All That's Left When Everything Else is Gone

Disclaimer: Why do I bother with these things? I’m not Naughty Dog!

Far less actiony than the last chap., Also introducing a minor OC in the story. Took me longer to get this finished ‘cause I was playing around with what Torn is experiencing. Basically figuring out what works and what doesn’t. It’ll make sense at the end. Song is ‘Fallen’ sung by Sarah McLachlan. just stick around for the next chap, okay?

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We all begin with good intent
Love was raw and young
We believed that we could change ourselves
The past could be undone
But we carry on our backs the burden
Time always reveals
The lonely light of morning
The wound that would not heal
It's the bitter taste of losing everything
That I have held so dear.

'That one looks like a zoomer.' Torn thought. Hazily he realized that watching cloud shapes when one was bleeding to death wasn’t the wisest of things to do. After Jak had come out of it he’d fallen onto him and Torn, weak from blood loss hadn’t the strength to move the body pinning him to the ground. Things were getting fuzzier than what they had been five minutes ago. He should get up and get back inside the city. But he was just too damn tired and in too much pain. 'Hmm… that one looks like a croca-dog.' He really had to get up. But he was so comfortable. Torn tried to focus his suddenly hazy vision. Dammit he had to get up, now. Torn shoved Jak’s body to one side wincing when the movement made his shoulder hurt like a bitch.

Torn forced himself to his knees. Nearly collapsed when doing so made everything spin alarmingly. Blinking Torn stared down at the blood coating the ground, wondered how much of it was his and much was Jak’s. Oh god, Jak. Torn looked at the body of the seventeen year old. He laid there eyes closed, yellow-green hair spread across the ground like a halo; Blood from the stab wounds stained his cloths. He looked more peaceful there than anytime Torn had seen him. Dammit, if he’d known Jak was about to snap out of it he never would have… “Too little too late.” Torn thought bitterly, then again it could have been what brought him back. He had to get to the hideout before he passed out. He didn’t have the strength to carry Jak, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to leave him out here to be torn to pieces by metal heads and whatever else came along. The thought made him sick to his stomach.

Torn carefully gathered the teen’s body and put him over his shoulder ignoring its screaming protest, he hadn’t been a KG commander for nothing. Torn stood and nearly fell, but not from the extra weight surprisingly; Jak was alarmingly light. Once inside the city he if he could grab a flyer then getting to the hideout shouldn’t be a problem. Then he had to break the news to Daxter. God he hated these things. But he could leave this one to the Shadow. Torn knew the rat would seek him out if only to rant and throw accusations at him. But Torn felt he was going to deserve every one of them. Pausing in front of the gates Torn became aware of the burning in his chest and thighs, glancing down he winced. His chest was an absolute mess. Large claw marks ran from just below his collar bone almost to his knees. On his sternum a raged hole oozed precious life providing fluids. Torn knew if the bone hadn’t slowed the advance of deadly claws he would be dead instead of Jak. Once inside the city a sudden wave of nausea forced him to let go of Jak to bend over and puke his guts out.

Torn wiped his mouth clean once whatever had upset his system had been expelled. Torn lifted Jak back on to his shoulder and made his way over to a two-seater. Carefully strapping Jak in Torn positioned him to make it look like he was sleeping. Torn frowned it was still too suspicious with the blood covering him and Jak and there was something wrong with Jak’s chest. Something other than the knife wounds but he couldn’t seem to get his eyes to focus right. Torn leaned heavily on the vehicle, rubbed his eyes but couldn’t get the black at the edge of his vision to go away. He’d lost too much blood, everything was fading out. He had to get to the Hideout NOW. Torn grabbed a ratty old blanket covered with unidentifiable stains and threw it over Jak’s torso. Stumbling around the vehicle Torn climbed into the driver’s seat where he slumped wearily for a moment before starting the ignition.

