
Jack saw it all and wished that he had not.
There was a sound, something horrible and inhuman, a scream of something inhuman. In an instant, everything was still and quiet.
The fluorescent lights resumed their humming. The glass was returned to its place on the wall. The hospital bed was made and tucked neatly in the corner. No water remained, no strange sounds. The Bottom Feeder nurse was gone.
Jack, now alone in a room that was quite normal, edged away from the hospital grate in shock.
“Sari?” he called in a whisper.
There was no answer.
FIN
And so my story has come to a conclusion. I didn’t want to “wrap up” very much since I know there are some authors who are still contributing.
I really enjoyed writing this little story. I hope you all liked reading it! I’m a little bit sad to let Jack and Sari go. I might drum up a little epilogue if I have time. Maybe I will edit and re-release this story with a lot more fun little additions. I’d like to iron out the kinks and see if I can really deepen the lore and characterization of Jack Osborne and Rosario Allende. If I ever get a chance, I might to a prequel and talk about Sari’s past as a spy in South Korea. We’ll see!
Anyway, I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone for sticking with me throughout this tale. If you haven’t read everyone’s entry, you can see the list of participants below. ♥️
Once again, thank you for spending some of your day reading my work!
Much love,
Maya
At Elysium Pharmaceuticals, We Never Sleep.
And if you've joined them, you'll wish you never slept, too, because sleep is where it finds you. Sleep is where it hides, where it rules, where it cowers, where it schemes, where it's trapped, where it's home. The dark corners of your dreams. Of my dreams. Of Scoot's dreams. Of Jon T's dreams. Of Yakubian Ape's dreams. Of Cole Noble's dreams. Of Josh Tatter's dreams. Of Jeff Kinnard's dreams. Everyone who took part. Everyone who dared to peer upon that which cannot truly be known.
It lives within our dreams like rats within the walls. Skittering. Scurrying. Skulking. Spying. Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
To be set free.
Didn't realize how invested I was in these characters until hands started slipping. Good grief. Brilliantly done.