Asylum
Jake had no idea silence could be so deafening.
For the first time in his life, there was nothing. His mind was completely blank. He couldn't feel Marc or Steven, and it was wrong. Even though Jake was always fronting when the two were asleep, he could still sense their presence, deep in the back of their mind. He reached out to them, but he felt nothing. They just... weren't there.
He opened his eyes to complete darkness. He tried to raise his hand out in front of him, but he could barely move. It felt like what Steven had described his first experience in the headspace as. Jake did not like cramped spaces.
He started to panic. He pounded at the wall in front of him, trying to get it to move, or to get someone's attention. Anything. "Marc?" He called out. "Steven? Someone, please! Answer me! Help me!" He shook and punched and pounded but nothing happened. He closed his eyes, trying to catch his breath, and he punched harder.
When he opened his eyes, though, he hadn't been punching a wall, he had been punching a person.
The person was familiar, somehow. He had seen the man before. Or maybe Marc or Steven had seen him before. He was a bigger man, with tufts of ginger hair coming out of his head, and a full beard that was beginning to grey. Jake considered apologizing, then the man retaliated, hitting Jake in the nose. "Alright, you're askin' for it," he said, and began punching full-on fighting the man that had hit him in the face. His nose was hurting, though, and eventually, he ran out of steam.
The moment he stopped to catch his breath, he was sedated, pounced on by a man and a woman, keeping his arms in place. Jake didn't resist. Instead, he took a moment to look around and squinted at the familiarity. This was... Putnam. He was back at Putnam. The realization caught him off guard, and he screamed.
He blinked, and suddenly he was back in the headspace, looking through Marc's eyes at a version of Arthur Harrow, oddly reminiscent of... Ned Flanders?
Actually, Jake couldn't tell if he was fronting or if he was still in the headspace. It was... odd.
He was screaming. Maybe Marc was screaming. He couldn't tell.
"Calm down. Marc? Marc."
The screaming stopped. Maybe Marc was fronting. But everything felt so... surreal. Jake couldn't tell what was going on. And he did not like the feeling whatsoever.
"I didn't shoot you," Harrow lied. "Your mind is violently vacillating between sense and nonsense." They looked around the office, and Jake could feel that there was now a bandage on his nose where the man had punched him. "Picture this, alright? Your brain is a pendulum, swinging between a very difficult reality, that you are my patient here at Putnam Medical Facility in Chicago, Illinois, and a reassuring fantasy that you've created on your own. That you're some kind of... I don't know. Superhero. Alright?"
He looked around the office, but he made sure to glare at the "doctor" so that he knew that Jake wasn't buying it. Or Marc wasn't buying it. Or Steven wasn't buying it. None of them were going to buy into his bullshit.
"You're doing anything and everything possible not to look within."
"You're not really a doctor," Marc said.
Maybe Marc was the one fronting. Was Jake going insane? What the hell was going on?
If this really was Putnam, how had they gotten there? Why couldn't Jake tell if he was fronting or if he was in the headspace? Everything felt real. A little too real. For anyone else, perhaps this would have been considered normal. But they certainly were not normal.
"Is that why you keep starting imaginary fights in our hospital?"
Hey, the other man started it. Sort of.
"No, you're not a doctor," Jake said.
"Doctor" Harrow put his hand on the table in annoyance. "Look. I feel real. I feel like a real doctor."
"You're not a doctor," Marc said. Was this was co-fronting was like? Jake had heard stories, back when he was a patient at Putnam, of systems that worked so well together that sometimes it was hard to tell who was actually fronting. Co-consciousness, he thought they called it. But Jake and Marc certainly did not work well together. Marc didn't even remember that Jake existed. Something here was not right. Harrow was definitely not a doctor, they were not at Putnam again, and none of this was even real.
...Right?
"Well. Alright." Fake Harrow chuckled. "I'm not a real doctor. "Okay. Well, alright, alright, alright, it's not about me, ok? Let's start with you. Let's try it your way. Retrace your steps. Tell me. Tell me. How did you come to be here today?"
"How did you get here?" Marc asked without hesitation.
Fake Harrow frowned. "I took the bus." Jake rolled his eyes. "Like I always do.
"You wanna know what you told me, how you got here? You told me you were in a place oddly reminiscent of this office, except that it was in Egypt, right? And that you were with a rhinoceros... and-"
"Hippopotamus," Marc whispered.
A hippopotamus? Well, shit. Maybe they really were insane. The more Marc spoke, the more Jake began to wonder if perhaps this was what was real after all.
