Unstoppable - Septiplier

9: Hold Me Tight

Warning: Heavy chapter, dealing with mental illness and dark subjects - really fucking sad.

Mark's POV

"Jack?" my voice was small, tentative, and meant nothing as I spoke to no one, my eyes trained on the open doorway left exposing the dark of the evening on its other side. Almost as quickly as the man had arrived, he left, ripping the door open and throwing himself away from the situation at hand, leaving me and my mother standing in the hallway watching the last place he had stood in confusion. He had only stepped inside and looked around, his gaze cautious and thoughtful until he met my brother's gaze, and he fell to his knees. Hands on his head, we waited for a few moments while he winced, unresponsive to my voice and his surroundings. It was only when my brother spoke his name that he came to, and then he was gone. I turned to Thomas now, more confused than ever, and narrowed my eyes at him. "Thomas?"

"That was him," was all he said, affirming what I had assumed happened. Somehow, some way, Jack and Thomas knew one another. Not only from a time much further into the past than before we had met, but on a more personal level as though they were more than just acquaintances that recognized the other's face from a crowd. "That's him." Thomas repeated, staring down at the table now as though he was embarrassed, or possibly reminiscing. His condition and PTSD left his sentences choppy, curt, and his words often riddles to an actual meaning that he could no longer convey to anyone else. My mother did her best to understand and to help him, but even some days he managed to avoid all of our questions and somehow still answer everything we asked him. "That's the most important man from the war." I frowned now, looking at my mother for a clue as to what he was saying, but her eyes were just as trained on him as he was on everything else in the room. "He's the reason dad is dead."

"Thomas!" My mother spoke suddenly, horrified, but his expression didn't change. He was determined in what he said, and I felt a mix of anger and surprise flush over my face. She rushed over to him as though trying to quiet him, but I took no heed to her actions, anger taking over the rest of my emotions as my upper lip curled back into a snarl.

"How dare you say something like that?" I asked him, frustrated now. I knew that he was a bit detached from the rest of the world, but he didn't often say outlandish things like he just had. My mother and I worked to help him with keeping things simple and speaking in truths, or at least in considerable common sense. "I brought him here to meet you both, why would you say something-?"

"How else can you explain his reaction?" Thomas spoke again, and I felt my upper body stiffen. My mother hushed him, helping him to his feet now from the table. He wasn't paralyzed, but his brain was damaged. His movements and speech patterns were skewed from his time in the war, and he was unable to bring himself to function as he should. Even so, I couldn't help but feel my jaw drop at what he was proposing, and my head turned involuntarily towards the open door once more, my eyes scanning through what narrow window of sight I had as if it mattered anyway; I couldn't see in the dark.

"Jack?" I called out again, and to my disappointment, I did not receive a response. I sighed, digging into my pocket to find my keys and storming out the door. So be it.

....

Jack's POV

Tears streamed down my face, and my breathing came in rapid and shortened bursts. It had been several weeks since I'd had a proper anxiety attack, but the war had done nothing good for me in that area. I broke down, my hands gripping at moss and tree roots on the forest floor, attempting to find something to keep me rooted to reality before everything came crashing down around me. Another sob wracked my body, and I collapsed onto dead leaves and dampened earth, my muscles quivering and my head spinning. The trees had replaced the darkened sky, and everything around me was beginning to blur together in an almost nauseating fashion. My fingertips were numb, and my arms felt nothing as I scratching wound after wound into my skin, almost begging myself to feel something, anything. My toes were curled so hard I was almost sure I was going to break them, and my knees were bent into a little ball; I was so small facing a world so much bigger than anything I would ever be or amount to.

What had I done? It was my fault, it was all my fault. No amount of training, no amount of experience or power forced into my body and coerced into my head was going to prepare me for the bloodbath that was the war, and I wasn't ready for it long before it begun. Yet, and yet, I was still responsible. If I had trained a little harder, if I had fought my own fear, if I had conquered it, then Mark's father would still be alive. He wouldn't be dead, Mark's brother might not have returned home injured; there were so many better outcomes than the one I was currently facing. Yet there was nothing I could do but lie in the dark on the forest floor and wail in despair and self pity that I wasn't the man I should have been when I had to be. When it came down to it, I still wasn't strong enough; I still caused the death of Mark's father. Colonel Fischbach should have returned home a war hero, I should have been shipped home in a casket with a bullet through my brain, and for a few moments I would have given anything to trade. I would have sold my soul to give Mark the life that he truly wanted, the life that he deserved to have with his family instead of struggling to find purpose with what little he had left. It was all my fault and the world was rightfully punishing me for my own wrongdoings. I knew it, my platoon knew it, even Mark's brother knew it. From the moment we made eye contact, he knew I was the guilty party. He knew the outcome that should have played out; he knew that I wasn't supposed to be here.

"Jack?" My body froze, my lungs caught in mid sob and my hands shaking as they hovered over the ground and over my own forearm. I released a shaky breath and shivered, my body moving uncontrollably as Mark's voice flooded my ears. He was standing behind me, some few feet away as he watching me rolling on the forest floor. I could hear raindrops beginning to hit the ground, starting at the tops of the trees and working their way down to the ground as it fell harder and harder. "Is it true, Jack?" he asked me, and I couldn't even turn to face him. Something along the lines of half choking and half sobbing escaped my chest, and my body once more convulsed violently as panic set in. I knew he would ask; I deserved the blame. "You saved my life, Jack, but how could you have taken his?" his voice was small and quiet, and for a second I was unsure that I had heard him properly, but then his footsteps, heavy and quick, carried him away from me.

The rain pounded harder, and I laid there on the ground, cold and unable to control the noises that erupted from my body as I wished over and over that I had died that fateful day in the war.

What was I doing here?