Glass Eye (Eyeless Jack X Reader)

Chapter Thirty

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?"