Chains: Eyeless Jack X Reader

Chapter 14

  {Reader's POV}

            Birdsong filled the air as I stepped outside, a warm breeze ruffling my hair. Sunlight filtered through the thick canopies of leaves above us, and a smile flashed across my lips as I inhaled the air, savoring the various scents of the woods around me. It had been more than a week since I'd last been outside, and the fresh air felt and tasted amazing.

            "Come on," Jack said, snapping me out of my reverie, and I nodded as I quickly followed him. After changing out of our night clothes, Jack had grabbed a backpack and led me outside. I paused as we passed Buddy's pickup truck, casting it an uncertain glance as it raised old memories, but I turned my attention away and continued following Jack. I didn't know why he was taking me outside, but right now I wasn't complaining. I highly doubted he was taking me somewhere to kill me. It was the middle of the day, after all, and his cabin was already isolated enough. Neither of us spoke as we walked the woods, following a faint dirt trail to places unknown, but that was okay.

            I glanced around in wonder. Growing up alone in the mountains, I'd always felt a strong connection to nature, so I felt perfectly content here. Fresh green leaves littered the trail, bending as we stepped on them but being too soft to break. Shadows covered most of the ground due to the thick canopies of the trees towering above us, but the sun managed to penetrate it anyway and cast plenty of light. I heard animals scurrying among the trees, and smiled as I saw a squirrel jump from one tree to another, almost gliding through the air before landing and continuing on its way nonchalantly.

             After about fifteen minutes of walking we reached a small clearing. Several dummies hung from the trees, covered in cuts and slashes with stuffing dripping to the ground. I shuddered slightly as I realized that most of the cuts were around the locations of organs. Obviously this was where Jack practiced. He gestured for me to sit on a tree stump as he set his bag on the ground, and I used my sleeve to brush off any bugs before doing so.

            "Are you good at sewing?" he asked as he sorted through the bag, and I shrugged.

            "I'm... so-so?" I hadn't sewn that often.

            "Good enough." He tossed me a small plastic red box, and I opened it to see it was full of several pre-threaded needles and swatches of fabric. As I removed one of the needles to examine it Jack cut down one of the dummies from the tree, grunting as he carried it over to me. Patches covered its surface where the cuts were, and he quickly tore them off. Setting it on my lap, he told me, "Sew new patches on it."

            So he brought me outside just to do chores? Oh well, at least I was outside that musty room. I nodded as I removed a swatch of blue fabric and laid it over one of the holes, carefully piercing the harsh material of the dummy with the needle. Meanwhile Jack removed another dummy and set to work with his own sewing kit. We worked in silence for a while, only the symphony of nature filling the void. After about three patches my fingers were getting sore from holding the tiny needle so I decided to take a small break. A glance at Jack's dummy revealed he'd managed to patch only two more holes than I had, and much more shabbily. Weird, I thought. I'd expected him to be better, since he probably had more experience.

            Then I realized he was sewing with the bandaged hand.