Pulling up into the high zone Torn nudged the flyer forward. Despite the urge to put petal to the metal Torn was careful not to go faster than the surrounding zoomers. For one thing his reflexes were too sluggish from blood loss to handle the flyer at anything over ten miles per hour. And driving like this was difficult as it was with one hand without careening around corners. So despite his vision leaking away into nothing Torn continued to creep forward at a snail’s pace. He couldn’t get the look on Jak’s face out of his head. Did Jak have a spilt personality? What had happened to him? These were questions that demanded an answer that was no longer relevant. Not with Jak dead.


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Eelean Flint had been apart of the Krimson Guard for six months now and this was the first time he’d been sent outside the city walls. Most of the time he was doing drills with his squad or patrolling the various streets of Haven. Yes he had joined to see action. And Yes he expected to see blood and the various other things one would expect in a war. But standing in the middle of Dead Town Eelean wondered if perhaps he’d bitten off more than he could chew. When a call had come in from one of the scouts about a large group of metal heads moving toward the city via Dead Town and Eelean’s group and several others had received orders to intercept he couldn’t have been more thrilled. Finally after six months of boring patrols and drills Eelean was ready to see some real action. But what he hadn’t expected was to be a guard dog for a clean up operation that should have been a seek and destroy mission.

He had heard stories about the carnage created by the metal heads form veteran Guards in the barracks. About how they would swarm all around you, ripping your comrades to pieces right before your eyes and how the screams of the unlucky bastards left behind in a retreat as they were eaten alive would haunt you for the rest of you life. It was an unspoken rule that anyone that fell behind was left behind. The more graphic stories made his heart race and his blood run cold but what was before him now scared him more than any story that his fellow guards had come up with. Not because it was the remains of mangled and torn KG, but because it was the monsters themselves.

From all the horrors stories he’d heard from the streets to the barracks Eelean never could have imagined a creature as dangerous and vicious to be able to slaughter over 30 metal heads and live. Slaughter it was too. Much of the area was covered with pieces of the beasts; Decapitated heads, disemboweled torsos, missing limbs, or just lumps of shredded metal meat. Whatever it had been, Eelean never wanted to be unlucky enough to meet it. But the rumors and stories about an escaped convict made Eelean more than a little uneasy. Supposedly this renegade running loose around the city was an experiment of some sort. Having obtained superhuman powers that transformed him into a monster.

The actual details were sketchy, but he had heard of a group of KG that had up and vanished right around the time these stories had begun to circulate. One of his buddies had heard that the squad had been given special clearance for some project and had been ‘disappeared’ to keep it under wraps when something went wrong. Before then one of the commanders had taken leave unexpectedly when he had a nervous breakdown over some assignment. Eelean had heard rumors that he’d been assigned to some top secret project along with Commander Erol. While most of the guards were skeptical about the supposed monster, one of Eelean’s buddies –the same one that told him about the KG squad – had been viscously attacked while on patrol in the industrial districted.

Eelean had seen what was left of the body. It had made a believer out of him and since then he’d been doubly cautious on his patrols. But this… it was too damn similar to Ace – his friend – for his comfort. He’d often wondered if he’d been there whether or not he could have saved him, but if his suspicions were correct… then Eelean would have been just as dead as Ace. There were also the numerous guards that had been killed in pursuit of the convict to consider; if the stories were true than the KG could kiss their buts good-bye.

“Private Flint!”

Eelean snapped to attention at the sound of his name. KG training kicked and automatically made him straighten his back and salute his superior. “Yes Sir, Commander Erol, Sir!” Erol regarded him with indifference. “Take this to lab analysis immediately.” Erol handed him a package. “Wait there for the results then bring them to my office.” Erol turned away for a moment then spun back around. “If I’m not there, wait outside.”

“Yes Sir!”


