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Warning(S) - Mentions of blood/ gore/ cults/ Murder/ hints of eating People.
Please do not read if any of these warnings bother you. :)
Characters used: Eyeless Jack and Bethane Hartley (Slight mention of Slenderman, Jane, and Laughing Jack.)
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It is strange. So very strange.
Jackson never thought that his future would look something like this. The thought of having a place to belong and live so. . Normally. Well. As normal as possible in his case. Felt somewhat out of place. The basement was very spacious for an unfinished floor in this house. It is a large enough estate to consider it a mansion but Slender seems to consider it a “sanctuary” more than anything. He still considers Jane and the monochrome clown strangers. Jack has had a difficult time adjusting to interacting with others. He hadn’t exactly planned to befriend anyone. Not while he roamed the Earth like. . Well. THIS.
After everything that has happened in the past month he hadn’t expected that small red-headed human to be so. . . Helpful to him? A masked stranger who she didn’t even know! He could’ve and probably would have ended her in that church if someone else hadn’t been trying to already. Honestly he was searching around the abandoned building for shelter. Just to settle for the week before hitting the next town over. A cycle to his life that has now been changed.
Maybe it’s the fact that there were others just as broken and scarred like him living in this so-called sanctuary. Relatable to the horrors and traumas of this world that has so graciously bestowed them all. Sometimes he misses the things from his past life. Like his family and college mates. . . His mother. Mostly his mother. He wondered how broken she’d be if she learned of what her son had become. Too fearful of the thought of appearing out of nowhere to reveal himself as a mutilated monster that needed to eat organs from human beings just to keep himself sane. . . He knew it would kill her.
“Mmm.” He growled at himself before tossing over onto his side on the old mattress. Tattered, torn from age, and neglected for years. Though Slenderman reassured he’d receive a new one and some furniture if requested, Jack didn’t really care. A bed is a bed. At least there weren’t any rats scattering about the floor. Rats. . . It made him sick and it was hard to feel that way now. But he remembered how his first few nights of his transformation had affected his judgment. He refused to give in for a while and lived off of rodents and all sorts of animals. It just didn’t satisfy the urge as much as he hoped it would. A part of him wanted so badly to forget what he had done to that cult. The ones who had done this to him, the bloodshed he had caused. But there was another part of him that thrived in the agony, something about the way their blood ran down his throat. It was horrifyingly soothing. Warm. Delicious.
Did he like to kill? No. Not one bit. It was survival in this world for him. He tried to focus on hunting criminals more than the innocent. After all, he was once an innocent that had succumbed to the horrors of the world's darkest shadows. All because of one person. It’s his fault for falling right into her hands. He was a fool to trust someone like her. He should have never walked into those woods alone.
The sound of someone taking a few steps down the old wooden stairs to the basement made him sit up. Not defensively, but because someone was coming down to his room without making themselves known or anything. Not even a knock. Rude.
At the top of the stairs was Bethane, the small red-headed woman who had evaded death by an axe to her skull by running into him. “Um. I brought you some dinner.” She moved timidly. Almost uncertain weather or not if she should be there. “It’s just soup. . . There. Wasn’t much in the kitchen.” She didn’t step any closer. Respectfully standing still at the end of the stairs with an old dish bowl in her hands with steaming tomato soup.
Jackson sighed while his shoulders slumped. “I'm not hungry.” He hoped it would end there. No more conversation. He just wanted to be alone. Being around others made him uncomfortable. Not because of them but because of him. Who knows what he could do if he ever got out of control?
She stood by the steps silently with a contemplative stare for a moment. Like she felt like she didn’t want to leave or stay, she didn’t know why she wanted to stay, but Beth shouldn’t be bothering someone who isn’t even human. She doesn’t know what he is capable of. It was probably best to leave him be.
“I’ll just. Leave it here. Just in case.” She kneeled to set the bowl down on the last step that wobbled for a moment and made her think that the step could potentially break at some point later on. It’s a step she skipped while making her way back up the stairs, he sighed before stopping her halfway up with a question from where he sat.
“Why did you do this?” He genuinely wondered.
“What?” She was confused. “Bring you soup?”
Jack grumbled before explaining what he had meant. “No. this.” He motioned to the room. “Why are you helping me? You don’t even know me.” He sounded irritated by the generosity being shown to him. It was uncomfortable, but a warm, familiar feeling. “Helping you wasn’t an invitation to help me in return. I don’t need anyone's pity.” He growled.
“Pity? Oh!” Her eyes widened as she clarified. “No! Of course not!” She stressed. “That was not my intention. It’s just. I assumed you would have appreciated some help. Since. Well. You did save my life. . . More than once.” Bethane scratched the back of her neck. In her eyes, he had stayed around long enough to save her from multiple incidents of death. She was lucky he even considered helping her out. To him, she was a stranger who had been so grossly trusting.
“So. . Say it’s more like pay back? You could stay or leave at any time. But. Between you and me, I say you can come back whenever if you need a place to stay.” Her smile was sweet, and it made Jack’s heart skip. That was weird. “Well. I should-.” “Are you always this trusting?” His question came after a short while of silence between them. “Huh?”
Sighing, he stood from the scuffed mattress and approached the end of the stairs. “You’re a very trusting person, and for someone who seems to bring in the emotionally unbalanced kind of people, don’t you ever get scared of getting hurt?” He seemed genuinely curious, and even Jack couldn’t understand the sudden urge to ask a question like this.
She stared at him while she thought, then answered. “Because I trust you.”
“But. . Why?” He wondered.
Bethane only giggled and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. I just do.”
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