Eph feels incredibly lost, as if the ground has suddenly disappeared from beneath his feet. Zack is gone, lured away by the monster that looked like Kelly. There's a shifter walking around in the tunnels underneath the city with his son's face. He's seen it, he took a picture of it. A somewhat blurry picture, but the thing is looking straight into the camera. The eyes give it away. Under certain lights, camera flashes and uv lights, their eyes flash like a cat's.
Setrakian tries to convince him that the shifters don't need to kill a person to assume their shape, that Zack may still be alive, that the Master needs Zack alive to get to them. Eph doesn't listen because it doesn't matter. Can't they see that? None of this matters. Not anymore. He can feel it, in his bones, like a father can. Like a parent can, he knows Kelly would have understood, she would have felt it too. But she's gone. One of them has her face now, they have her skin his mind whispers to him. They get the memories along with everything else. It kills Eph that one of those monsters is out there looking like his son, with Zack's memories rattling around in it's skull and eating people. He's seen first-hand what they do, how they just tear into flesh, the noises they make as they chew. The remains after they're finished aren't recognizable as humans anymore and Eph's heart breaks further and he feels sick to his stomach when he can't stop himself from imagining them doing the same to Zack.
Eph takes another swig of the vodka bottle he'd found in one the cupboards. He's holding a peanut butter sandwich in his other hand. Fet had handed it to him, saying he shouldn't drink on an empty stomach and told him to be careful if he was going up to the roof. He laughs to himself, as if he cares about anything right now, least of all himself. He keeps on laughing, he can't seem to force himself to stop. Tears stream down his face. He knows that he must look crazy. Crying and laughing while drinking and holding a peanut butter sandwich of all things. Then it starts to rain. Of course, he thinks, I should have expected this. The rain acts as a switch for his near-maniacal laughter though, he stops as soon as the first drops hit his face. He slowly brings the sandwich up to his mouth and takes a bite, noting the soggy texture of the bread and the incredibly thick layer of peanut butter. It sticks to the roof of his mouth and the soaked bread doesn't help at all. The sandwich is terrible, but he keeps eating it until he's finished the whole thing because he doesn't know what else to do.
Notes: The sandwich may or may not be a metaphor for accepting defeat. (It's not.) This is the result of me telling my sister I would write about this because she was eating a sandwich in the rain. It was a joke of course, but I went with it anyway. Review if you'd like.