Varying Perspectives [G/T Oneshots]

30 - FREEDOM

Jack watched the sunlight backlight his fingers, squinting his eyes and watching it play around his outstretched hand like a ball of flame. He could feel the warmth as it kissed his skin, laying a film of gold over every plant and leaf in the ravine below his feet, everything as bright and saturated as the pictures that plastered the walls of his enclosure. As the dreams he'd had as a young child, before he was bred to mindlessly obey.

Mark sat beside him, his face dirtied, his grey clothes smeared with the ethereal greens and browns of nature. Yet, he felt better than ever before, smiling with all his heart as he snapped up the island birds that came to perch on his shoulders. Dr Iplier's weaponised words had faded to a small corner of his mind, freeing the real Mark from his self-created mental prison.

They had been abused since their creation, but not anymore. They'd escaped the day before, in the Park crippling event now known as UAE-1, the first escape of any upsized asset since the Park's opening. 

They were finally out, they were...

"Do you know where they've put your chip?" Jack looked to his left with a clattering of spines, recognising the voice of their night guard stowaway, and sighed deep in his throat. The human was really nothing but a nuisance to the two, but he had to stay, because...he'd come this far. Felix Kjellburg had been officially noticed and reported to be missing 3 hours after they ran, meaning he was practically a fugitive too.

"Of course not. You would've thought once I showed 'incomparable aggression and intelligence' t'ey were putting it where I couldn't find it." He huffed, and watched the human cower at his venomous tone, shrinking back behind the large boulder he leant on. Probably expecting him to attack. To finally show the anger he'd been building since the incident. 

"Right. But who said you had incomparable aggression? I'm sure Mark, was...more-" Felix swallowed thickly and lowered his eyes from Jack, seeing the frustration building and knowing it was time to stop talking to him if he didn't want to get dashed against the rocks. "What about you, Mark?" He tried to look past the giant looming before him to see the other, strangely soft spoken, asset. 

"I know where they put mine," The giant smiled as if he'd been given a present, displaying his sharp teeth to everyone there with pride. "It's right at the back of my...my-" Mark's deep voice silenced and he stiffened up, staring at a point before his eyes as if something was hanging there, in mid-air. The other two saw his pupils thin and drift from their calm ebony to two pools of blood. A strange crackling sound filled Mark's entire head, loud and sharp in his ears; stopping him from thinking. 

"Mark? Hey, Mark!" A heavy hand slapped his back, trying to spur him out of his daze, trying to wake him up from his stupor. But the sound only increased, and before he knew it a hard elbow was delivered to Jack's chest. The solid blow sent the other giant onto his back, gasping with pain and shock. Anger, but also fear. Wincing as he pushed himself to seating, Jack glared, analysing and trying to grasp what was going on in Mark's head. 

The crackling was unbearable now, the giant couldn't hear anything over the hiss. In it, was the voice of his Master. At the familiar tone, one he knew had turned him into a monster, Mark roared and raised his claws to his neck, scrabbling to tear out the chip. He somehow knew that's what was hurting him.

"Now now Mark, why are you running? From me, the only one who protected you." Mark continued to struggle and whimper in pain and defiance as he dug into his own neck. Back at the Park, Dr Iplier adjusted his lab coat and tugged off his head mirror, letting his dark hair fall into his eyes as he inhaled deep into his lungs.