"You're right, I'm... you're right. It was a hippopotamus, but it talked."
Surely Marc could hear how crazy they sounded. No, he. How crazy he sounded.
"Now, what do you think? Do you think that is sense or nonsense?" Fake Harrow held his hands out like a pendulum as he gave the two options.
Marc sat for a moment. "Nonsense?"
Fake Harrow nodded. "I find this really encouraging." Jake just wanted to go home at this point. "Honestly, I do. The struggling mind will often build places to seek shelter for different aspects of the self from our most traumatic experiences." Yeah, they were aware. Jake was living proof of that. Or... dead proof of that? Were they still dead? "It's called an organizing principle, okay? Some people, they see a castle, right? Somebody else will see a maze, or a library." It took a moment for Jake to register that Fake Harrow was talking about their Innerworld. Wait...
"Or a... psych ward?"
Yeah. So Marc had seen the Innerworld.
Jake had never been able to describe the Innerworld before. He primarily stayed in his room for fear of finding Steven or Marc, but that didn't mean he hadn't ventured out before. Their Innerworld was made up of many different rooms, most of them housing either shared memories (which wasn't many thanks to Steven's severe bouts of amnesia) or specific memories of comfort that were locked for the other two. Jake, for example, had one room he particularly enjoyed from when they were a teenager. It was their first time going to a party, and Marc dipped after feeling uncomfortable with the large number of people. Steven had been asleep, Jake guessed, so Jake was able to front the whole night. He actually got along with people, made a friend in Jean-Paul DuChamp, and even kissed a girl for the first time. It was one of the best nights Jake ever had.
Those rooms, however, were scattered throughout these long, winding hallways. It wasn't until Marc had said it that Jake realized where he recognized the hallways from. With Putnam being one of the worst times in Jake's life, he wondered why that was supposed to be comforting to him at all. Maybe, he realized sadly, it was because that was the only home he'd ever really had, as shitty as they were to him.
Boy they really did have a lot of issues.
"Yeah. It could be. Could be a psych ward. Yeah.
"What I find extremely interesting is this new um... the new animal character. Um..."
"Hippopotamus?"
"I find that really interesting. This hippo could break down the walls between you and Steven, and we might finally understand."
Jake stared at him. He blinked. "Understand what?" Marc asked.
"Well, before you got upset, you were talking to me about a boy. Do you remember that boy?" Jake furrowed his eyebrows, and noticed the sharp pyramid-like object on Fake Harrow's desk. "Do you think you could tell me about that little boy?"
Jake leaned forward. He'd had enough of this shit. "Hey, thank you," he said dryly. "I feel really great." He grabbed the object and stood up. "I mean, they must pay you a lot of money in this place. You're really good." He could hear a buzzer sound go off, but Jake chose to ignore it. "I tell you what, I feel like a million dollars, never felt so good. I'm gonna see myself out, thank you," he said. He knew this wasn't going to work, but that's what the sharp object was for. He was not about to spend another damn moment in this facility.
Suddenly, though, there was a man on his shoulder, and he suspected it was the same man he tried to beat up earlier, just based on the quick glance he got when the hand hit his shoulder. It was never a good idea to make Jake Lockley angry. "Doctor! I know you're not!" Fake Harrow was yelling, two people were trying to grab him, and he was attempting to use sharp object to stab someone, whether that be himself or the two orderlies that held him. "You're gonna release that monster! He's gonna destroy everything!" He yelled. He started aiming the object for his eye. Maybe if he hurt himself, they'd take him to the hospital, and he knew he could break out of there.
"Be gentle with him!" Fake Harrow was saying. "Listen! I am not your enemy!"
Jake yelled, but they took the sharp object away from him, and he felt a stab in his neck that made his eyes droop until he finally closed them.
It felt like not a second later, they were open again. Back in the darkness he felt before. Dark. Confused. And completely alone.
For the first time in a very long time, Jake broke down into tears.
He did not often admit how much he needed Marc and Steven around, especially because he liked to lone wolf just as much (if not more than) Marc did, but there were times he was extremely grateful for his hermanos. This was one of those times that he would have slipped away, letting Steven figure out how to get them out or have Marc brute strength their way out while Jake recovered. But he couldn't this time. He was alone.
He sat in silence for awhile, taking it all in, then he took a deep breath. He was determined not to give up. Jake Lockley was a lot of things, but a quitter was not one of them. He began kicking the wall in front of him, using all of his anger and strength to force at least a small hole in it.
