A/N: Woah, the world is grinding to a halt, I updated! ;-) This is the last chapter of AE. I might do an epilogue, but I might not, either. This has been a lot of fun and I adore you all:-D And I'm now going to shut up so you can get on with it, Precursors know you've waited long enough, eh?
Disclaimer: I do not own Jakkie or Daxxie.
One last thing: There is a scene in here that sounds like something rather naughty is happening to a certain someone. I did NOT have that in mind when I wrote it, but it seems to sound that way, so if that's what you want to read into it, well, you'll only want to kill me all the more. Just thought I'd forewarn you. ;-)
The world spun before his eyes, black clouds rolling across his vision. The day was dark to him, the green sun failing, burning pitifully weakly. He dimly felt himself moving, walking, sliding around on the sand that he had long since ceased to feel beneath his feet.
He felt him.
He was there, in his mind, a pulsing, throbbing entity. He was there, in his mind, dominant, in control, keeping him from thinking, seeing, understanding, being. He was there, in his mind, playing with him, ruining him for his own twisted pleasure. He was there, in his mind, implanting into him a sickly lust for blood, for death, for the sweet, burning, corrupting taste of Eco.
He gathered himself, pushed him back, picked himself up off the ground he didn't even remember falling to in the first place. He built a wall in his mind, seeing it before his eyes, broken and with gaping holes everywhere, ready to collapse forever at the slightest puff of breath from the wolf.
Not that it had ever stopped him before.
He walked on.
He wanted to die. Why couldn't he die? He didn't understand. He was living out here, out here where even the Wastelanders didn't tread lightly, if you could call this a life. His mouth was so dry that his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, his lips so cracked that blood ran sluggishly and constantly from valleys of dry flesh, giving him his only source of liquid. His stomach no longer cared. It had been so long since he had eaten that all consuming anything solid would do would make be to him sick, and it wasn't like the had the water in his body to digest the food anyway. He was no longer hungry in the slightest; food seemed more of a burden than a necessity. He was exhausted battered by the drastic elements, not sleeping for fear of the nightmares that he fed him whenever his eyes shut.
So why wasn't he dead?
Why?
He gave another feeble shove against him, physically halting his footsteps in a desperate effort to concentrate. One hand rose, filthy, nails jagged, bloody.
He gathered his strength and slashed at the flesh on the underside of his arm as hard as he could.
"Ah-ah-ah…"
His hand stopped the instant that his nails made light contact against his skin, his voice, no, not his voice, his voice silky and heavy against the silence of the Wasteland.
"Can't have that now, can we?" The voice slithered through the air to reach his ears. His mouth closed. His voice? No. Was it from his throat that it had come? Yes. His voice. Yes, yes, yes.
Jak laughed bitterly. It didn't take a genius to see what his demon wanted him for, just forcing his body to live without regard to the spirit within. He wanted nothing more than a shell to reside in so that he had physical form. Even Jak had enough of himself left to realize that.
Visions of dead Daxter, dead Keira, dead Erol, dead Torn, dead Ashelin, dead Daxter, dead Sig, dead Vin, dead Tess, dead Daxter, dead Krew, dead Praxis, dead Samos, dead Daxter, dead Daxter danced before his eyes like a never ending holographic commlink transmission. He didn't care any more, laughed at them, smiled as he saw Daxter's throat slit and Keira's head torn from her body. Blood was everywhere. Blood was nice. Nice, nice, nice. It was warm, not cool like he wanted, but it was fresh, soothing to the mouth.
Jak tilted his head and blinked, staring in confusion straight ahead of him. He couldn't see anything! He put his hand out and it came in contact with stone, so he turned his head and looked behind him. He was sitting, apparently nose to nose with a wall, for the burning sand stretched on away from him. The sun had decided to go to sleep, and the moon had come to take his spot. Yes, there were his footprints, leading him straight here. He followed the line of prints back to himself, then turned back to the wall. So that's why it was so dark.
Jak stood, almost giddy. His demon was there, oh yes, he was always there. But he was just sitting there doing almost nothing, like Jak had been sitting there in front of his wall.
