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Jack screamed. He hadn’t screamed in a while, his emotional responses dwindling as he felt his spirit die. The feeling of bees in his chest cavity, however, was more than enough to make him scream. They were crawling and panicking and stinging him from the inside. He wanted them, wanted this over. Unfortunately he had a horrible suspicion this would only end when he died and was brought back in a vita chamber. He was fairly certain the bees wouldn't be brought back.
Fontaine’s laughter cut through Jack’s screams. “You know, kid, I was getting bored of you, but this is pretty fun. Guess I just needed to get you to open up in a more literal sense.” Fontaine thought he was funny. Jack never laughed. Instead he took pained, panicked breaths. His insides were a mess of pain. Fontaine had slit open his chest, then put his fist inside of Jack and used insect swarm. He’d then quickly removed his fist and stapled Jack together. A few bees had slipped out between the staples, but most of them were just panicking and buzzing, stinging and biting.
Jack felt more tears run down his cheeks. He wanted to sit up, wanted to wrench his chest open again and scoop out the insects currently torturing him, but he couldn’t. He could barely lift his head off the table he was lying on. Not that he was restrained. No, Fontaine thought it was funny to point out how easily Jack could escape if only he could control his body, but one utterance of those words and Jack was helpless. He’d lost track of how long he’d been lying in agony, screaming and crying. He hated giving Fontaine the satisfaction of a reaction, but he couldn’t hold back when it hurt this way.
“What are you thinking about?” Fontaine was looking at him and Jack moved his mouth wordlessly, trying to convey his desire for this to stop. Words didn’t come to him anymore. He could speak physically, of course, but mentally it was just too hard to force the words out. So he suffered wordlessly, letting his screams do the talking for him. Unfortunately it looked like Fontaine wasn’t going to let him get away with that this time. “Would you kindly tell me what you’re thinking?” Fontaine grinned down at Jack, as if it had been exceptionally polite of him to ask Jack what he thought.
“I think… hurts. I want it to stop.” Jack sobbed between his words, each one feeling like it was dragged painfully out of his throat. He might have worried about vomit coming with the words, but the only thing in his system currently was bees. He hadn’t eaten in days. A little bit of blood did trickle down his lips though, whether that was from his current injury or a not entirely healed old one, Jack had no idea.
“Yeah? What else?” Fontaine was clearly enjoying both Jack’s physical pain and the emotional discomfort being forced to speak brought.
“I want to move.” Jack gasped out. “To kill you.” He really hadn’t meant to say that, but Fontaine had asked for what he was thinking and Jack had no choice but to obey. “I want them out!” He banged his head backwards against the table, the pain in his head momentarily distracting from the pain in his chest.
“Is that so?” Fontaine laughed. “Y’know kid, I’ve had a lot of enemies in my life, but I think you’re the best one. Owning a man that hates you entirely but can’t do a damn thing about it? Now that’s power. But the powerful have to have mercy. So how about a deal, huh kid? You beg me to make this stop, and I’ll shoot you in the head, nice and simple.” Fontaine flashed his bright white smile at Jack, looking for all the world like he thought he was being kind. Jack knew better, and he knew Fontaine knew better too, he was just playing with him.
Fontaine frowned at Jack’s silence. “Playing the mute, huh? Would you kindly beg me to make this stop?”
Jack didn’t have any fight in him anymore, and even if he did, it wouldn’t have mattered. “Please make it stop. Take them out. Please take them out!” He fell silent again, save for his whimpers of pain.
Fontaine must have been bored with his bee idea, because he said, “Good enough.” Shrugged, and shot Jack cleanly in the head.
For a moment everything was black, then Jack’s vision was filled with soft blue light. Jack slumped against the wall of the Vita Chamber. In the beginning the Vita Chamber had brought him back at full strength, but now he was half starved and covered in scars. He took a brief moment of solace in the Vita Chambers soft glow, but inevitably Fontaine had to come and ruin it.
The Vita Chamber slid open and Jack tumbled to the floor. Fontaine stood over him, looking unimpressed. “Would you kindly follow me.”
Jack pulled himself to his feet and slowly trudged after Fontaine through the water damaged hallways. They reached his room quickly enough and Fontaine shoved him in by the shoulder. Jack remained silent and stared at the ground. He just wanted to sleep for however long Fontaine would allow him. Maybe he’d get lucky and Fontaine would forget about his existence for a week. It had happened before.
“I don’t need to lock the door, do I?” Fontaine laughed to himself before walking off, leaving Jack to stare out the open doorway he couldn’t walk through. Once Fontaine was out of sight Jack stumbled to his bed, the only piece of furniture in the room, and collapsed. He was asleep as soon as his face hit the mattress. Fontaine hadn’t bothered with a pillow.
--
Jack didn’t know how long he’d been laying in the dark. Fontaine had thrown him in after a particularly brutal beating and Jack hadn’t had the energy to reach his bed. He was crumpled on the floor in a world of pain. He wished he could just disappear into the floor and cease to exist. Suddenly, his entire world was upended.
The door to Jack’s room slammed open. This wasn’t entirely unusual, Fontaine didn’t exactly bother to knock, but what followed was definitely unusual. A man rushed into the room, slammed the door shut, and quickly crawled under Jack’s bed. Jack stared for a moment before using all the energy he had to push himself away from his bed. He didn’t know who this man was, just that he was likely here to bring Jack pain.
To Jack’s dismay, the man crawled out from under his bed after maybe a minute, and took notice of him. The man approached him and Jack panicked. “Easy.” The man said, “I’m not going to hurt you.” Jack scrambled backwards as much as he could until he hit the wall. The man stopped, but Jack still cowered, desperate to avoid anymore pain.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” The man held his hands up in front of himself. Why was his voice so familiar? “Did Fontaine put you here?” Jack stayed silent, pressing himself against the wall. “Listen, My name’s Atlas, and I’ll get you out of here.” Jack squeezed his eyes shut, willing the man to leave. This was obviously a trick. Atlas wasn’t real, how stupid did Fontaine think he was? Jack was dimly aware of the man coming closer, but hadn’t realized how much closer until the man touched his shoulder and tried to pull him upright. “Come on.”
Immediately Jack whimpered and pulled his shoulder away as best he could, not that he had much room to move. “Alright.” The man took his hand away for a moment, much to Jack’s relief. That relief was shattered when the man lifted Jack up in his arms and stood. Jack squirmed a tiny amount before remembering fighting back would just lead to more pain, so he stilled himself with a whimper of fear.
The man carried Jack out of his room, and Jack felt momentary panic. He wasn’t allowed to leave his room! But the man carried him across the doorway with no problem. Jack glanced around the hallway, squinting against the blinding light. After a moment of silence the man holding him began to run. Jack shut his eyes, resigned to his fate. Who knew, maybe this man really did want to help him.