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Torn was able to get to the area where the slums connected to the industrial district before He ran into trouble. While notoriously slow drivers, Havenites weren’t known for their finesse and tended to get into pile ups in the most inconvenient places. So now he was stuck in traffic right at the spot right before where the narrow ally widened into the slums where the Underground was located. Too exhausted to continue to sit up now the adrenaline rush had worn off Torn slumped in his seat. Glancing at Jak Torn frowned his vision was wobbling so bad Jak looked like he was shivering. It was almost as if he were still alive. But that wasn’t a possibility; he had stabbed him through the heart. At least he thought it was the heart, everything was so fuzzy he couldn’t remember.

What he could remember was the searing pain in his wrist when caught in the adrenaline rushing through his body as he used both his hands in the final attack against Jak. Even now the splintered pieces of his wrist continued to scream in agony as the broken pieces ground together. Torn became aware of a buzzing in his head and had to fight the urge to just close his eyes and sleep. If he let himself go now he wouldn’t wake up and if by some miracle he didn’t die, should he get caught by the Guard he would be better off dead. If his suspicions were correct and Jak was an escaped experiment then Praxis would cut his body to ribbons for further research. He wasn’t going to let that happen. Jak deserved better than to be treated as a lab rat.

“Move out of the way asshole!” the incensed yells and blaring horns of the drivers behind him sluggishly drew Torn’s attention back to the road. The road was clear and now it was him who was causing the traffic problems. But Torn couldn’t move, his body was no longer responding to his commands. Torn sighed as his vision began to darken, the shouts behind him were fading into the background; too late now, he was dieing. Something was shaking him but he was too far gone to care. He was falling into darkness and he couldn’t stop the descent. He let it all leave him. Torn was able to spare a thought for what was going to happen to Jak’s body, but even that was beginning to cease having any meaning. Blackness finally closed his vision and Torn knew no more.


……………………

………………………..Torn……………

……………please………………Torn………

Torn moaned; everything hurt. Was death supposed to hurt this much? His upper body felt as if somebody poured gasoline on and took a match to it. His wrist felt three times its size. He didn’t want to wake up. Not if it meant living with this for the rest of eternity. Was this his punishment for following the Baron as long as he did? Torn guessed that the precursors had decided that he’d not done enough to make up his mistakes and sent him to hell to live in eternal damnation.

…………Torn……………

…………wake up…………..

No, it was easier just to lay here and Listen to the sound of waves crashing against the shoreline. The ebb and flow of the water was soothing, almost like a heartbeat. The crash as the wave broke then the trickle as it made its way back to its heart. As he fell deeper into the rhythm of the sea the pain he was experiencing receded to a more tolerable level and the voices calling him faded away. Torn turned his head letting his eyes open just enough to view the shoreline. It looked as peaceful as it sounded. But there was something off. Something about this peaceful scene set warning bells off in Torn’s head, telling him that everything was not as it should be. Torn forced himself onto his knees and sat up to stare at the bizarre state of the world around him.

It wasn’t moving

The sea, it was still. Not a calm, serene sea with gentle waves; but completely still. No movement what so ever, but the sound of crashing waves continued. The shoreline in front of him was stuck in a retreat, defying all sense of the laws of physics. Was he dreaming? He felt awake. But hadn’t he just been in a zoomer, in the middle of the Slums? Torn suddenly remembered, Jak! All remaining pain was forgotten as Torn stood up and examined the area frantically. If he’d ended up here surely Jak would be here as well? “J-jak?” Torn could have smacked himself for that. Jak was dead, he couldn’t answer him. But he still couldn’t believe it. He was so stupid; he never meant to kill Jak, not as long as he could still change back anyway. He had and now Jak was dead. Something snapped behind him and Torn whirled to face the threat.

“Jak!”

Torn stared at who he thought was Jak standing just outside the tree line of the beach. It looked like Jak but he was young. Well, Jak was young but this boy was younger than the Jak he knew, by a couple of years maybe. But those eyes, they were unmistakable. This Jak wore torn white pants and a sleeveless tunic. His hair was shorter and was styled up. It couldn’t be! That boy… He stared at Torn with open curiosity and an innocence that he had never seen in Jak. Torn took a step forward. “Jak?” Torn frowned when Jak recoiled, the young boyish imaged flickered for a moment and Torn saw the renegade he had come to know for a moment before the younger Jak stood before him again. What in the world? Torn took another step and stopped when Jak flickered again and Torn could see Jak glaring at him before he changed back and bolted into the woods.

