WARNING: CONTAINS REFERENCES TO SUICIDE
Jack tears down the winding tunnels knowing every twist and turn will somehow bring him closer to the monsters he's trying so desperately to escape from, knowing every corner he rounds, so fast that the soles of his shoes skid across the ground beneath him, hides one of those great, slimy, hulking beasts from the deep. The faster he goes, the harder he knows he'll plow himself straight into their waiting claws, but the terror won't let him do anything but run until he burns up every last reserve. For the tenth, hundredth, thousandth time in the last few minutes, hours, days-weeks-years, every step he takes feels like his last, and with his heart in his throat and his lungs prepared to collapse he suddenly misses Mackey - Mackey with his sardonic remarks laced with that gruff Boston accent, Mackey done up in his three-piece suit standing by Jack's side, Mackey with his customized Colt .45 poised in his gloved hands. Jack wishes he was here to back him up again, wishes he was here running alongside him, wishes he would just materialize somehow, yank him into that safe little crawl hole, and hold him until this insanity went away, dear God, has he ever missed someone so much in his life?
But Mackey isn't here, and missing him won't make him come to Jack's aid, he's too far away to hear Jack even if he screams for him, so he throws himself down into the haven in the wall alone. His landing on the dirt floor is rough, and he can't ignore the screaming aches as he makes himself as small in his refuge as possible. Curled into a tight little ball of blood and sweat and fear, Jack chokes down his need to gasp for air and groan in pain. Instead he listens, listens with everything he has left in him, for the sound of the monsters barreling past his hiding space.
He hears four. Four charge right on by him, lumbering along on all muscular fours, just far off enough not to notice he's near but still much, much too close. They file into the prison as he lays there trembling to the count of twenty. Then Jack sits up and he breathes in and out, in and out, until his hands stop shaking. He cracks his neck and reloads his revolver. With his lips set in a grim line, he taps the green gem nestled safely in his jacket pocket and allows one last fanciful thought admission through his mind before flicking the "off" switch and falling back into survival mode: if not for that goddamned winch, Mackey would be here with me right now. If not for that goddamned winch, he wouldn't have had to stay behind holding the door open for me and he would be here with me right now.
And then he shuts everything down but what he needs to live, and Jack knows he has to get back upstairs and he knows he has to power up that portal. Whether it's a way out or a way further down this festering shit hole, it's a way to go, and he needs somewhere to go, needs to keep moving to stay alive. Sure, he's safe in this nice, cozy hole with its low ceiling and its symbol on the wall, but he'll shoot himself if he stays in here too long. The helplessness will strangle him as he watches the guards and their beastly pets pass him by again and again, always searching, hellbent on finding, crushing any hope of getting away and decimating any hope of ever being rescued, no one knows Jack's here now and less than no one will know after he's sat and watched the patrols sweep by thirty times. Before the first pangs of starvation manage to make themselves known, Jack will lodge a bullet in his temple. He doesn't want to do that. He wants to do something, anything else. He wants to believe he has a choice. He wants to try to save himself. He's not sure what he's saving himself for since he's already broken up quite a bit and there isn't a soul to bring the pieces home to, but God help him, he wants to make it anyway.
If he pulls this off, what the hell, maybe he'll give a few of those leftover bits of himself to Mackey. If he wants a couple. Maybe. Jack remembers how Mackey had seemed like he wouldn't have minded making a friend in him. He remembers the jokes and the other pleasant words, and the rough, tried kindness in his face.
"You've got guts, Jack."
Jack Walters takes a breath.
He climbs free of his hole, gun at the ready, and he creeps low along the wall into the prison, the sounds of faint growling chewing on his courage every inch he presses onward - chewing on it, but never taking out a chunk.