AN This is a response to L.E. McMurray's First Line Challenge. I hope you enjoy!!!
"I'm sorry," John whispered. He pressed the barrel of the gun to Rodney's chest and fired.
The gunshot should have been muffled by Rodney's body, but in these empty, God-forsaken caves it was deafening. Even as the blood began to bubble up from the hole in his friend's abdomen, the sound echoed across the rough stone walls.
When Rodney's slight struggles slowed and the wild light in his eyes dimmed into nothing, the echo faded as well. The blood stopped flowing and a final breath escaped Rodney's lips.
His friend of three years, perhaps the best John ever had, was dead.
Killed by his hand.
John numbly realized he was still pressing his 9mm to Rodney's—no, the corpse's—chest. As a result, the warm, thick substance covered his hand.
There was blood on his hands. The amount of irony in this galaxy never ceased to amaze him.
There was so much pain, so much death in his recent memories… all he wanted was for them to leave him alone. Was that too much to ask?
Unable to cope any longer, John lifted a still wet hand onto the jagged cavern wall and stood on quivering legs. Using the hand upon the wall to steady him, he numbly staggered away from McKay's cadaver.
John doubled over in the dark and vomited.
He hadn't eaten much for all the torturous days he spent in this hell-hole, and his stomach emptied quickly.
He stood there, shaking against the rock still fighting the memories and emotions still trying to claw their way into the forefront of his mind.
The wall behind him began to slide away. John jumped back and raised his P90 instinctively. A section of the 'wall' retracted into itself. The newly formed opening revealed a stairway. The solider cautiously stepped inside and examined them. They rose upward and when John looked up, he could see a faint light near the top.
After four days of searching, he had finally found a way out.
Several days too late.
John raised his bloodied hand to his face and began to laugh.
It was high and unnatural and continued to grow until his crackle echoed throughout the empty, maze-like caves. The Laughter seemed to fill the air with an unholy presence, John's insanity turned corporeal. Even as the once-proud man began to ascend the irregular stone steps chuckling, the Laughter followed him upwards.
With each step he took towards the surface, the haunting memories pushed harder and harder against John's barriers, and his will to fight was weakening. The Madness had befallen him at the same time as Rodney's, and he could feel it slowly twisting him inside out.
Laughter, laughter.
All I hear or see is laughter
Laughter, laughter,
Laughing at my cries.
The lyrics to a long forgotten song came unbidden to his mind, but how fitting they were!
And that small strand of thought was all it took for the repressed memories to bore through John's defenses. He collapsed on the stairway like a puppet with its strings cut as the images and emotions assaulted him.
John and his team met up with a woman guide from the nearby village on the planet P3X-146. McKay had picked up on some unusual energy readings from, according to the woman—who John remembered being very attractive and well-endowed—was a 'cursed' cave system that existed beneath a mountain. The physicist had said, "I don't care about hokey religions, but I'm dying to find some Ancient weapons!" and the woman reluctantly lead them to the caves.
He didn't quite remember how they ended up in the caves, except for a flash of light that plucked them from the warmth of outside and into the cold stony depths. The five wandered around for hours in the maze of tunnels, chasing McKay's elusive energy source hoping for a way out.
Without warning, Teyla suddenly leapt at the woman, forgetting her weapons she was so eager to kill their guide. The attack was so swift, so brutal that they couldn't stop the Athosian from ripping the poor woman apart with her bare hands and teeth.
Ronon and John tried to pull the Teyla off the remains of the once beautiful woman, but she slipped through their arms and went after Rodney in her rage. Impossibly quick, John grabbed his P90 and ended Teyla's life with a quick burst of bullets. Even after the deed had been done, he rushed to her and felt for a pulse, their guide's blood still dripping from her jaw. There was none.
John remembered Rodney silently weeping and Ronon crying out in agony while he remained sitting next to Teyla's body, his clothes slowly becoming soaked by the blood. He could clearly recall lifting up a trembling hand and see it drenched with crimson liquid.
The first time the blood of his family was on his hands.
The first time he heard the wicked Laughter that always hung on the edge of his hearing.
After that, the three were never the same. They continued to wander through the caves, searching for the ever obscure energy source to no avail. They were trapped and they knew it.
That knowledge was more likely to drive them insane before whatever was down here did.
Ronon was the next to succumb. The large man launched himself at John with an abandon he had never seen, his eyes wild with madness and violence. John barely had time to draw his knife before Ronon was upon him.
The struggle between them was brief and deadly, but John emerged the victor, though not unharmed. It took multiple knife wounds to the chest and abdomen before the warrior was taken down, but fall he did.