Jak reached out a hand to touch said wall, making sure that it really was there and was in fact solid. It hadn't gotten up and walked away, and Jak smiled at it. "Hello," he greeted it, heavily sunburned face feeling funny as he spoke. "What are you doing all the way out here, hmm?" He looked to both sides as he waited for a response, wondering exactly how large it was. Wouldn't all that surface area in the sun get awfully hot? It probably had some method of cooling itself down or something.
He got tired of waiting for a response from his gigantic friend and finally patted the wall reassuringly. "It's okay if you don't wanna talk, I understand. By the way, what's your name? My name is… Jak. Yes, that sounds about right. But who are you? Oh, still don't wanna talk. Okay, I can try to guess! Hmm…" Jak babbled on and on as he picked a random direction and began walking. One hand lightly trailed along the face of his companion and Jak all but skipped along over the sand, humming to himself once he got bored with speaking. He was so glad to finally have a friend, somebody out here to talk to besides himself!
He suddenly gasped and stumbled to a halt as the wall snagged his shirt, tearing off the entirety of his sleeve- or what was left of it, in any case- and gouging a gash in his arm. He rubbed the offending body part. "You know," he commented dryly with a fake pout on his face, "if you really wanted some of me that badly, all you had to do was ask." He sneezed from the dust in his nose then shrugged. "You can keep it, though." Jak walked forward a few steps, looking out at the sand, and went to lean his back on his big friend.
And fell straight through.
Miffed, Jak looked around him from his position on the ground. "Cave!" he suddenly cried, realizing what it was. He hauled himself to his feet. It was nice and cool in here, just warm enough but not too hot, not too hot at all. Almost against his will, Jak began walking deeper into the darkness.
His good mood evaporated as he felt his demon stir, and he frowned. "Go away!" he screamed, voice echoing mockingly down the lightless tunnel.
"No."
He clutched at his head, eyes screwed shut, trying desperately to beat the dark force back. He had succeeded! But no, he was moving, walking, running through the pitch black shadows to something that he desired above all else. He licked his lips, nostrils flaring. He could hear it, smell it, see it dancing before his eyes. He wanted it, he wanted it-
"No!"
Yes, yes, yes, it was all his, it would solve all his problems, that blessed liquid. He dimply heard something dripping, splashed through a deep pool of water, didn't care. The wall reached out and clawed at him; he heard something rip, felt another new burning in his side, ignored it. Dark electricity flickered over his ashen skin; there was a pressure both within and without his skull, strong enough to crack his bones.
There!
He skidded to a stop inside a cavern, a grin curving his lips even as his mind screamed against it. His skin stretched, shifted, neither his nor his demon's. He knelt. Hands, his own, reached out towards the liquid shimmering darkly on the floor, dipped into the darkness.
"No! No! No! No!" he screamed, the words never making it to his lips. He was drowning, smothered by the mass of dark glee that smashed over him like a fifty-foot tidal wave.
His cupped hands emerged, liquid pooled within his palms. He wanted it so badly, he wanted it- NO!- yes, oh yes, it was his, all his, only his. His head lowered, his mouth opened.
He drank.
He threw back his head and screamed, clawing at his throat. It was like a writhing snake that sank into his stomach, fangs scorching all the way, burning, flooding through his veins like a poison until the eerie light glowed through his skin, shooting out of his body. There was laughter, tangible, elated laughter, his voice, not from Jak's throat. He couldn't see; there was a great stretching within his body and mind. His body bulged, quivered, screams never ceasing.
One word entered his ears above the noise of his screams, one deadly, whispered word. "Free."
Even the darkness did not offer him respite then.
Daxter sighed loudly as he flopped back in his chair, burning eyes still tirelessly sweeping back and forth, back and forth over the sand.
He was beginning to lose hope.
The ship groaned and shuddered violently, dipping dangerously before resuming its path. "No!" Daxter yelled, slamming his fists down onto the control panel in frustration. "Work, damn it!" His stomach grumbled as well, only adding to his irritation.
Time was almost up.
It had been a week and a half. Water was running low, so much that he severely rationed it at all times, drinking only when it was absolutely necessary. He was beginning to worry about his food stores as well.
He was exhausted. The ship was going to run out of fuel in an hour or two, maybe three if he was extremely lucky. And he had covered maybe, maybe a fifth of the desert, and likely not even that.
