Warnings: Swearing, Mild Violence, Knives, Character Injury, Drowning
Characters: Jackieboy Man, Chase Brody, Second Officer Keen, Antisepticeye
POV: Jackieboy Man


They'd hiked back off the beach and toward the edge of the island to watch the ocean beyond. It was only when they saw their three comrades making their way away, back toward their own habitat, that Jackie and Chase glanced at each other, then headed off to find a way up to the third abandoned habitat.

When they found the stone bridge over the bay right in the island's center, Jackie paused to look down at the island below.

"Hey…" he said, bare feet scraping through the dirt to copy the marks he already found there. A footprint—a footprint that dragged through the dirt. "Think I found where Keen threw his PDA from."

"Holy shit…" Chase shook his head and leaned over the edge. "Y'know if he'd missed the beach, it would've sunk, right? I don't know how deep the water under this place goes, but I do know I couldn't see the bottom when we were under the island. It probably would've been lost forever."

"Yeah. And taking that risk tells us he really wanted us outta here."

"How bad could it be? All we've seen so far are those crab thingies."

"Speaking of…" Jackie raised his "spear" when one of them lunged at him.

Both men were left gagging as he got it straight through the eye. Okay… Let's not spear one of those things ever again. Yuck.

Chase had pulled out his scanner, and Jackie was left cringing away when he ran a scan over the thing's mutilated eye that seemed to second as its body. "Cave Crawler," he snorted. "Ever-creative with your names, huh scanner?"

"Oh, come on." He grabbed Chase by the arm and dragged him onward.

Up, up, up the mountain. Around and round it, and then they paused, lunged across where the overgrown path had collapsed away, and continued their upward climb. This one was steeper than the other, Jackie noted. He could feel rocks tearing at the soles of his feet every time he slipped in the slightest, and they were both huffing by the time they got to the top.

There it was. The third habitat. What new horrific data would they find in there..?

A shake of the head. No. Don't think that way.

Glancing at each other, they approached. The bulkhead was hanging off its hinges, and Jackie jumped when he tried to push it open farther, only for the heavy door to crash to the ground and nearly land on his toes. Well. That would've hurt.

They snooped around, gave the indoor garden a strange look. Weren't those same things growing all over? Why keep them inside, too? Found another data log that Chase put into his PDA but didn't press play on as he scanned the ground for any more.

They heard a thud, then Jackie felt himself pushed away from the ladder that would have taken them to the second story of the habitat.

Whatever shoved him had shouted, but the cry died in his throat as he lowered the branch he'd very nearly been ready to crack over the security guard's head.

Jackie's eyes widened and he could practically hear Chase's grin in his giddy little shout of, "Keen!"

The second officer was battered, beaten, and the look in his eyes could only be described as "terrified." But he was alive.

"…Did you find my PDA?" His voice was small and eyes kept darting toward the door.

Chase stepped up to Jackie's side. "Yeah! We figured you needed hel—"

"I said to leave the island." The sudden change in his tone startled Jackie. It had hardened, almost furious. "He'll kill us as he killed the CTO."

Jackie swallowed. "Yu's dead..?"

"He?" Chase added. "Not—not it, or they, but he?! Who the hell would—?"

Another survivor? Had they had a fucking…murderer on board or something?!

Keen's head snapped toward the door. He ducked low, branch held like it was a baseball bat. "He knows we're here."

"What?!"

"He heard us!"

Jackie tightened his grip on his spear. "Do I want to know what he did to Yu?"

A shake of the head—Keen wouldn't tear his gaze away from the opening. "He slit her throat and threw her body in the water."

"Why would he—"

Footsteps. They dragged over the dirt outside, slow and quiet. Heavy breathing was muffled—behind a mask? The figure was pacing.

Watching.

Waiting.

"Couldn't we reason with him?" Chase hissed.

Another shake of the head. "That man has lost any and all humanity. The CTO attempted ot speak with him and died for it. We won't make that same mistake."

Baring his teeth and hefting his spear up, Jackie tucked himself beside the opening. He gave the other two a look, throwing his head toward it. "Well? Get running!" Before either could answer, he was bolting out and shoving the shaft of his spear against the killer's chest, pushing him toward the cliff.

The first thing he noticed was that the man was in a weird suit. Ahh…hazmat diving suit, that's what it was, right? The next was his voice—when he shouted something and pushed back against the weapon forcing him backward, it wasn't English. Mongolian. Marvin had said…the survivors from ten years before them…were Mongolian…

The faded name badge at the man's chest was barely legible. Bleached by the sun, scraped away with time, but there it was.

SEPSE.

Jackie hesitated, staring the name down, just long enough for one hard shove to send him sprawling on his back. He could hear the other two bolting down the mountain's overgrown path, and when he looked up he could see the glint of a survival knife. In the slowly subsiding fog, it was almost eerie to look up and see the knife, to see the man's eyes behind his mask. The blade was chipped and small from years of resharpening it as it grew dull again. It was stained green with the blood of the planet's creatures.