When it finally gave way, Jake tumbled forward and looked back at the small box he'd been imprisoned in, realizing it was not at all a box, but in fact a sarcophagus. It was much smaller than that of Alexander the Great's, but Jake still tilted his head in confusion. Shit just kept getting weirder.
He stood up and brushed himself off, then touched his head, only then realizing that he was wearing his favorite cap. He smiled a bit. At least, out of all the weird shit that was going on, he had that. The door to the room his sarcophagus was in was still open, and he slowly walked out, keeping his fists up in case any orderlies got any funny ideas.
The hallways he found himself walking down were the same of that in their Innerworld. Were they actually dead? Had everything with Harrow and Ammit been just a dream?
He peered through one of the doors and saw Marc and Jake inside of their childhood home, their bitch of a mother staring over at Steven, who was drenched in water and looked like he had just finished crying. Jake didn't enter the memory, but he did notice the picture of Marc's brother sitting on a table. Oh. This was his Shiva.
He glanced back over at Steven, who looked traumatized as the bastarda screamed at the top of the stairs.
Oh. Jake had forgotten. Steven had no idea who his mother really was. He only ever saw the good in her, when she would temporarily snap out of her psychotic breaks to apologize to them. When their poor excuse of a father actually did something about the way she treated them. Steven got to see her kindness, her guilt, the way she coddled them like an actual mother should. He never saw the things she actually did to them. He didn't know she was the reason he existed in the first place.
He pushed down his anger and moved to another room. This memory, he knew, was his.
He took a deep breath and opened the door. It was from their childhood, before Steven forgot about Marc and before they both forgot about Jake.
"Jake, you can't kill your mom. That's wrong," Young Marc was telling Jake. Jake could remember very vividly being able to see Steven and Marc, but as he viewed the memory now, it was just one being in the room. He hadn't yet realized that they were all in Marc's head, and seeing it now made him a bit emotional.
"¿Por qué no? She deserves it." Thinking back on it, Jake had no idea when he had learned Spanish or where he had developed his New York accent. He had just... always had it.
"I like my mum. I think she's the most wonderful mum in the world," Young Steven said naively. Jake noticed how their posture changed depending on who was speaking. Steven was hunched over a coloring book. Jake had his favorite hot wheels car next to him. Marc was content with just sitting on the floor talking to them both.
"Sometimes I wish I could kill my mom," Young Marc admitted. "But I don't think I could ever kill anyone. Even if they deserve it."
"I could. I think people should face punishment when they hurt me. Or you two. Yous are my best friends. I would never let anyone hurt you," Young Jake said, his eyes full of both fire and love.
Young Marc fronted then, and he smiled. "I know. I hope I never lose you guys."
Jake felt his anger rise again and he turned around, ready to slam the door, but the scene changed then, and he was confronted with another memory before he even had the chance to back out.
"Hey, Marc, you freak!" A bully from their childhood called out. "Or is it Steven today? Where's my lunch money you fuckin' redcoat?" Boy, insults in middle school were really something else.
Young Marc rolled his eyes. "It's Marc. And I'm not giving you my lunch money, Kyle."
The kid named Kyle, who was about twice their weight and probably about four or five inches taller than them, stepped up to Young Marc. "Then I guess I'll just have to take it from you."
He punched Young Marc in the gut, and didn't wait for Marc to fall to his knees before socking him again. He kicked Marc, who was grunting, unwilling to fight back for what Jake assumed was fear of their mother's wrath.
Jake did not fear her, though, and he watched as Marc disassociated, and young Jake came to the front. Jake didn't take any of Kyle's shit.
He stood up and grabbed Kyle by the throat, pushing him up against the lockers. "¿Quieres intentarlo de nuevo?" Jake asked the kid. He watched as the kid's eyes widened in fear of the boy. "Give us your lunch money and I won't humiliate your ass right here in the middle of the hallway."
The kid's fear fell for a moment and he scoffed. "You really think you can take me, Spector? I'll kick your ass right now!"
Young Jake gave him a toothy grin. "It's Jake Lockley, actually," he said, and threw his fat ass onto the floor. "Show me what you got, coño."
Kyle stood up and threw a punch at Young Jake, but Young Jake was faster. He ducked under Kyle's fist and socked him right in the gut, where Kyle had hit Marc earlier. Kyle doubled over in pain, and young Jake attacked his face now that they were closer to eye-level. He scratched, he punched, he kicked. He did anything he could to hurt the kid that had just hurt one of the other people in the system.