And what if he had managed to go the right way, but had missed Jak somewhere along the lines? Daxter gnawed on his lip as doubts plagued his mind. What if he had gone in completely the wrong way and Jak was hundreds of miles on the opposite direction? Which was worse? He had found plenty of Metalheads, often bigger than two or three of his ships put together; but of Jak, not a trace.
The ship sputtered and began losing altitude. "Nooooo!" Daxter howled, resuming his former activity of pounding desperately on the controls in case it did something magical and made the ship keep working. However, the ship decided that enough was enough and it was going to throw in the towel, and Daxter was thrown across the cab to slam painfully into a metal wall as the ship slammed into the sand. It skidded, slowly losing speed, then hit a rock and preformed some acrobatics in the air, finally smashing back down with the roof where the floor ought to have been and a very unhappy passenger splayed awkwardly in a corner.
Daxter remained where he was for a while, sprawled out on the roof, trying to make sure that he really had stopped moving. He hated crashing. If Jak had been there, it wouldn't have been so bad, as he could have clung desperately to his friend as he howled wildly like normal, impairing Jak's steering. He wasn't entirely sure what good that would have done, but it would have made something better.
At the thought of Jak, he pushed himself to his feet. Greaaaaaaaaat. The ship had died, rendering Jak as good as lost. A wave of despair washed over him, and he ran his arm across his eyes.
No. It wasn't over, not yet. He had two legs. He had a little bit of food, a little bit of water. He had a gun. He would rather die walking or be eaten by a Metalhead than give in there and then. Daxter felt his face twisting into a grim smile. This was the end of the road, the precipice above the burning Eco pool. Life was over, gone, out of the question.
There was no life without Jak.
As he prepared to set out on his down, Daxter's mind wandered. Why? Why? Why Jak? Why now? Why like this? Why was the one who had saved them suffering so? And why… why did being a hero mean that they had to lose themselves to save others? Was it really worth it? Did the others even deserve to be saved in the first place? The belief that the hero was the oh-so-brave soul that selflessly sacrificed himself to free others was a load of fresh yakow manure. Who chose the hero in the first place? Others. So then why was the hero the one who had to suffer, and not the ones that chose him?
He had never felt like this before. It was strange… Disregard he had felt before, annoyance, sever dislike, even; but the emotion that coursed through his veins was hate. Pure, unbridled hate. Bitter hate for life and whatever decreed that they had to go through all this, hate for Keira and Ashelin and Torn and most of all, Samos. Samos, who had been there all along. Samos, who had tossed Jak into the frying pan when he could have done more. Samos, who had sat back and just watched as others suffered.
With a start, Daxter realized that he had been staring out of the front window of the transport (though it was currently half embedded in the sand), glaring out at the desert as he thought. With a sigh, he let his thoughts go and began packing a small bag of provisions to take. That done, he grunted as he settled its weight over his shoulders. It was much heavier than he would have liked, but he was hesitant to leave any of it behind. Daxter picked up Jak's gun, rescuing it from the spot on the floor where it had fallen. He stared down at it for a second, then raised his head and walked over to the door.
He punched the button for it to open, then again as nothing happened. He scowled when it didn't work, pushing it again and again. Finally, he gave up on the button and slammed his shoulder into the metal, manually shoving it open an inch at a time. Daxter finally squeezed through the gap as soon as he could and jumped down, feet sending a cloud of sand into the air as his boots slammed into the ground.
The heat rolled over him like a tidal wave. He gasped in shock, holding his hands above his eyes in a fruitless effort to try to block the light of the sun. The yellow sand caught the light, trapped the heat, and reflected it back so that Daxter was being boiled alive from both above and below. Within moments Daxter was covered in sweat, losing water at far too quick a rate for his peace of mind. "Now or never," Daxter murmured to himself, and then proceeded to choke on the dust.
He slowly circled the dead transport until he was facing the distant mountain that loomed on the horizon, the original place Daxter had planned on flying around. Better to head there than just trudge through miles of empty sand, but… was it a mirage? He prayed to Mar that it was not. "Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to the mirage we go…" Daxter sang half-heartedly as he tried to get himself into a better mood. The song did nothing to help.
