Jack was beyond a miserable state by the time he made it back to his office. His body barely functioning between the cold of the night and the damage from what had happened in the alleyway. His hands trembling so badly, that as he pulled out his runestone it clattered to the floor twice before he managed to hold it up to the door to unlock it.
Fumbling with the door handle he opened it only to fall onto the floor on the other side. No matter how much he was able to ignore the pain, his body was barely functioning by this point. In the warmth of his office, he began to shiver uncontrollably. It had been years since he had last been as close to dying as he had today. Attempting to pick himself up didn’t accomplish anything as his body was too weak now to support itself. Groaning Jack spun himself to shut the door and crawled into the adjoining bathroom. Grabbing onto the sink Jack slowly pulled himself upright to look at himself in the mirror. He never liked to look at himself, as it always brought back a rush of negative emotions. While he longer hated himself as he used to, seeing the face in the mirror so similar to his mothers reminded him of things he would prefer not to think about.
Shaking off the melancholy and anger that swept over him for a brief moment, Jack looked at his reflection. His black hair was soaking wet and slicked down across his forehead, so dark it looked almost as if it were an abyss that one could fall into. His skin was beyond pale, with his cheekbones defined by the emaciated look of his face it was almost as if a corpse was staring out of the mirror back at him. His brain was sluggish and struggling to work, he could see that other than his skin something was different and wrong but he just couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Besides that, his body was barely working and he needed to fix it, but how? He struggled to think of what he should do to help himself. After a moment one word came to him. Heat. He needed to get heat back into his body. By this point, he couldn’t manage to use mana at all. His brain was already over-exerted from what he had done to himself back in the alley along with channeling mana for hours as he made his way back to the office. It was a miracle he hadn’t dropped dead along the way, and he wouldn’t let himself fail now that he had gotten here.
Swaying dangerously, his grip started to fail. Jack caught himself and came back to the present. Shower, he could use the shower. He lowered himself back to the floor not wanting to chance falling again. Arms barely functioning Jack pulled himself into the tub in the corner of the room. Looking at the glyphs in front of him he slammed his hands on the wall and attempted to pull up the mana within. For the first time in forever, nothing responded. Over and over again Jack tried to pull the magic forth, each time failing to do so. Each time becoming more desperate. It reminded him of his childhood when he first attempted to feel the magic of the world.
His desperation now only made the parallels stronger, as he was so desperate back then to prove that he wasn’t the failure his mother always claimed he was. The reason for the desperation might be different, but the feeling itself raged the same. Tears of frustration poured down Jack’s face as he slumped against the wall. He couldn’t have come so far, tried so hard only to fail here. No! He hadn’t yet accomplished what he had promised himself he would. He had refused to give up when he essentially crippled himself by becoming a jack of all trades. He had sworn that he would prove his mother wrong for abandoning him for being weak, he would prove the world wrong for looking down upon jacks. He would never give up.
Forcing himself back to a standing position. Jack breathed deeply trying to center himself. If he was stuck now like he had been back when he first learned to pull magic into himself, then fine. He had managed before and he would do it again. Thinking back to the first time that he had been successful. He thought of how his mind had felt, the strange almost fluidity of mana when it first came into him. Slowly he sent his mind out just as he had back on that day. Letting his mind spread out slowly, gently, like small ripples across the surface of a pond, rolling out then back in with mana from the world. While not much came back, the small amount that did was like water to a man dying of thirst in the desert. Laughing in almost delirious joy Jack repeated the maneuver over and over again, drawing in as much mana as he could. He then used what little willpower he had left to try to purify it, even just slightly so that he could use it properly. The small amount he accumulated and purified he pushed into the glyphs and soon hot water fell upon him soaking him and his clothing.
Barely holding back a scream of agony, Jack whimpered as he collapsed into the bottom of the tub the water streaming down over him. His flesh was so cold that the hot water felt as if it was flaying his skin from his body. Shuddering to find the strength Jack attempted to take off any of the clothes he was wearing. He was too exhausted to manage even a single article. No matter how much it hurt, he forced himself to sit back up and hooked his arms over the sides of the tub. That was all he managed before his body and mind, strung far beyond what he should have managed finally gave out and Jack collapsed into unconsciousness.
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Jack always hated it when he came home. It was always cold and quiet in the house. The first lesson he had ever learned was to be silent. If he made a noise, he was lucky if missing dinner was the only thing that happened. It was only when he first went to school that he discovered he was supposed to talk. The other children made fun of him, slow and stupid they called him because he couldn’t say the words they could. He had never tried. He knew how they sounded but to say them himself was a whole other story.