As the crazed man lay dying at his feet John was dazedly amazed at how much blood the human body contained. He remembered staring at the scarlet-covered knife and the hand holding it. "It looks like Ronon got his fight to the death," John had remarked numbly to the still shocked Rodney.
The Laughter was back and louder than ever.
John shook so badly that he needed Rodney's help dressing his knife wound. And after that…
The pilot shook and gripped the sides of his head, rocking slowly on the rough steps. Hot, thick tears spilled down the sides of his sweaty face as John fought the images weakly. "Don't make me see it!!" he begged the rising laughter in his mind. "Please, make it stop! Make it stop!!"
He sobbed into blood-stained hands, his cries of pure heart-ripping agony answered only by chilling Laughter.
They wandered another day in eerie silence, each watching the other suspiciously for signs of the Madness, as John dubbed it. The pilot observed Rodney becoming increasingly twitchy, fingering his 9mm often.
On the fourth day in the caves, the quick-tongued, brilliant scientist threw himself at his closest friend. He tried to rip John's throat out with his teeth. The two struggled on the cave floor, John pleading with his friend while Rodney growled and bit him like a rabid animal.
John couldn't kill McKay. At least, that's what he told himself. But with each passing moment, with every drop of blood Rodney drew, John knew he had to. The solider pinned the mad scientist—he chuckled at the phrase—against the wall and drew the 9mm from its holster and pressed it to Rodney's chest.
The physicist continued to struggle and snarl at John even as he begged him not to make him do this. The man that once had been Rodney didn't stop, and John's arms were getting tired of restraining him.
"I'm sorry," John whispered as tears slipped down his cheeks. He pressed the barrel of the gun to Rodney's chest and fired.
Other memories came into his mind; ones of him and his team off world or in Atlantis, sitting and laughing together, ones of them saving his life and he theirs. The sounds of their voices and images of them as they smiled.
Things he would never see or hear again.
John was unsure of how long he spent on those steps, consumed by grief and guilt while the taunting Laughter continued. Sometimes he cried out for the voice to stop but the Laughter never ceased.
As much as Rodney accused him of it, John had never before held a want to commit suicide and never understood the people that did. But as John cradled his 9mm in his crimson hand he realized that death was starting to look very friendly.
With his eyes still burning and quivering hand the pilot lifted the gun to his head. Taking a shaky breath, John braced himself to pull the trigger.
He suddenly recalled something that he had said shortly after Teyla's death.
Rodney was feeling claustrophobic and was terrified of the prospect that they might be stuck in these cursed caves forever.
"I don't care what I have to do, but by God, we're getting out of here!!" swore John.
He glanced upward, looking at the faint spot of light at the top of the stairway. "Get out…" John repeated, absent mindedly massaging his blood covered hands. Gripping the wall, he climbed onto weak legs and slowly started to walk up the steps in a daze.
At the top of the staircase was a small doorway and beyond it was a pale blue sky. A sudden burst of bright light stabbed his eyes. John abruptly closed them and opened them a few moments later.
Warm sunlight hit his skin for the first time in many days. A cool breeze brushed against his pale face, dying the tears that lay upon it. As far as his eyes could see, golden grasses and clumps of trees stretched out across the landscape.
He was outside.
John sobbed again and collapsed into the soft meadow. He wept without tears, the water long gone out of his tear ducts. Why did he live when his team had died? No, not died. It was worse. He murdered them.
"Why me?!" John screamed to the heavens. "WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?!"
That's when he heard the voices. Running towards him across the fields of gold were Teyla, Ronon, and McKay all calling out to him. Soon they surrounded him, asking questions that he didn't try to comprehend. John looked at how their eyes were full of worry and compassion, not madness. Their bodies were impossibly whole and well.
A chuckle started to grow deep within John's throat.
His team noticed his ruffled and dirty clothes, his tear stained face and pale skin. His darting eyes were alight with lunacy and a grotesque smile twisted his once handsome face. The chuckle slowly grew as though John were laughing at some private joke. Never once did he stop harshly rubbing his reddening hands.
"John?" Teyla tentatively asked. "Are you alright? Is there something on your hands?"
John erupted into hysterical cackles and the Laughter did as well.
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AN Just to let everybody know, I was listening to 'Master of Puppets' by Metallica, one of the best songs EVER, while writing this. It was the inspiration to represent John's descent into madness with the Laughter. I hope it was cool and creepy enough :P. Please review or...or...something bad will happen! I mean it! So save yourself and take three seconds to write a review!