The green sun slowly moved across the sky and finally sank below the horizon, and the former ottsel almost wept in relief. Heat still radiated from the sand even as the sky turned to black, but compared to the day, it was like a walk in the park. He set down his bag and rubbed at his shoulders, wincing. He was so, so exhausted and just wanted all of it to go away. He fumbled at the bag and extracted a half-empty water bottle, ready to pass out. He pulled off the cap and lifted it to his lips. Despite his best intentions to take only a single sip, the entire contents of the bottle swept down to his stomach.
Groaning, Daxter tossed the empty bottle away and swore that it wouldn't happen again, though that was the third time of the day that he had drunk more than he had meant to. Without eating any food, he wrapped his arms around Jak's gun and all but fell over into the sand, eyes shutting and an exhausted and mercifully dreamless sleep gracing his mind.
He awoke all too soon, shivering. The heat of the day had dissipated and the stars shone down on the dark desert. He was covered in goosebumps, his body wracked with shivers, his breath puffing out in a cloud of white frost. "W-what t-t-the h-e-e-l-l?" Daxter stammered, chattering teeth making it difficult to speak. As tired as he was, Daxter forced himself to his feet, stamping on the sand and rubbing violently at his arms to try to warm himself. No freaking wonder nothing but Metalheads could live out here with these extreme temperatures!
Though his muscles screamed in protest, Daxter placed his bag back over his aching shoulders, and, Jak's beloved gun in hand, he set out once more. The going was much easier this time despite his exhaustion since the sun was gone, and Daxter decided that day could go to hell and he would travel at night. He squinted off at the horizon, trying to make out the mountain that he was supposedly heading for. He could just barely see a dark squiggle off in the distance, and did it look slightly larger? Yes, it did, but not much. Under the light of the unfeeling moon and net of stars, he walked.
And walked.
And walked.
It wasn't until the sky began to lighten that Daxter awoke from his monotonous stupor. Raising his head from its hanging position, Daxter blinked at the sky and licked his dry and cracking lips. Without a word, without so much as a sigh, he collapsed onto the sand, gazing around blearily. Day… that meant stop… The bag dropped to the ground and Daxter burrowed his body down into the sand to get away from the coming oven. Filthy hands pulled the bag over his head, and Daxter slept.
Days and nights passed and Daxter still walked on. He walked in a constant state of exhaustion without respite, exhaustion even sleep couldn't fix. And slowly, ever so slowly, he drew closer. At one point during one of the previous days, he had almost burst into frustrated tears as he looked at the mountain which never seemed to draw any closer. Water was gone, and the food was absolutely pointless without it.
And then he arrived.
It was so unexpected by the time he finally stood within only a few minutes' distance away from the rock face that Daxter didn't quite know what to do. He rubbed in vain at his filthy face, looking left, then looking right. The wall stretched away in either direction. With a sigh, he shot an uneasy glance at the horizon, wondered vaguely why he hadn't seen any Metalheads over the last couple of days. But the sun was the more immediate threat, for it would be cresting the horizon much too soon, and he needed to find whatever it was he had come here for.
That thought brought his world to a grinding halt. What was he here for, anyway? Obviously, to find Jak. But Jak could be on the other side of the world, who was to say that he was here, by this random mountainish rock? The Precursors weren't that kind, they had proven as much a hundred times over. It all came down to chance. Chance ruled his life. And so he went left.
He knew he should have gone right.
All too soon the sun was overhead, beating down upon his already burned and blistering skin. Jak's gun drooped from his hands, the barrel tip dragging in the sand. His legs felt like jelly, he was beyond parched. Walking was the only thing he could do. The now-empty bag he left behind; there would be no more hiding in the sand, waiting for a slow death. He would walk until he passed out where he stood, and then the sun could claim him. He would not fight it.
Something tickled in his throat and he took a deep breath of the burning Wasteland air, which only caused him to begin choking. Barely able to breathe, Daxter dropped the gun and put a hand out to the wall in an attempt to keep himself upright. The only problem was that the wall was no longer there.
Daxter landed on the ground painfully, a groan forcing its way up from his bone-dry throat. He blinked in confusion, staring into the darkness, not quite comprehending what he was seeing. Exhausted and unwilling to move, Daxter let his head flop to the floor, ready to simply lay right where he was.