Jake remembered how he had blacked out, losing control of himself until the kid was on the floor, bloodied, bruised, unconscious, and gasping for air.
That was the day there were expelled from their middle school. The day Marc was beaten senseless. The day their father finally decided to take them to Putnam.
"That wasn't me, Dad! It was Jake!" Marc had tried, in the car on the way home from the incident. Their stomach still hurt from being hit earlier.
"Marc, I'm tired of these excuses. You're 13 years old. You can't keep blaming things on your imaginary friends. Jake and Steven aren't real, Marc."
"They aren't imaginary, Dad! They're real!"
"You know your mother isn't going to like this."
There was silence after that. "I'm sorry," Jake said from the reflection in the window, the first time Jake hadn't fronted when he was talking to Marc.
"I wish I could forget that you even existed."
And he had. Their stay in Putnam was the last time Marc had ever acknowledged Jake's existence.
Jake blinked, and he was staring at himself sitting in the chair in the therapist's office, the one that looked similar to Fake Harrow's office. There were slight differences, but Jake could see why it would manifest in Marc's mind the way that it had.
"Am I speaking to Marc Spector, Steven Grant, or Jake Lockley?" The therapist asked him.
Young Jake scoffed. "Jake, obviously. But trust me, you're gonna wish you were talkin' to one of the other two," he said.
"Hm. And why is that?"
"Because I ain't too nice too strangers."
"Ah. You're the one that beat up that boy at your school, no?"
"He was askin' for it."
Jake wished he could forget this. He wished he could forget every moment of that place. He hated it. He hated all of it.
"Would you consider yourself a protector?"
Jake remembered how the question had caught him off guard.
"A... protector? What... would I be protecting?"
The therapist had looked him deep in the eyes. "Well, your system of course."
"My... system?"
"Yes. Jake, you are what we call a system. You, Marc, and Steven have Dissociative Identity Disorder. There's a host, and there are two of you who we call alters. Alters are a result of repeated trauma and disassociation, hence the name of the disorder. Basically, whoever the host is has created two other people that live inside of him to help him cope with the trauma. Fronting is when the alter is out in the world, like you're doing now. The protector of the system is the alter who is believed to protect the system from physical and emotional harm from other people."
It had been a lot of information for young Jake to digest. "So I'm not... real?"
"Jake, you are as real as anyone else in this hospital."
"What about Marc and Steven? Are they real?"
"As real as you are."
Young Jake sat to think for a moment. "But they don't... they don't want me around," he had admitted. It was rare that Jake allowed himself to be vulnerable anymore. There was really no exception when he was a kid, but there were moments where even Jake Lockley, seemingly as cold as ice, broke down his walls.
"Jake, you might have some more... unconventional methods of protection, I'll admit, but you are just as important in the system as Marc and Steven are."
He looked down at the floor, barely able to stomach the pain that came with knowing how Marc and Steven looked at him. They thought he was evil. Jake had thought that for awhile, too, but his whole life had changed that day. When he looked back up, it was no longer Young Jake sitting in the chair, but Young Steven. The look in his eyes was vastly different from Jake's. It had always been easy for Jake to tell who was fronting. The vibes between the three were always different.
Still, Jake didn't remember this. He wondered if Steven did, though he doubted it.
"Where.. where am I?" Young Steven asked, looking terrified. Jake couldn't blame him.
The therapist gave him her best friendly face. "You must be Steven, right? My name is Elisa Warsame. I'm your doctor."
"Doctor? Am I sick?"
"Well. Not physically." She smiled. Jake thought he was going to be sick. She never cared about them. She thought they were sick. She thought they were insane. In her mind, healing could only be done by "fusing" the three of them into one person. Well, she would hate to see the person they were now. "But you do have a disorder. I was just telling your friend Jake about it. Do you know Jake?"
Young Steven's eyes lit up at the mention of Jake. Jake had to wipe his eyes. "Of course I know him! He's one of my best friends. Him and Marc. They come over to my house all the time to play." Young Steven looked down a bit. "Sometimes Jake scares me, but he means well, I think."
"Yes, well, Jake and Steven are there with you right now. Can you feel them?"
"...Feel them?"
"Yes. They're with you inside your head."
"Inside my head...? Like an imaginary friend?"
The doctor hesitated. "Well, sort of, but they're very much real. You all are. You're part of what we call a system. That's when one person has had repeated trauma and they create two new people inside of their head to cope with it."
"No... no, that's not right. I can see them. They come over all the time. My dad is friends with Marc's dad. Jake said he wished he could kill his mum. I don't want to kill my mum. We're different people, we-"
"Yes! You are different people, Steven. But you all share the same body."
