Chains: Eyeless Jack X Reader

Chapter 22

  

{Jack's POV}

            "Who, who..." A deep yet soft voice cooed near Jack, making him grunt and his eyelids flutter open. Inches away from his face was a pair of bright gold eyes. Yelping in shock, he nearly fell from the tree branch he sat on, grabbing it with his hands at the last second. As he dangled there, he saw the outline of an owl flying away, making him scowl. If he wasn't hanging on to the branch for dear life, he'd shake a fist at it.

            "Stupid owl!" he yelled after it, and pulled himself back up. Leaning against the tree, he exhaled softly and stared at the moon, trying to remember what he was doing there. At some point after freaking out and running away from the cabin he must have fallen asleep. He must have been out for several hours; when he'd left it was still the early afternoon, but now it was already nighttime. With a final glance at the moon he sighed and carefully descended the tree, twigs and leaves snapping under his feet as he made the final drop, and stretched a bit before heading back to the cabin.

            During his walk something gray leaning against a tree caught his attention. Glancing at it, he saw it was a folded newspaper, probably dropped by some campers or something. It was the right time of year for that, and people tended to litter and drop stuff a lot. One time he found a whole tent left behind just because there was a tear in it. Though in retrospect, there were signs that Slender may have been involved...

           Anyways, newspapers were always welcome finds. Written articles contained much more information than could be shared in two-minute stories on news broadcasts. Picking it up and examining it, Jack was pleased to find that it seemed to be complete and skimmed the front page as he began the trek to the cabin. Local mother went insane and killed her daughter after stuffing her body with candy... So Laughing Jack was back in town. It'd been a while since the two Jacks had last seen each other, probably a year. Maybe he should go look for his fellow Jack later.

            Arriving at the cabin, he folded the paper and stuffed it into his pocket to read later. For now, he needed to figure out what to say when he saw [Name]. He'd run out on her during a movie, naturally she'd have questions about it. Standing at the door, he could faintly make out voices from inside followed by canned laughter. She must be watching TV, he thought with a soft sigh. Of course, she didn't care about him. She had no reason. She probably turned on the television as soon as he left.

            And for some reason, that thought hurt.

            Why should it matter if she cared about him? Frowning, Jack quietly opened the door and walked inside, expecting her to stare at him with owl eyes and scramble to turn off the TV before he yelled at her for watching it without his permission. However, there was no such reaction; she just remained sprawled on the couch. Puzzled, he walked over and saw that her eyes were closed. At some point while watching television she must have fallen asleep.

           A smirk played across his lips as he looked at [Name]'s sleeping form. She looked pretty peaceful like that... Envy twitched inside of him, not an angry one but a more wistful one. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a good night's sleep. Even his little nap just now left him feeling unrested. Sighing, he then found himself smiling. He turned off the TV, and when the loud "click" the old set made didn't rouse her, he walked to her room to retrieve her blanket. Gently covering her with it, he stepped back and smiled at the sight.

            At least someone in this house was getting a good night's sleep, right?

            With his pet properly covered, Jack made sure the front door was locked before walking to his bedroom. He wasn't really tired, but he figured he'd make less noise in his own room. Right now he didn't feel like talking to her, or anything else, really. He just wanted to be alone. Although, it felt strangely nice knowing [Name] was in the next room. It was like he wanted to be alone, but not completely alone...? Such a strange and conflicting feeling. ...He didn't like it.

            Sitting on his bed, he removed his mask and set it on the table before removing the newspaper from his pocket. Might as well read more about what good ol' LJ was up to. Reading the section on the front page, he turned to the mentioned page with the article's continuation only to stop as another article caught his eye. Paper crinkling as his grip abruptly tightened, he leaned forward and stared at the headline, his hollow eyes slowly widening.

           "STILL SEVERAL MYSTERIES ABOUT GRUESOME MOUNTAIN MURDER"

            Did it mean...? Reading the article, his suspicions were confirmed: it was about Buddy. According to the article, Buddy's body had been found just three days ago when a friend from out of town stopped by to surprise him, only to find a surprise of his own. No weapon was found at the crime scene, and based on blood splatters and trails it was believed he'd been fatally wounded elsewhere and died of blood loss after returning home. However, despite this, his body was missing all organs. Decay made it difficult to determine when he died, and whether he was alive when the organs were removed.

           Numbness filled Jack as he stared at the article. So they'd finally found out about Buddy's death. Took longer than he'd expected. Apparently the house was more isolated than he'd thought. Speculation abounded about the murder, and though the article was brief Jack was able to get the basic gist of it. Not much was known. No suspects, no witnesses, no estimated time of death... There were just too many questions without conclusive answers.

            As a testament to this, police didn't even know if [Name] should be considered missing or not.

            While there was plenty of evidence that she lived there, there was no way to know if she was living there at the time of the murder. Many of Buddy's friends didn't even remember she existed; usually they met in town, and [Name] rarely tagged along. For all anyone knew, she could just be a common house-guest or away at college, since no one even remembered her age. A few thought she was still a kid. It would help if police could find her birth certificate or social security number or something.

            And they'd never find it in Jack's nightstand.

            He smirked as he opened his drawer and pulled out a sheaf of papers, sorting through them until he came across her birth certificate. Birthday, her birthplace, parents' names... Anything he needed to know about her birth was there. He had the rest of the necessary papers, too, like insurance forms and her social security number. He'd grabbed them when they left, after putting [Name] in the car. Before leaving he'd wanted to leave as much doubt about her as possible, having gathered the papers while she was in the car, and clearly the article showed he'd succeeded in that goal.

           Sliding them back into the drawer, his smirk grew as he laid back.

            With this, [Name] officially had no where else to go.