And then he heard it.
It was faint, but it was there. Daxter's ears twitched, the sound not fully registering at first. The sun must've fried my brain… he thought dully. I'm starting to hear strange things. And finally, the sound clicked.
Drip.
Drip.
WATER!
And he was up, moving, forcing exhausted muscles to run, heedless of anything else. He ran blindly through the dark, smashing into walls left and right, not caring. The sound was like a drug, filling his mind, spurring him on. He tripped, fell, got up, tripped again.
And as he smashed into the ground this time, there was a comforting splash.
Daxter managed to crawl forward a few more inches, slapping his palms onto the surface just to hear the comforting splash. He pressed his face fully into it, sucking it into his mouth like a drain, downing it in great gulps one after another after another. He drank until his vision was going black from lack of air, then jerked his head up. As he pulled in air his stomach roiled and all of that blessed liquid came right back up. Daxter turned away from the pool and gagged, the meager contents of his stomach pouring themselves out as he coughed and choked. He finally stopped and raised a shaking hand to wipe at his mouth, grateful that he had managed to get away in time so that he didn't pollute what remained in the pool.
Hesitantly, Daxter lowered his face to the water once again, forcing himself to take only a couple of careful gulps. That accomplished, he simply lay right where he was, half in the pool and half out, and slept.
He awoke some time later, groggily remembering where he was. He took another sip of water and then sat up, head spinning. He still felt like he was about to croak, but it was better. A bit. Eyes finally adjusted to the darkness (or more like finally paying attention to his surroundings), Daxter looked around him. There was a whole lot of nothing. Daxter was about to dismiss the black walls and go back to his lovely water when he suddenly realized that some thing was different.
He could see.
Not much, granted, but he could see a little bit… and was that direction lit more than the other? He turned around to check, then looked back. Yes, yes it was. There was light coming from somewhere…
He caught something out of the corner of his eye, a small lump of darkness oddly different than the rest. He walked over to it curiously, then reached out and plucked it from its spot on the wall.
It was cloth. Ragged, stiff with blood, but cloth.
And Daxter knew whose it was, by one thing and one thing only.
It smelled.
No, not only smelled, reeked with a terrible, familiar scent, such a hauntingly gagging stench from something so small. And familiar, so familiar. Daxter knew that smell, oh, how he knew that smell.
Dark Eco.
Dark Eco when it came from Jak.
With a start, Daxter realized that he could now see where the light was coming from. It was bright in the utter darkness, too bright for what he instinctively knew it was. It called to him even from this distance, and he found himself walking towards it, the piece of cloth still clutched in his fingers. He licked suddenly dry lips, shaking.
Jak was here.
He knew it, knew it like he had never known anything else in his miserable little life. He had chosen right. His fists clenched at his sides. He could save Jak. He would.
And he stepped into the cavern.
He didn't know what he expected to find, but nothing was certainly not it. He peered around, scanning the small cavern. A pool of Dark Eco lay on once corner, providing the light, but that was it. Zip. Zero. Zilch. A crushing disappointment settled into his chest. There weren't any exits other than the one he had just come in through. Maybe it had been a long time since Jak had been here, or maybe he had just recently and Daxter had just missed him, or maybe he had never been there at all and Daxter was so wanting to believe that he could save Jak that he was imagining things that didn't exist. The cloth slipped from his fingers and fluttered to the ground. Bitter tears stinging his eyes, Daxter turned to leave the cavern.
And froze.
"Well hello," the voice purred, black eyes glinting wickedly in the ethereal violet light.
Jak
No. The demon.
Not Jak.
But he was.
The demon approached him; Daxter shrank back and groped at his back for Jak's gun, which he suddenly realized wasn't there. An ashen hand tipped in ebony claws shot out to grip him around the neck, lifting him off the ground so that his feet dangled beneath him. The eyes, so intense, so cold, so delighted, bored into his own. Daxter tried to cry out as he struggled, tried to scream Jak's name over and over to make him wake up and come back to himself, just like he always did. Always.
"Mine." Gleeful malice oozed from his cruel voice.
Daxter couldn't cry, couldn't scream, couldn't speak, could only weakly wring his hands around the demon's wrist in a pathetic effort to make him let go as darkness closed in on his mind.