"No! You're wrong. We don't even live together. Why are you doing this to me? I want to go home! I miss my mum!" Young Steven began to cry, and so badly did Jake want to comfort him and tell him it was ok. Jake hadn't even realized he was crying until he felt his warm tears fall onto his hands. "I don't want to be here anymore!"
And then, he wasn't, and Young Marc was in his place.
Jake couldn't remember how long it was before Steven fronted again. Years, probably. And, when he had come back, he didn't remember Jake or Marc. He just wanted to live out his peaceful life in London, working at a museum and shoving his nose in books. Jake couldn't even recall a time in their teenage years when Steven had come out. Jake supposed it was unlikely that Steven was dormant for over a decade, but he really had no idea. Jake's memory throughout that time was spotty, too.
"So. This is the hospital, huh?" Young Marc asked. Elisa Warsame nodded. "Do you remember coming here?"
Young Marc nodded. "Dad told us he was taking us here after Jake beat up that boy from school." He paused for a minute. "Do you think Steven is okay?"
The doctor smiled. "I'm sure he'll be fine. But I'd like to talk to you, Marc. Do you know what Dissociative Identity Disorder is?"
Young Marc nodded slowly. "It's what we have... right? I know that Steven and Jake aren't real but... they're real to me. They help me."
"Yes, that's right. They're there to protect you."
"Well, sometimes Jake makes me mad. I wish I didn't know he existed so that I wouldn't get so angry with him. He hurts people. I don't want to hurt anyone."
The doctor thought about that for a moment. "Well, we can't make him go away, but... we might be able to help you with that."
Wait. What? What the fuck?
Was it... it was the doctor's fault that Marc forgot about him? She fulfilled his wish? Marc was... willing to go through with it?
Jake wanted to throw up. Marc had never wanted him around. He was born by circumstance, and Marc hated him so much that he was willing to completely forget about him.
He felt another round of sobs rack in his chest. He hated the doctor. He wished he could go back to Putnam just so he could beat her ass.
Jake couldn't take it anymore. He turned around and walked away from the memory, slamming the door behind him. He dropped to his knees on the floor of the hallway. Marc hated him. He had wanted to forget him, and he got his wish. That goddamn doctor, the one that filled him with all those drugs to silence Steven and Marc, had let Marc forget him.
Or...
Maybe it wasn't the drugs that silenced them. Maybe it had been her all along, and she filled him with those drugs to bring them back. Jake wanted them back. But they didn't want him. And he knew he was just going to have to live with that. Fuck.
Jake let one final sob escape his throat before struggling to his feet. He looked through the door next to him and noticed a desert and two figures standing in the distance. He knew he shouldn't let his curiosity get the better of him, but what did he have to lose at this point? He pulled on the handle and stepped into the room, and immediately regretted his decision.
He recognized this place.
He turned around to leave, but the door was replaced with endless miles of desert. He turned around again, and that's when he saw her.
Marlene.
Jake slowly approached her body and dropped to his knees again. She looked the same as she always did. Her hair was worn the same. She was wearing her favorite tank top, and a necklace that Jake had gotten her for Christmas one year. She was lying in a pool of blood at the base of a dune and her eyes were closed tightly. Jake knew it was just a memory, but he reached for her anyway. He was surprised when he was actually able to take her hand in his. He watched as a tear fell onto her face, and he withheld a sob. "Marlene," he whispered. "Mi amor. Lo siento mucho. You didn't deserve this. It was all my fault. Todo culpa mía..."
Marlene's father was an archaeologist, like Layla's was. In fact, their dads were close friends. Jake supposed he should have put two-and-two together sooner, as the pair often worked together and Jake was present the night of Marlene and her father's murder. He should have known that Abdullah El-Fouly would have been present as well.
It was Jake's fault, really. He couldn't protect them. He and Marc both tried. Mostly Marc. And Jake still blamed himself for letting them get shot and having to make a deal with Khonshu just to survive.
The job was simple. Find out any information they could about Khonshu's tomb. Bushman didn't care about the historical significance of the tomb nor about the priceless artifacts. He wanted to be Khonshu's avatar. Jake hadn't cared about that, didn't even know what that had meant, so he had played along. He knew Bushman was a ruthless man and would do anything to get his hands on what he wanted, but he didn't think it meant killing every witness at a scene where no crime had even taken place.
