Pathos - A Duskwood Fanfiction

Chapter 2

Jake, please

Please just let me know if you are okay

Still alive?

Alan says that he doesn't know anything but I don't believe him

Hannah said that she saw you. That you made it out before the explosion. She was absolutely certain that it was you. There was no way she could have known that you were there otherwise, unless Richy told her, but Richy couldn't have known, could he?

I have no way of knowing

Did the FBI find you

Are you in prison

Or worse

Did Richy find you? Did he hurt you?

It's actually kind of hilarious that I don't know your last name. Or even if Jake is your real first name. So it's not like I can call up the FBI all casual to ask if they've found Jake the Hacker. Because despite what Dan says, I have a feeling that your last name isn't "Hackerman" and I don't think that the FBI would find the suggestion funny either

You said

That you would not disappear.

You promised me.

Just like I promised you that I would not go to Duskwood.

Stupidest fucking promise that I have ever made. I should have been there. I should be there NOW.

But I'm not

Because I made a promise. A horrible fucking promise that I never would have made if I had known

If I had known what was going to happen.

All those times. You asked me to trust you. It got harder and harder to do but I did it

I had no choice.

If I thought it was difficult to trust you back then... it was nothing compared to now

I'd give anything to only be wondering if you had kidnapped Hannah or if staying silent about a video of Cleo running through the forest was truly the wisest option

If you arent in prison and if you are alive then

You askng for my trust again through your silence

Is realy fucking cruel

As the messages poured in, one after the other, they became a punishing cascade of words that Jake could only process by sitting motionless and staring at the monitor screen silently.

The joy and overwhelming sense of relief that he had initially felt at being able to read her words once again had run through him like an electric current - she was safe - and had left him lightheaded. But with each successive text, the joy and relief began to fade away like smoke, billowing and curling up and away from him until it was gone completely.

Slowly filtering into its place was a familiar, all-encompassing, and strangely soothing feeling: dread. As his eyes took in each word that she wrote, they flickered back and forth as he read and re-read their syntax, parsing each message in complete silence.

What had happened in the mine had done something to him. He couldn't pinpoint its exact nature, but he could feel it attached like a parasite to each waking moment. He could feel it sink its teeth into every second of reality, tarnishing every quasi tolerable emotion with a patina of wrongness.