And he did.
Daxter stumbled but remained on his feet as the demon suddenly released him, hands flying to his throat and mouth gaping open as he gasped for breath. And then the demon's lips were pressed hard on Daxter's own, the intoxicating stench of Eco slithering down his throat and into his stomach and veins. He screamed against his captor's mouth as his breath was sucked away by those lips that were as cold as bone, biting down, drawing blood that wasn't, choking on it as it gagged him, filled his mind, made him want it more and more. His mind screamed what he mouth could not, just a long, drawn-out wail of pain and disgust and hatred and want. Then the maw was gone, pulled back to utter the same declaration once again. "Mine."
Daxter screamed aloud as the slaw shot up and scored across his chest, leaving a trail of blood.
"Mine to have."
He stumbled backwards, fell, pleaded with Jak, eyes so fixed on the horror before him that he didn't see the figure lying in a shadowed niche. "P-please, Jak! Jak! Jak"
"Mine to play with." He advanced. Daxter scooted away, ran into a wall, looked around wildly for the escape route that wasn't there.
Daxter screamed again and again and again as pain flared all over his body.
"Toy… my toy…"
He begged, tried to fight and was overpowered, screamed Jak's name over and over until his voice cracked and died, and still Jak played with him.
No! It wasn't Jak, it wasn- but it was, oh Precursors, it was, this was him, and he wasn't waking up, and all he had wanted was to save Jak, to save Jak, but Jak was doing this and all he could see in front of him was his beloved Jak, smiling sweetly, blue eyes glittering happily in the way that he so loved, and then Jak was turning away, and Daxter screamed out for him, and-
"Mine to kill."
The pain flared up one last time, and Daxter tried to reach out to Jak's retreating back, so beautiful.
And he died.
What… where was he? He shifted a bit and realized that his face was pressed into some sort of liquid. Funny, the smell was almost familiar… What had he been doing? Desert… he remembered the desert. But it wasn't bright and burning where he was, nor was it the bitter cold of night. Confused, he shifted a bit, absently running a hand through the rapidly cooling fluid. He felt as though he were missing something important, and after a moment, he began looking inside of himself, finding instantly what was gone. Something fluttered in his chest.
Gone. He was gone. There was just a hole, a huge, gaping hole where he had come to expect him to be.
Gone!
An exhausted, almost bitter laugh bubbled up from his chest, erupting past his lips. How the hell had it happened? He couldn't remember. One minute he had been there, the next, he was gone. Nah, it was probably just another trick. But still…
Try as he might, he could find no trace of him within him.
Relatively comfortable, Jak decided that he didn't want to move anywhere. He absently ran tongue across his lips, relaxed for the first time in Precursors knew how long, but stopped as some of the liquid exploded onto his taste buds, eyes flying open.
Moving suddenly seemed like a very, very good idea as he instantly placed the flavor. He sprang to his feet, swamping dizziness sending him straight back down to his knees.
Blood.
And lots of it.
He gasped, blinked, slowly stood again, then looked around, trying to find the source of the blood in the dim room. He frowned, rubbing a crimson hand across his eyes. His vision seemed to have gotten quite a bit worse, that was odd…
He stopped and turned, still a little dizzy, as he caught a shock of flaming red hair out of the corner of his eye. He stared, his lips pursed in thought and his head all but tilted to the side as he tried to get his mind around what that hair meant. There was only one person he knew who had ever had that color hair…
"Daxter!" he cried, springing over to his friend, mind reeling. "What- how- when?" he gasped, eyes drifting over the immobile form. From what he could tell, Daxter was just the same as before, only a couple of years older, sleeping peacefully on the ground a bit too close to the Dark Eco pool for comfort. He was still thin and wiry with that same mess of bright hair. His clothes all but hung from him in tattered rags, but he was wearing some sort of dark color, something that Jak hadn't expected. "C'mon, Dax, wake up," he said. When no response came, he reached out and lightly touched his friend's face, fingers leaving a streak of glistening shadows in their wake.