Layla's father and Marlene's father were both interrogated, with Jake standing a bit off in the distance, Jean-Paul DuChamp (or Frenchie, as most people called him) next to him. He watched as Bushman shot Marlene's father, clearly not satisfied with the information he had received. It had startled both Jake and Frenchie, and Marlene, never one to back down from a challenge, screamed. He began berating Bushman, and before Jake could tell her to stop, he shot her down too.
He remembered the order for no witnesses. The panic. The fear. The scrambling for a place to hide. All as Jake was weeping over Marlene. At least, until Marc had taken over.
Marc had no idea what was happening, but he was trying to help people away as Bushman tore through the camp, shooting anyone he deemed a threat. Frenchie hadn't moved, and it was why he had survived, and Marc nearly hadn't.
Jake exhaled, kissed Marlene's hand, and stepped away from her body. He knew he needed to let go, but he couldn't. He just couldn't seem to let go.
Suddenly, he watched as Marlene opened her eyes. "Marlene?" He called out, hoping to whatever god existed that she could hear him.
She sputtered out a breath and he watched as blood dribbled down her chin. "J-Jake," she whispered. She didn't look at him, though, and Jake began searching, trying to find help from someone. Something. Anything.
Suddenly, Moon Knight appeared out of nowhere, scooping her up and running away. Marc had... Marc had saved her. Khonshu had saved her. Marlene could still be alive.
He looked back towards the temple of Khonshu and noticed the two figures were no longer there. The two figures, whom Jake had only just realized were Marc and Steven. They were here. They were also looking back through old memories.
Could they see Jake's memories, too? Jake had seen only brief glimpses into Marc and Steven's memories, memories that Jake suspected they couldn't remember anyway. With any luck, Jake was still hidden from them both.
Jake walked out of the memory, still reeling from the fact that his girlfriend of four years could still be alive.
He was back in the hallway with the many doors of memories. Some were locked and offered only mere glimpses into the memory. Moon Knight beating up a jackal in the bathroom of the museum. Mr. Knight and Khonshu turning back the night sky. The street of their childhood home, where a distressed-looking Marc was drinking from a flask. Some memories were heavier than others. That one in particular left a sour taste in Jake's mouth.
Jake didn't want to be here anymore. He wanted to leave. He wanted a way out. Needed a way out. He couldn't handle all of these emotions. He wasn't meant to. It wasn't what he was made for.
What he was made for...
Suddenly, he found himself back in their childhood bedroom. They looked to be about 12. The age that Steven and Jake had been born.
It was Young Marc. He had his hands wrapped around his knees for comfort and he was hyperventilating. Suddenly, there was a banging at the door, and Young Marc whimpered in fear. "It's not Mom. It's not my mom," he whispered to himself. He scrunched his eyes closed and put his head back down. "It's not my mom. It's not my mom."
"Marc, open this door," the bitch demanded from outside the door. Oh, God. This was how Steven and Jake were born. He already knew. "Open this door right now."
Jake clenched his fists in anger. "It's not my mom," Young Marc whispered, his voice quivering.
The banging continued. "Open this door!"
"It's not my mom." Young Marc shot a quick glance at the door, then put his head back down. "It's not my mom."
Jake watched as the kid's eyes rolled up in the back of his head, and Steven came forward for the first time. "Bloody hell! Look at the state of this place! Better clean it up before Mum sees it," Young Steven said, and began to pick up the writing utensils that Jake was sure Young Marc had thrown on the floor in his anger.
Jake sighed. Steven. The epitome of innocence. The man who loved his mother. The man who knew no better.
"Marc. Open this door, right now!" The banging continued. Jake wished he had beat her up when he'd had the chance. He would have sacrificed his own existence just for Marc to be happy. They deserved the mother that Steven thought he had. They never deserved this. None of them did. "Open this door right now!" Wendy screamed, her voice cracking from anger.
Finally, the door broke, and the bitch looked at Young Steven, fire in her eyes that Jake had seen a thousand times before.
"You're gonna learn," she said, grabbing the belt that was hanging up on the bookshelf for an occasion just like this, "to listen." She walked over to Young Steven, and Jake watched as he switched again, with Jake's first appearance happening at the least ideal time. "Why do you have to make me do this?" She asked, swinging the belt and hitting him in the face. "You disgusting human," she spat, swinging the belt again.
Jake remembered the feeling of the beatings. How he feared that if he cried, she would beat him more. If he screamed, she'd hit him harder. If he begged their dad for help, he would get nothing but apologetic looks and pathetic attempts at resolution. He took all of the physical pain for Marc and Steven. He always had. It was what he was made for. Maybe that was why he was so angry all the time. Maybe that was why he was so willing to resort to violence. Violence was all he'd ever known. He had been born into it, quite literally.
