Chapter 3: First Contact for Two Please
Jacks body ached. He could feel the coagulated blood rubbing against tight bound bandages. So this is what it felt like to be badly injured, it felt surprisingly dirty for what he was sure was a sanitized space. Crusted blood made him want a shower badly.
He sat up. He was in the school infirmary. That at least was a good sign, it meant his wounds weren't so bad he needed anything that they couldn't provide right at school. He expected that the boy hadn't wanted to permanently hurt him, just cause as much pain as possible.
"Hello? what are you doing sitting up!" the school nurse, an older man, maybe forty or so sounded worried at the sight of the bloodied boy, and he rushed to help him lay back down. Jack tried to resist, but a few moments of trying to keep himself upright against the gentle pressure convinced him otherwise.
"What you did was noble." the nurse said.
Jack nearly rolled his eyes, but kept it to himself. Nothing about that situation had been noble. He had simply been obstructed in his goal by a large and, rather painful, obstacle.
"I'm serious," the Nurse seemed to pick up on Jack's cynicism, "You should be proud to have helped Barbra."
"I don't really care about that." Jack said simply.
Jack didn't see anything of the Nurse's body language. He had long since started looking away from people while speaking. From the small sigh he figured the Nurse was probably disappointed, slumping his shoulders and looking at the ground or something.
"Is there anything you need?" the Nurse asked.
"Could you ask Miss Heathers for some books on linguistics? Specifically translating languages no one has heard before?"
"Only if you promise to remain exactly where you are while I do."
"I can do that." Jack said, "if that is taken care of then I don't need much else."
"Any friends you need me to tell?"
"no." Jack didn't believe in friends, he hadn't in a long, long time.
Soon enough the Nurse left, and Jack was, quite happily, alone. The clock on the wall ticked on by, its slow constant a comfort to him. A light breeze moved the curtains and the cool outside air brought some freshness to him. More than anything, Jack was alone. And alone meant safe, no one could try to take advantage of you while you were alone, nor could you take advantage of anyone.
He was beginning to drift off when the bell rang, and shortly after a small knock came at the door. He decided to ignore it, if they had to knock they weren't welcome, and that was a universal truth in his mind.
"Hello." a girls voice came from the doorway. "Is anyone here? or awake?"
Jack opened his eyes a little. It looked like it was probably the girl from earlier. Whatever the Nurse had said her name was.
He closed his eyes swiftly when he heard her come in. Hoping that she would think he was asleep and leave.
"Oh," she said, "Uh, I'm sorry I saw you close your eyes. And this is kinda important."
Jack sighed and opened his eyes. "What do you need?" He did not look at her, simply at the roof. It's white surface only broken by the single light that hung there.
"I wanted to say thanks. If you hadn't walked past us when you did Brock probably would have kept on harassing me.
"I didn't intend to get involved." Jack said it with such forward honesty that if he had looked at her he would have seen a shock go through Barbra. "I was just looking for a way to get through the crowd."
"But surely you knew that he would..."
"No. I thought he would ignore me, I hoped that he would ignore me. But that didn't happen, I took a risk and I lost, you never came into my mind."
That was a lie. Hadn't he felt guilt at not being able to save the yellow Misha cat? It meant that at some level he had considered her, even if hardly more than an afterthought.
Jack glanced over, to his surprise he noticed that the girl was crying. Not loudly or annoyingly, but silently. Tears ran down her face as though in a race to abandon their mistress. He looked away again after he had seen enough. "I suppose my words might come off as kinda harsh in a way." he thought.
After a long and pregnant silence, the girl finally spoke once more in a quieter voice. "Did you see what happened to my Misha cat?
"There it is." Jack said, feeling vindicated, "There's the real reason you are here."
"What?"
"Every person has one." he continued, "Some selfish motivation to do the right thing, whatever that is. I admire your blatant admittance of that at least. Not many people just go out and ask for what they really want at the end of something like this. Good job."
"You aren't a good person are you." Somehow it came out even quieter than before, it almost sounded menacing.
"No." Jack freely admitted that to everyone, "I'm no more a good person than Adolf Hitler was, or Emperor Nero. And I'm no more a good person than you are. At the end of the day, earth is a spinning ball of mud populated by almost 8 billion assholes who would stab each other in the back as soon as buy each other a drink."
"Please just tell me about where my cat is." She sounded defeated, and for some reason, Jack enjoyed it. A weird mixture of pleasure and guilt broiled in him, but there was no doubt that he enjoyed the victory.
"It got crushed by the other guy." He said simply.
She stood and left silently. And with those words he finally regained the solitude that he had wanted. "Oh I am a monster. A monster among his kind."
Weekly Power Status
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