He worked hard, trying his best to be able to speak the words that everyone else knew without trouble. Repeating to himself quietly everything he heard at school. But as soon as he returned to the house… he knew better. He improved quickly. Quickly enough that one of the teachers took notice. With how fast he had learned why could he not speak before? Why was he so much smaller than many of his classmates? Eventually, they talked to Jack, nicely and calmly. They got Jack to open up back to them. A week later, they were gone and nobody but Jack remembered them. It was a strange and terrible week for Jack. She had made sure that he was punished for breaking the silence. She carved markings on his skin that caused his body to spasm and hurt. To feel like needles were pushed up under his fingernails and into his eyes. But afterward, there was no marking left to show his suffering. It was also the first time when she punished him that food was in abundance rather than a dearth of it. It took Jack a long time to figure out why.
Silence was the first lesson Jack learned. It was not the last.
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Jack awoke, his body cramping in pain. His belly rumbled in hunger, starving from however long it had been from the last time Jack had eaten. Sitting up, water still streaming over him the dream and memories associated with it slammed into Jack. He promptly vomited all over himself. Heaving everything in his body out in horror. Shuddering Jack burst into tears. No matter how much time went by, no matter that he was no longer bound to her. That she finally had become bored of him and left so long ago. He would always be haunted by her ghost.
He tightened his fingers into fists, his nails biting into the flesh of his palms. No. He would not let her win. He was stronger than that. While her ghost may haunt him, he would not let it define him. He would be better than her, bringing truth and comfort to people. Not just misery and pain.
Jack slowly stood up in the tub. He quietly and calmly stripped off the soaked clothing and scrubbed himself down. Cleaning off the bile and grime from his latest mishap. Stepping out he plugged the drain and scrubbed the clothes. While they were in a rather terrible state he didn’t have tons of good work clothing to spare, much less another good heavy coat. Once he finished cleaning, he turned off the shower. He saw that the glyphs would need to be redone after being left on for however long he had been laying there. Jack gently squeezed out his clothes and hung them up on the towel rack, making sure to activate the rune on the end to dry items quicker. Taking the threadbare towel that he had there he wrapped it around himself and went back over to the mirror. His memories were a bit hazy but he remembered that something last night had been off about it. Dreading to look at himself he took a few deep breaths before finally looking.
There peering back at Jack was a face that haunted his nightmares. The same dark hair, the same face shape. Luckily there were some differences. The different hairstyle, the scruffy beard, and… different eyes? Jack blinked in surprise. His eyes had always been a deep sparkling blue like a dark sapphire jewel. Looking at them now though they were… different. Jack couldn’t figure out what the difference was at first. The color was the same, the size didn’t look different. He just had a gut feeling that something was changed and altered. Minutes of staring later Jack couldn’t tell what it was. It was only when he started to turn away that he finally noticed what had changed. His eyes didn’t move. No matter what way he focused his eyes were staying absolutely still. It was as if his vision wasn’t coming from his eyes anymore. Jack took a steadying breath. If that was the case, he would have to pay attention to see if there were any differences in his vision going forward. No matter, he could at least still see. Or at least had something that his brain registered as sight.
Jack moved out of the bathroom into the office proper. He went over to the other small door and opened it to his small bedroom. Almost all of the room was taken up by the bed with the remaining space containing a small wardrobe. Jack reached in and pulled out a clean set of clothing and quickly dressed. He sighed for a moment and reached underneath the wardrobe and pulled out a small warded box. Slowly he traced several glyphs onto the metal box until there was a flash of light and a small click. The top of the box popped open.
Looking in there were several different papers, ids, and small magical trinkets. Jack didn’t like to use what was stored here too often as any use at all could and often would compromise the identities and the trinkets were limited use requiring a great deal of time or expensive materials to replace. These were generally supposed to be for emergencies only. It looked like for this case he would need to use at least a couple of them. He lamented again at his inability to keep his mouth shut. Shuddering a moment as that concept reflected upon horrors pushed to the back of his mind. Either way, it was too late now so he would have to mitigate the damage his choices made toward his investigation. He looked through and nabbed two identities that looked like they would work fairly well. He also grabbed a small jade earring and a ruby necklace. These trinkets would allow him to disguise his features and mana respectively. Today he needed to actually make it over to the Northward Hunters Association, and tonight… tonight he would do what he needed to check the other agencies.