Jake missed Marc and Steven. He really could have used them.
There was a rumble below his feet, and Jake looked around, confused. What weird shit was happening now?
He turned around and began to walk, until he found himself on a boat. Two men that looked like him were wearing white and navy, and they walked ahead of him. There they were. Marc and Steven.
"Taweret? What's happening?" Steven asked, and that was when Jake noticed the hippo.
Huh. So it was real after all.
Jake hid himself behind the door that they had all come through, peeking out a crack in the door carefully so that the other two wouldn't see him.
"I've never seen the gates to the world above so close," the hippo said.
It talked, too? Maybe they were insane.
"How do we open them?" Marc asked.
"I'm so sorry." Jake pulled back from behind the door as the hippo turned around, facing his direction. "Your scales never balanced."
Scales? What was going on?
"Our journey's come to an end. I cannot stop the inevitable. I was really rooting for you guys, but the unbalanced souls of the Duat now must claim yours."
Jake finally began to piece together what was happening. This was some sort of Egyptian afterlife thing. They were dead, apparently, and the memories were there so that they could somehow balance their scales and make their way to what Jake assumed was some sort of Egyptian heaven. He still had no idea what a talking hippo had to do with all of it, but his brain hurt enough as it was.
So, because their scales were unbalanced, they were going to Hell? What did the Egyptians view as Hell? And why didn't Marc and Steven's scales balance? Did it have something to do with Jake?
The hippo walked by him without noticing him (thankfully), and Jake peered back out again.
He heard some kind of weird screeching noise that reminded him uncomfortably of the gross beings from that tomb. Marc looked over at him, and he shrunk back again, but once he knew that Marc was occupied with whatever was making that screeching noise, he peered out again. He couldn't help it. It had been since they were kids the last time the three of them could see each other, and Jake hated how comforting it was for him.
"Marc, they don't look very friendly," Steven joked dryly, but Jake could see the terror in his eyes.
"Hide. Hide!" Marc told Steven, and the Brit obeyed, getting behind the large structure that appeared to be used to steer the ship.
"Gabon, New York, Dubai," Marc said, scanning the faces of the sand creatures that looked to be out to get them. Jake found it interesting that Marc could remember every life he'd taken. Jake had stopped counting after awhile. They all began to blur together. Sometimes he'd kill someone, and the only face he'd see would be Marlene's.
No, she was alive. She had to be alive.
Jake shook the thought away and continued to watch as Marc began to fight the sand creatures. "Watch out, watch out, watch out!" Steven contributed, and Jake held his breath. There were too many of them.
One grabbed Marc by the neck with a rope, and Marc simply reached back and began punching the thing. He punched the creature in front of him, but the creature that held him from behind continued to pull him towards the edge of the boat. "Oh, no!" He heard Steven exclaim. "Taweret!" He called out, helplessly, and Jake watched nervously and Marc was pulled closer and closer to the edge.
Marc screamed. Jake needed to help him. But that meant revealing himself. And Marc didn't want him around.
He hesitated. Jake Lockley never hesitated.
Before he could make a decision, he was thrown sideways as the boat turned violently to the left as Steven pulled on the lever he was hiding behind. The boat then uprighted, and Jake grunted as he rolled across the floor.
He picked his cap up off the floor that had fallen when he was thrown and brushed himself off before returning to his place behind the crack in the door. Marc and the sand creatures had been thrown as well, saving Marc from what Jake could only assume would have been the worst case scenario.
Marc was just standing up when a creature hit him in the face with a baseball bat. Jake gasped in shock at the same time Steven did. "Oh, God!" Steven said, throwing his hand up to his face. Marc was still conscious, as he slowly moved himself so that he was facing the sky, but it wasn't enough, Jake knew. He needed help. "Marc," Steven called out nervously. "You got this!" The man paused a moment. "But if I'm you..." There was suddenly a fire in the man's eyes that Jake had never seen before. Something they had seen had changed Steven. "It means I've got this, too."
The man yelled, then grabbed a sand creature that was walking over to Marc. He threw the creature down on the ground violently. Jake's eyes widened in both shock and pride. Steven wasn't done, though. He grabbed the baseball bat that had been used to hit Marc and ran over to the two creatures that held him. Steven swung the bat one time, hitting both the creatures hard enough to dissolve into a pile of sand. "Six!" He exclaimed, then smiled. "I prefer cricket."