Torn took off after him, leaving the strange body of water behind he bolted into the woods after Jak. Upon entering the forest he immediately lost site of Jak. The thick foliage took visibility to zero and quick movement was nearly impossible. But even so, Torn couldn’t have lost him so quick. He hadn’t been three seconds behind him; it was if he just vanished into the wind. Torn called Jak’s name again receiving no answer other than his own voice echoing off the trees. Torn pushed his way threw the dense undergrowth looking for signs of someone having passed through. Alarm bells started going off in his head again when a twig snapped somewhere not to far away. Torn suddenly had the feeling of being stalked. Something was out there. He wasn’t tracking Jak anymore. Something was tracking him.

Torn dropped low to the ground. It didn’t do much in the way of spotting his stalker but with all the plant life he was hidden better than if he remained standing. Straining his ears Torn could hear something moving through the brush across from him. Torn tensed as whatever it was got closer and closer. Low growls reached his ears; it was three feet to his left. Not taking his eyes off the general area of the unknown creature’s location Torn reached for his gun. Torn swore and almost took his eyes off the area when he came up empty. Idiot that he normally wasn’t, he hadn’t noticed the absence of his weapons. Now he was in the middle of a jungle - how had that happened anyway? - with precursors knew what stalking him. He shouldn’t have got up this morning.

The growls suddenly stop; everything going quite. The only thing he could hear was the distant sound of the ocean. Torn readied himself for the impending attack. Every muscle in his body tensed; adrenalin pumping hard through his body. The forest around him suddenly exploded with sound, all the animals letting out horrible screams. Fear pounded in his chest. Before Torn could react He was body slammed with the force of a semi that sent him crashing into a tree yards away. Torn heard the tree crack from the force of the impact and let out a groan of pain. Torn crumpled to the ground, his vision swam in and out. Something grabbed him around the neck and hauled him up. Torn shook his head to clear it. His eyes focused long enough to stare into a pair of soulless black orbs before razor sharp claws tore through his skull; shredding bone and brain.

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Torn jerked awake a cry ripped from his throat, sweat ran down his face as he wrestled with the remains of the nightmare. Hands push him back to the bed. Everywhere he hurt, from his head to his legs. And he was hot, burning hot. Pushing at the blankets covering him he tried to relieve the heat coursing through his body. It wasn’t enough; Torn moved restlessly seeking a way to cool his body. Something icy cold touch his forehead, making him gap like a fish. The cold seemed to race through his body. A soothing voice reached his ears, easing his fears and calming his racing heart. He really didn’t care about the voice; all that mattered was the wet coolness on his face. That small amount of relief allowed him to open his eyes.

Tess was leaning over him, the worry lines in her face eased a little when she saw him looking at her. “Thank goodness you awake.” Tess removed the cloth to wet it again and lay it over his forehead, “You have a fever, Torn. Take this and sleep.” Tess helped him sit up so he could sip whatever was in the cup. The soothing liquid hit the back of his throat. Its chill slid down to cool his insides, and Torn lifted his hand to cover Tess’ so he could tilt the cup further. “Easy! You are going to make yourself sick!” Torn ignored her in favor of drinking the bitter tasting- but wonderfully cool- concoction that was rapidly making him sleepy. His head felt so heavy he had trouble keeping it up. The pain was slipping away along with his awareness of his surroundings. Torn Sighed as he was eased back onto the bed, just before he totally lost it he spared a though to what had happened to Jak.

Tbc

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Ha, I’m ending here. So you’ll just have to wait to see what happens. Is Jak really dead? I’m not tellin’. Mwhahahahaha*cough*. Originally I had this going to when Torn finds out what happened to Jak Bu-----t I changed my mind.