THE CHRONICLES OF JASON DRUMMOND
Book one: Arrival
Chapter 8: Jamie Revealed.
'BECAUSE GOD MADE ME A MURDERER!' Those words were echoing around in Selina's head, leaving behind several question in its wake.
"He m-made you a...?" Selina simply couldn't finish the sentence.
"I guess... I should explain." Jason said while pulling out his wallet and removing a picture from it, allowing Selina to see it.
It was a photograph of Jason at a Coney Island carnival, but he looked around ten and he wasn't alone. Next to him was a child who looked about six years old, and he looked so much like Jason that if it weren't for the age difference, they'd have been twins. In the photo they were standing in front of a water ride called The Curse of Blackbeardwhile smiling for the camera and waving.
"That's me and my little brother Jamie," said Jason sadly began, "at what was one of my favorite places to go to. He was six, I was ten, and I cared for him so much. Back in Hell's Kitchen where I grew up, mom and dad were always working, and Amelia was barely much older than he was, so I had to take care of him. I cooked for him, I helped him with his homework, I fought off bullies and muggers who tried to harm him, and I tended to his injuries whenever he was hurt. In short I was more of a father to him than dad ever was. That was, until the incident."
"The incident?" Selina asked.
Jason sighed before getting onto the ground, "Sit down, this will take a while."
Selina did so as Jason began, "It was six years ago..."
December 15 2004
Manhattan, New York
3:00 p.m.
Outside of the Sladen Elementary School
'Where is he?' a ten year old Jason thought while waiting for someone to appear.'The bell rang ten minutes ago, he shoulda here by-'
"Jason!" a young voice cried out with a slight Bronx accent, which soon revealed its owner to be a six year old child with slightly pale skin, jet black hair and hazel eyes running towards him. "Sorry I took a while, I accidentally left behind my math book and I had to wait for the teacher to let me into the room to get it."
"It's alright little bro. Come on, let's go home." Jason said in clearly thicker accent while walking towards their home in Hell's Kitchen.
As they walked home, the two brothers talked about their favorite video games, Sonic the Hedgehog and Megaman. They debated on who would win if the two blue heroes got into a fight, what would happen if Eggman teamed up with Dr. Wily, the basic nerd stuff. They were on the subject of possible upgrades for the two when a mugger grabbed Jamie before holding a switchblade to his throat.
"Alright then, you two come with me, and I won't cut the brat, got it?" the guy said while threatening Jamie with the switchblade.
Before Jason could respond, Jamie kicked him in the personal spot, causing the mugger to loosen his grip enough for the six year old to escape.
"You little brats!" the mugger shouted before he started swinging the switchblade at the brothers, only to be stopped when Jason threw some powder in his face, making his eyes burn."Argh! What the hell is this!"
"Itching powder to the face, dummy!" Jason shouted while prying the switchblade out of the guy's hands before pummeling him with his fists, eventually finishing with a blow to the jaw that put guy out of commission.
"Well that takes care of that. Lets get going." Jason said while gathering their fallen backpacks, but not before picking up two small, flat, pieces of metal.
"Jason, why are you picking up trash?" Jamie asked while putting on his Megaman backpack.
"I have a plan to use this for something... special." Jason said while pocketing the metal scraps and continuing down the street to their home.
December 24 2004
Manhattan, New York
8:45 p.m.
Inside a small house on Baudelaire Street
"Merry Christmas!" Jules Drummond said happily to his children while wearing a Santa hat and pulling out a few presents.
"But daddy, Christmas isn't until tomorrow." Amelia pointed out while taking her present.
"True, but that doesn't mean we can't open one or two presents now." Sonia Drummond said while handing one to her husband.
"Hey little bro, open my presents first." Jason said while handing Jamie two hastily wrapped gifts. "Sorry I didn't do a good job on the wrapping, I had just finished working on them."
"It's okay." Jamie said while unwrapping the smaller of the two gifts, which revealed why Jason kept the metal. "You made me a Megaman pendant? Thank you!" Jamie said while hugging his brother and slipping on the necklace. "But how did you make it?"
"I know a guy who worked with metal and does custom designs." Jason responded while pulling a Sonic pendant out of his pocket. "We are two old school video gamers, and nothing will change that." Jason said while putting on his necklace. "Now open your other present."
"Okay, calm down Jason." Jamie said jokingly while unwrapping the gift, which turned out to be to be a navy blue scarf. "Thank you Jason. Where did you get the scarf from?"
"I knitted it." Jason said with a shrug.
"Well, open your present!" Jamie said while taking out a strangely shaped gift. "I found it lying on my bed a week ago." Jamie explained while his brother removed the newspaper that it was wrapped in, revealing a bright orange gem.
"Jamie where did you get that?" Sonia asked in a shocked voice.
"I already said where momma, I found it lying on my bed with the window open." Jamie insisted while Jason was examining his gem.
"Honey, please don't lie to me, just tell me if you've taken the gem or not." Sonia politely insisted.
"But I didn't take it momma, I swear to our Lord and Savior." Jamie insisted.
"We'll have to see about the gem after Christmas, for now we should go to bed." Jules said while getting up from the couch.
December 25 2004
Manhattan, New York
7:25 a.m.
In Jason's room.
BEEPBEEPBEEP went Jason's alarm, which slowly woke him up from his dreams. "It's Christmas!" Jason said excitedly to himself before jumping out of bed and getting ready for the day. 'The others are probably not up yet, maybe I can surprise them.' Jason thought happily to himself while prepping breakfast for his family. While making the French bread though, Jason thought he heard something, so he went to the back alleyway to check, but found nothing other than a stray black cat that ran off.