Jake could see that Marc was just as impressed with the usually soft-spoken man as he was.
He watched as the creature Steven had tackled stood up and walked towards them, but Steven clearly wasn't having it. He hit the creature in the knees, and it fell with a screech. Then, he hit it in the head, likely killing it, but Steven clearly didn't care. He began pounding the thing until it was nothing more than a pile of sand, likely unable to control himself. Marc sat up slowly, his mouth agape as Steven violently attacked the sand creature. Jake suspected that his own expression wasn't much different. He had never seen Steven so... angry.
When he finally regained control of himself, he flicked his hand in pain, probably hurting from holding the bat too tightly in his grasp. He looked back to Marc and gave a thumbs up, though, and Jake smiled, a warm feeling of pride swelling in his chest.
There was another screech, and Marc's face dropped as two sandy hands wrapped around him. "No! No!"
Steven gasped, then ran over to Marc. "Marc! Marc, no!"
He tackled the creature.
Right off the damn ship.
Jake gasped. Marc gasped.
"Steven!" Marc cried out in terror in pain.
Fuck. Fuck, not Stevie.
"Steven! Steven!" Marc's voice cracked dangerously. Jake wanted to go comfort him, but he felt frozen. He couldn't get himself to move. Sheer panic had taken ahold of him. He was too scared to move. Jake Lockley. Too scared. It was not a good mix.
"Steven!" Marc called out again.
Jake couldn't see Steven, but he could hear him. "Wait!" He heard. "Wait!" He could feel his eyes welling up with tears again.
"Steven! Run!" Marc told him, but Jake knew it was probably pointless. A soft sob escaped him.
"Wait!"
"Wait, he's coming!" Marc said, likely talking to the hippo lady that Jake could see from where he was sitting. She was standing in the hallway, her back to him, shaking her head sadly. "Keep- stop the boat. Stop the boat!"
"Wait! Wait!" Steven called back, his voice faltering a bit.
"Steven!" Marc called back, and Jake felt something in his chest, as if...
As if Steven was disappearing.
"No, no, no! Steven!" He knew Marc could feel it, too. And he was probably watching it happen right in front of his eyes.
"Marc!" Jake heard, with a bit of emphasis put on the "c", before he felt Steven's presence disappear. It was like having a band-aid ripped off. The pain lasted for only a second, but he could still feel the tingle of where Steven had once been. Jake suddenly felt hollow. His existence was entirely predicated on how Marc and Steven lived their lives, and now, one of them was gone. He looked up to see if the hippo had heard him sobbing, but she was gone.
"Stop the boat! Stop the boat!" Marc yelled.
He heard a clink, then a gasp. "The scales are balanced," the hippo said, and then, Jake felt Marc ripped away from him, too.
The pain was too much.
He broke down and sobbed, banging his hand on the floor of the boat. He was truly alone. The one thing he had always wished for but never actually wanted. Marlene was presumed dead. Khonshu was imprisoned. Marc and Steven were gone. Jake had no one anymore.
The door behind him opened, and Jake faced the hippo, who gasped. "Who are you?" She asked.
Jake wiped his face and stood up, attempting to look somewhat presentable. "Soy Jake. Jake Lockley."
"Oh, there are three of you!" The exclamation came as more of a question, but Jake didn't say anything. He had nothing to say to her. She had let Marc and Steven be taken away from him. "Well, this is awkward. The fate of your er... brothers... has already been decided. They didn't tell me anything about a third-"
"They don't know I exist," Jake explained quickly. "Well... didn't."
The hippo- Taweret, Jake remembered- nodded. "I see. Well, I suppose I should weigh your heart as well..."
"Don't," Jake said, grabbing her... oddly, human-shaped hand. "I don't deserve it. I deserve to be here for the rest of eternity, wallowing in my pity and replaying everything I did wrong when we were alive."
Taweret went silent at that. "That is against protocol, you do realize?"
Jake forced out a chuckle. "Marc and Steven are gone. I'm all alone. I've always been all alone. I meant nothing to them. They didn't know I existed and now I'm here. I don't care what your protocol states. I don't deserve the Heaven nor Hell. I deserve this purgatory. Please. Leave me be."
Taweret sighed. "Well. I suppose it can't hurt anyone. After all, the three of you aren't exactly conventional travelers." She chuckled. "Are you... sure that this is what you want?"
Jake nodded, then turned away from her. He couldn't wait to get out of there, and he opened the first door he could find.
"Jake, you can't kill your mom...."