Slouching Towards Bethlehem
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned ~ 'The Second Coming,' W.B. Yeats
Wearing flesh itched. It always itched, being shaped by skins that were not the one he had been born in. The form of Other was without sensation, a psychic coolness. Existence without true shape or complex thought, just the dusty black pillar of I Am. The closest thing he had to being free – being that dark nothing. An empty vessel into which he poured the lives and memories of men, to examine and use as he saw fit. And judge, as was his right. False candidates. Brief lives. Each one a barrier of meat and bone between him and the lock of his invisible shackles.
The other ignored the crawling sensation of bare skin and scalp, though he took a second to notice warm breeze through the hair on his arms. It was a mild delight, a memory of being young and wholly human, and he allowed himself to enjoy it from his perch amidst the green and the dark of deep jungle. Beyond was the temple, and soft sounds of milling people drifted from the old stone. It was a good time for waiting. He knew what he was waiting for. Claire was a good soldier, her words would set them abuzz. One of them would come. He had an idea about who.
Leaves and vines rustled with the soft wind and he glanced around now and then with deceptive calm. The boy-thing had left him rattled. The ghosts of the past. Now he spoke with those spirits in his mind, passing time while waiting for something to happen.
The war is here, Jacob. I've brought it forth at last, the stalemate broken. The last seal on the temple won't hold. Dogen will break. Your final plans can't stop that. Your plans will simply swell my ranks.
Look what your grand architecture made for you. The little broken boy. The man he became. Richard and your candidates and the choices they made for the child. Put him in your pool, drowned and marked him as yours, and look what happened! What magnificent choices he made in your name! No wonder you left him to spin on his own, never granting an audience. Were you embarrassed? Were you sad when I brought him before you? What a moment. It was beautiful.
The last he spoke in a low whisper. "I tell you, Jacob, I felt it right here." The other placed his hand over his heart, tapping lightly. The jungle had no response, no ghosts to chide him for his mocking tone. Just a rising wind and the distant call of a bird.
The other raised his head and flared nostrils, tasting the air for any change and finding only the sharp tangs of cooking smoke and jungle green. So many little aches and bruises and memories of wounds shaped the concept of his body, but its senses were strong. Not a weak form. If the other had to be confined to one shape, it was a fair choice. He returned to his thoughts. They're all going to be so afraid down there, Jacob, and people that are afraid aren't as bound by this fantasy of nobility and 'right' that kept you in power. That kept your 'leaders' strong. There are no good guys or bad guys in a war. There's just living and dead and everyone wants to be on the side that survives. Your kingly piece is off the board and your candidates aren't looking too strong. Your people will pick an easy winner. They'll pick the side that lets them live.
"Will you hurt them?" Claire had asked. Only the ones who won't listen. True enough. And furthermore, he intended to hurt only what he had do. Only what got in his way. Those who joined him could do the rest. They would mark a death sentence for every islander and more, convincing themselves they could buy safety for their own lives on the blood of others. Then they would fall on each other, struggling to the top of the heap and say Look at me! All that I did for you! It was human nature.
Human choice.
The other loathed them, the way they lied to themselves and spoke in pious ways of how they served each other, how they fought to make the right choices. He saw them otherwise. Saw the secret places where the darkness grew, smelled it and tasted it when he slipped close in his darkling form to see and judge. Jacob could believe in the triumph of the human spirit. He saw instead the expedient animal, the opportunist, the thing that clawed to survive. To serve them had been an insult. To be trapped. Chained by rules and by sound and ash. Beckoned at whims to grant vengeance.
A soft grunt slipped from him, eyes narrowing into slits as he watched the great stone structure. Emotions built in him, given purchase by the form he wore. Self-righteousness, petty jealousy, it began to swirl and taste coppery in the false mouth. The sun reached the far horizon and began to dip. Soon the saffron and purple drape of evening would draw long shadows across the temple and it would be time. Hunger rose in the other, thoughts that threatened to draw him from calculated serenity and patient wait. He prepared to drift into his other form, the dark shape, the rising shadow, but allowed himself one last inner threat to his dead friend and dead enemy.
I am going home, Jacob. Whether I am crawling, slinking, killing, bleeding. Feeding. It doesn't matter. I've already won. I am going home, I am to be unleashed upon the world, and I will bring death with me wherever I go. After the death will be peace.
In the distance, Sayid emerged from the temple and looked to the jungle. The other slipped away in a crackle and a clatter of darkness, awaiting the arrival of his latest fallen champion.
After all, Jacob, isn't peace what you've always wanted?