Jak's eyes widened a bit as he felt the coldness of Daxter's body. He needed to be warmed… heat… sun! Jak carefully stood and gathered Daxter's light body in his arms, noting how stiff and cold he was. He smiled down reassuringly at Daxter's closed eyes, though he knew that the former ottsel was oblivious. "We'll get you warm soon enough, buddy," he said, glancing around to find the exit. There, a darker path in the darkness. He set off towards it and carefully made his way into the tunnel. He passed the water, stumbling a bit as he was submerged almost to his waist but recovered quickly enough. His arms tightened around Daxter's awkwardly splayed body.
The darkness settled in, utterly complete, and Jak couldn't even see Daxter's ashen face, much less anything else. Daxter's legs suddenly hit the wall and Jak stumbled again, dropping Daxter heavily to the ground. Jak dropped to his knees, feeling around desperately for his friend. There, he felt a leg or an arm. He kept patting his hands around, trying to figure out how Daxter was laying so he could pick him up properly. He felt Daxter's cold chest, kept feeling just in case…
…and his hand went in.
Jak froze, trembling. No, no, he was imagining things, there weren't holes in people's chests. He withdrew his hand, refusing to acknowledge the cold, sticky fluid dripping from his fingers, slowly lowered his hand back down. "No," he whispered, voice barely even reaching his own ears.
He struggled to his feet, picked Daxter up once again, began walking. He shook his head in denial. Nope, it wasn't true, he'd take Daxter outside and he would warm up and open his eyes and he'd see Daxter's toothy grin with those silly buckteeth of his, he'd see, he'd see-
He saw.
Light blossomed at the end of the tunnel, growing stronger and stronger as Jak stumbled on. He refused to stop, refused to look down at his friend who was lying so motionless within his arms. His foot caught on something just after he crossed the threshold out into the desert and he dropped Daxter a second time as he fell, winding up on top of his friend. He forced himself up, raised a shaking hand to Daxter's neck, feeling for the pulse he knew wasn't there.
"No, no, no," he whispered. It wasn't true, it wasn't. He lowered his lips to those of his friend, desperately forcing air into Daxter's lungs before pausing to watch for the rise and fall of his chest. Over and over again he did it, slamming his fists down onto the cold body as hard as he could, willing Daxter's heart to beat, willing his lungs to fill on their own.
Nothing.
He stopped and fell back into the burning sand, staring at the gaping hole in Daxter's chest without seeing it and yet seeing it all too clearly at the same time. He shut his eyes but the image would not leave his mind. How?
He knew how. Oh, Precursors, he knew how.
A bitter laugh welled up in his chest, erupting past his lips, echoing across the barren sand. He caught a line of Metalheads advancing in the distance out of the corner of his eye but ignored them. There could be no tears, there could be no desperate screaming, no expressions of remorse, for this was so far beyond that. All he could do was laugh until he couldn't laugh any more, couldn't even breathe, and then could do nothing but laugh all the more.
It was just too perfect.
How had he gotten Dax there in the first place? And how had he gained such a stronghold over him that he would kill his own best friend without even knowing what he was doing? But after only a moment's thought, he dismissed the questions from his mind. Did it honestly matter how? No, not at all.
Not any more.
Nothing mattered any more.
He had killed Daxter.
Daxter.
He didn't want this any more. He didn't want to know where he was, though he knew that he was around somewhere. He didn't want to breathe the air that Daxter could no longer. He didn't want to live.
Not with the guilt.
He opened his eyes and glanced around with a detached interest. Something was sticking up out of the sand, and he dimply realized that it was that he was tripped over. He crawled to it and picked it up, feeling something close to content as he held his gun within his crimson hands.
Guilt.
He flicked the switch on the side without a second thought and the gun twisted in his palms.
He had done it.
He stared down at the gun for a moment. Yes, this was right. It was good. It was the only right thing left in the world.
He had killed the only person in the world he loved with his own hands. He had probably liked it.
He pointed the gun.
His demon be damned. If he died, so would he. Wherever he was, let him fear, let him feel the wind of the wings of death as they advanced.
He pulled the trigger.
He pouted a bit as the gun fired. He had wanted to take care of his host himself.
Ah, well.
He walked over and plucked the gun from limp hands, then bent down and immersed his face in the fresh blood and gore. Ah, so good…
He felt his kind coming, but they could wait until he had finished gorging himself. And after that…
He had a whole city to play with.