Keen was right. There was no humanity left in those eyes. Just a wild light, confused, feral.

Furious.

He rolled away, heart thundering when the blade came down right where his neck had been a moment ago, and scrambled toward the path. He looked down the path, then down the mountain; he'd never make it going the way they'd come up and that side of the mountain was steep, but not deathly so.

He could hear Sepse behind him. He went for it, feeling the blade graze his shoulder as he started sliding. Down, down, down, he felt the ground tear into his thigh, his feet, his hands, heard his dive suit rip, felt sticks and stones stabbing him, scraping, shredding.

He hit the bottom and rolled, could hear Sepse growling something he couldn't understand from the top. Jackie couldn't see the other two, but they were calling for him from…somewhere. From the bridge. They were already at the bridge.

Footsteps. Sepse was…running down the path, despite Chase and Jackie's trouble getting up there he was surefooted with every step like he'd taken that same path a thousand times. Maybe he had. Who was Jackie to know for sure?

Wincing, hissing between his teeth, Jackie dragged himself to his feet, grabbed his spear that he'd managed not to stab himself with on the way down that wonderful slide, and ran.

Shocks of pain shot through his feet, his leg as he ran. Every step hurt. Every step aggravated the wounds torn into his flesh from stones, the dirt made them sting even more.

Sepse was nearing the bottom. He was still shouting. What was he saying?!

The bridge! There it was. The question was, would he make it? He could hear the other man tearing through the brush—he was so much faster than Jackie, who was left limping.

He made it to the bridge. Sepse was right behind him—!

Jackie jumped.

The panic didn't set in until he was already hitting the water. It stung, like a slap, and the salt burned the cuts and scrapes, his eyes stung, which way was up? He floundered for the surface, swallowed water, spluttered when there were arms around him to drag his head back above water.

They were saying something, but their voices were muffled by the water slowly draining from his ears.

"—need to go! Now!" Chase's voice. He felt his oxygen tank and mask strapped on, grabbed blindly when one of the Seaglides was shoved into his hands. Chase mentioned that he'd go without one, that Keen needed it more since he'd lost his tank somewhere on the island, and Jackie felt a hand on his write to guide him under the island as he blinked the blurriness away.

When he could see clearly again, he realized it was Keen's hand; the second officer was managing to keep his own Seaglide steady while also guiding Jackie's. Chase was a short ways behind them when they finally broke the surface.

No sign of Sepse following them. Maybe he'd disappeared back to wherever he'd been hiding when they first arrived.

"Well, that was… Something?" Chase offered, pushing his mask up on his forehead.

"You disobeyed a direct order."

"And you're still alive 'cause of it, aren't you? Sorry man, but ranks are the last thing I'm gonna worry about out here. Priority One's surviving." Chase then gestured wildly at Jackie, grinning as he ignored the officer's disgruntled scowl. "And you, holy shit, dude! You just… You rushed that guy head-on! And…you're in pretty rough shape." He chuckled, "What, fall off the mountain or somethin'?"

"Somethin' like that." Jackie coughed, spitting up the last of the water he'd swallowed, then shook his head. "That was the guy from the last recording we heard. The Antony guy."

"Dude. That recording's like, ten years old."

"He's right." Keen's eyes tracked back to the island—god, the poor guy looked exhausted. "Antony Sepse. He was a microbiologist for Torgal Corp. I'm…not sure how he's survived so long." He gestured to Chase, then. "You picked up a data log from that habitat. Have you listened yet?"

"Well, no. Soon as I had it, you tried to club Jackie, so haven't really had the time. …Right. Playin' it now."

Jackie kept one hand on his Seaglide, the other reaching for his own PDA. He grimaced when he noticed that it was cracked. Probably from his impromptu not-so-slip-'n'-slide. It still worked when he checked for the voice logs, thankfully. There was a new one: The one Chase had grabbed. He didn't bother listening and instead went straight for the text version.

ANTONY SEPSE: I buried Bart this morning. He didn't make it. It's a nice little spot, under all the trees he liked.

A harsh laugh that was really more a bard came from Chase's PDA as he played the actual audio. It startled Jackie into nearly dropping his own device to the abyss below.

Now I'm alone. They're all dead. What the hell were we thinking?

And…that was all there was. Jackie glared down at the text. Keen's expression about matched.

He no longer had a PDA and had only listened to Chase's audio.

…Did that mean he understood Sepse?

"Uh, hey, Keen?" Jackie closed out the file and clipped his PDA back to his hip. "You understood that?"

"Yes?"

"Then do you know what Sepse was shouting at us?"

Another glance toward the island. His brows furrowed. "He was saying we would poison him. He called us 'diseased, just like them.'"

"That's it?"

"He…kept repeating it, yes. Like a mantra."


AN: he'll explain it in the next chapter since I couldn't find anywhere to put it without it seeming forced, but Keen didn't jump of the bridge himself like Jackie because he got on the island from the south beach and had no idea the bay went straight through and could've been used as an escape. He thought he would've been trapped doing that