REVIVE ▸ d. winchester [2] ✔

Chapter 13

295 HOURS

Jackie sits on the edge of a rocky overhang, her feet dangling into the misty air. Just a few paces to her left, a heavy flow of water falls into the depths below, crashing into a great pool of blue. The stream she had been following had gradually begun to speed up, becoming wider and stronger until it finally reached the point where it disappeared. It ended in a waterfall, leaving Jackie with an end to her path and with new decisions to make.

She had killed four more Chimeras since she had last stopped. That left her with twelve more to kill. Jackie didn't like stopping, seeing as she felt she had a job to do, one that had lives depending on her. With each break she took, she felt time slipping away from her. She wasn't sure what would happen when she finished her hunt- when she finally killed the last of Azrael's supernatural creations- but Jackie knew that time was of the essence. It was clear from the voices in her head, the ones informing her of the importance of what she was doing and urging her to fight harder, shoot faster, and be stronger. It was clear that Azrael was waiting for her to finish her job. So, it was best she kept moving.

Azrael had been ever so present since Jackie first awoke in the dark forest. But he had been slowly making himself more assertive. He was beginning to achieve a position inside of Jackie's mind that he had been yearning for since day one. It was something that, once Jackie became his Shadow, would make them inseparable, invincible.

Her thoughts would become his. His thoughts would become hers.

She had already experienced a taste of this power, although it came in a form of unexpected pain, not invincibility. Azrael creating a bridge between his and Jackie's mind had left the latter unconscious and vulnerable, and the connection did not remain strong. It was a frail and delicate link, one that slowly needed to be built from the ground up. It was one that, in the end, required absolute trust between the two subjects. Azrael did not find this difficult to achieve; once Jackie finished her task, she would have no one else to turn to but him. He would be there for her. He would be her anchor in her new world, and she would trust him. Completely.

Jackie simply had to finish her task, and she would be his. And she would have no idea. 

As Jackie's feet dangled almost carelessly over the slippery edge of the waterfall, she scoped out the land below her. In the distance she could see the edge of the pool of water that the waterfall poured into, and along the shore were large, worn rocks. There were more trees below, ones that were taller and grander compared to the thin, eerie ones Jackie had been trekking through since she arrived in her unknown location.

The trees seemed to grow right on top of the boulders, their roots easily snaking around the rocks and gripping the ground for life. Jackie's eyes caught one collection of trees that seemed to grow together as one around a large rocky slope. She found herself wondering how life could so easily adjust in this place, but then gave it a second thought upon realizing that that is just what she had done.

She was adjusting to survive, doing whatever it took to come out of this place alive. Just as the trees adapted.

Adapt to survive.

In her line of work, that was what Jackie knew best.