"Bye kitty!" Jason said, before remembering the toast. "Oh snap!" Jason said after turning around and seeing a grease fire had started.
'Our extinguisher's dead! I gotta get my family out now!' Jason thought to himself as he ran to Amelia's room.
"Sis, wake up!" Jason shouted while shaking her shoulders roughly.
"Five more minutes..." she slurred in her sleep.
"Amelia wake up!" Jason shouted, but find that it didn't work he instead threw her glass of ice water onto her face.
"Gah! Cold, Cold! Jason what did you do that for?" the now awake girl asked angrily, her face covered with ice water while a cube was in her hair.
"A fire started, and it's spreading fast!"Jason said while pulling her out of the bed.
"A fire?" Amelia asked fearfully.
"Yes, now stay out here while I get our parents and Jamie!" Jason said while pushing her out the front door.
"Hurry Jason!" Amelia called to him as some fire trucks started to come close.
Soon after returning to the house, Jason burst into his parents room, waking them up.
"Jason, what the hell is-" Jules began before he started coughing from the smoke that was slowly filling the room.
"A fire started, we need to get out of here!" Jason quickly explained while his parents got out of bed then followed him. "I'll be back!" Jason said before running back inside for Jamie, despite his parents protesting.
"cough Jamie! cough Jamie are you there?" Jason called out while running to his brother's room, only to find the door was locked and the knob was burning. "Gah!"
"Jason? Jason help me!" Jamie cried out while banging his fists on the door.
"JAMIE!" Jason said while trying to break down the door.
"DON'T LEAVE ME, JASON!" Jamie called out while constantly coughing from all the smoke entering his lungs.
"I WON'T JAMIE, I SWEAR IT!" Jason shouted back while continuing to desperately pound against the door, but only achieving in getting several splinters that he ignored.
"There's one, get him out of here, NOW!" a fireman said to his companion, who ran over.
"Oh thank God you here, Jamie's still- wait what are doing?" Jason asked the fireman who was pulling him away from the door."Wha- NO, NO! FORGET ABOUT ME, GET JAMIE! NO LET GO OF ME! I MUST SAVE HIM! NO JAMIE!"
8:25
"I'm very sorry, but we have found no sign of your son, we can only assume that he's-" a fireman started to say to the parents before someone interrupted him.
"You're lying! He's alive, he has to be!" Jason shouted before running into the ruins of the house, but finding nothing but ashes, until, right where his little brothers room was, he found...
"No..." Jason said as he held the small, burnt pendant that he gave to his brother less than twenty four hours ago. "No. No! NO! NO! NO! NO!" Jason said while ripping off his small crucifix and pounding his fists onto the remains of what was once his home while tears obscured his vision.
June 29 2011
Angel Island
12:50 p.m.
"... and from that point on, I swore to never believe in a God or religion, because if any Gods did exist, then why would they let that happen?" Jason finished.
For several minutes Selina just stared in shocked silence from this new information about her crush that she'd never known.
"Jason... I- I'm so sorry." she said before thinking of something. "But... if Jamie died in a fire, then how does that make you a murderer?"
"I started the fire, thereby making me the cause of his death, making me an unintentional murderer, but a murderer nonetheless," Jason sadly explained while fingering one of his necklaces, which turned out to be the Megaman pendant.
'So that's where he got it from.'Selina thought to herself. "But Jason, I don't see why you think that because God took away your brother means he's not there. Lots of people loose their families-"
"You don't get it, do you?" Jason interrupted. "I'm not mad at God for taking Jamie away, I'm mad at him for making it by my hands. Cause if he had just died in like a car accident or something, I would have eventually gotten over it, but the fact that I started the fire means that I now have to deal with all this guilt from not being able to save him!" Jason explained as tears started to come to his eyes. "So if God does exist, then he's a very cruel being."
"But Jamie's in a better place now." Selina said while hugging Jason in an attempt to comfort him. "He's in heaven now watching over you."
"I know that he's watching over me from somewhere, but it's not heaven, and he's probably disappointed in me despite everything I've done to make it up to him." Jason replied while returning the hug.
"'Make it up to him?' Is that why you work with the police?" Selina asked after pulling away.
Jason nodded. "If I couldn't save my brother, then I can at least make the city a better place to live. Ironic, huh? My life is essentially a superhero origin story, I have the tragic death of a family member, the fighting skills, the gadgets and tools, villains to fight, the love interest, and finally the superpowers. Now all I need is an evil clone and then we could turn this adventure into a comic book." Jason said dryly.
"But Jason, you can't let it affect you, it's time to move on." Selina said.
"I'm sorry ladrĂ³n," Jason said sadly, ", but I can't, I've tried to, but I just can't get over his death, and because of this I fear if I get too close to someone, whether it's like family or romantically, I'll be hurt again, so I'm sorry Selina. I do want to try out a relationship, but I'm just not ready." He finished his sentence with a small kiss on Selina's cheek, before getting up. "I need some time alone, but I'll ask Tails to pick you up or something." Jason said before he Chaos Controlled off the island, leaving Selina alone with only a sleeping Chao and her own thoughts to keep her company.
X*X*X
THERE YOU HAVE IT FOLKS, THE IDENTITY OF JAMIE REVEALED. NOW I WON'T BE ABLE TO POST THE NEXT CHAPTER AS QUICKLY AS THE OTHER ONES DUE TO THE FACT THAT I'LL BE LEAVING FOR A WEEK, SO HOLD TIGHT.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for Jason, Jamie, Jules, Selina, Amelia, Sonia, and Lugosi.
