Crying could be heard through the halls of the house. Jack awoke from his restless sleep sitting up in his bed, hearing the child cry. He pulled the covers off him and swung his feet over the bed and rested his barefeet on the soft carpet. The child's cry continued in an urgency. Jack stumbled to his feet quickly. He blinked the tiredness out of his eyes as they adjusted to the darkness. He found the door and ran his hand along the wall as he walked so he wouldn't trip over something.
He reached the source of the child's cries, but found nothing. The cries faded away then.
"Matthew?" Jack called out, searching for him. The house was quiet then. Jack scratched his head in confusion. He rubbed his hand along Matthew's wall, flicking the light on. The light shone through the room, it looked like no one had ever occupied the room. it was barren, none of Matthew's possesions were there. It was like if he hadn't even existed.
"Stop it, Dad!" Matthew's voice called out. Jack jerked his head in the direction of the call, and rushed towards it. The crying commenced again. Jack kept running, but the crying of his son never sounded any closer.
"Where are you!" Jack cried in panic as he kept running blindly into the darkness. The crying faded out again. Jack slowed into a swift walk. The darkness amphlified the erie silence.
Finally a small ray of light shown down. Jack slowed down even more as he saw 2 figures. He finally stopped seeing one standing over the other. He recognized the one looming over the other was himself. A gaunt, sickly version of himself. He was holding a knife, which had a thin layer of blood coating it, dripping down to the ground. Jack's eyes fell down apon the victim. He gasped, seeing his young son laying lifelessly covered in his own blood.
He awoke in a cold sweat, tears streaming down his face in a river like motion. He was disoriented at first, then became more aware of his surroundings and what had happened. The constant wave of pain filtered from his feet mainly, as well as his torso. He groaned in pain as he shifted into a more comfortable position. He pushed himself into a sitting up right position, leaning heavily on the wall.
That tape had yet to stop playing. It started to become a dull background noise for Jack. He had lost all sense of time, as the tape started over again. His stomach ached from the lack of food. His eyes were sore from the lack of light, and his body ached from the abuse to it earlier. He was exhausted though he had sleep alot. He closed his eyes wearily, as the soft sounds of the tape calmed him into a restless sleep again, as it worked on corrupting his mind more.
"Nothing Yet, Agent Edmunds" Nat hissed in frustration as she hung up the phone again. Richard was sitting on the stool across the counter from her listening to one side of the conversation.
"If the FBI can't find them, then this country is doomed" Richard said half-hearteningly, trying to ease Nat's emotional pain some.
It had been two weeks, and nothing had changed. Nat filed a missing child's report, but could only sit back and watch her own agency conduct the search. She spent much of her time with Richard and Kristi, not exactly feeling right about going home. The few times she did she ended up in Matt's room, holding the picture of Jack that she had given to Matt, sitting on his bed, Sobbing. She spent hours like that, fearing the unknown, fearing for her men's safetly. Half reassuring herself that if Jack and Matt where together, that Jack was doing everything within his power to keep their son safe.
Matthew was sitting on the bed in the room they had placed him in. The room was blue, and it was pretty nice. There was a desk in the corner, with a tv on it. The tv was playing a learning chinese movie.
Matt had to watch and learn Chinese from this movie, he spent four hours a day doing this very thing. There was a woman who was basically Matt's Nanny. The woman was ordered to train Matt to be a servant, and she had only three months to do it. Matt was reluctant to learn this fate, he asked about his father as a greeting to his nanny at first. The nanny was an american, named Sonja. Matt didn't trust at all, first, but after several hours a day and her caring nature, he began to trust her. She was still strict but not any less then his own mother. She had 2 rules, simple rules for Matt to follow.
1. listen and do whatever she or the chinese men
said.
2. don't ask about his parents.
The chinese wanted Matt to completely forget about Jack and Nat. Yes, He wasn't part of the original plan, but they improvised. Pluss Matt was young enough to teach him to be a servant. coughslavecough So basically brainwashing him to think this was the way it always was and not remember his parents at all.
The door opened, a bright light shone in on the frail figure. The frail figure didn't even flinch as the men came in and moved him roughly to a different room. Jack was too out of it to realize they had came in and moved him to a different room.
He came too though when he was set in a chair and slapped twice by the chinese warden infront of him.
"Do you deserve to live?" The chinese man asked. Jack wearily looked at him, his dullen eyes stared lifelessly at him. Finally he shook his head slowly.
"There is a way to redeem yourself...are you willing to do anything?" The chinese man continued. Jack was slowly fading, it had been so long since he had something to eat, and it was affecting his judgement. Moments passed.
"Answer me" The chinese man hissed, getting impatient. Jack closed his eyes and slowly nodded his head.
"Good...we will treat you well if you do what we say, and you can redeem yourself." The chinese man chuckled. Jack passed out then.
Nat was sitting in the living room, richard was to her left side. She was crying with her head in her hands and Richard was rubbing her back gently, trying to be comforting.
"We are never going to find them" She cried.
"Sure we will, Nat, just keep thinking we will and we will. Dont be so negative" Richard said, not really feeling too confident himself but he needed to be there for Nat, or at least he felt that he needed to be.
"What if theyre dead already?" Nat asked in a muffled sob.
"If they were, we would have found their bodies already" Richard answered. The phone rang then. Richard sighed heavily and stood up, trotting over to the phone and picking it up.
"What?" He said in astonishment, this made Nat perk her ears up, looking up to Richard.
"Really? Are you sure? ...Thats good!" He said excitedly over the phone. Nat stood up and moved over to him, curious to who he was talking to and why he was so happy.
"Alright See you soon, and Thank you so much!" Richard said then hung up the phone. His sadden expression was gone completely now, he just beamed with happiness.
"What? Who was that?" Nat asked.
"That was Tony. He working with the FBI on this you know. And they had an anonymous call, saying they spotted a boy, that was undoubtly Matthew, with an older woman, going to the store. The caller had a tape of it, substancial evidence Tony said before he explained it was a tape. They can put an ID on the woman hopefully, theyve already identified that it is Matt. They should be able to track down the woman who will lead them to Matt within a day or so" Richard explained. Nat sighed heavily, almost feeling light headed by the ammount of info she was just given.
"They saw Matt? How did he look? Was he hurt?" Nat asked rapidly.
"They said he looked fine from the point of view, even happy" Richard said. Nat rested her elbows on the counter and sighed heavily in relief, soon she will have her boy in her arms again, hopefully. And hopefully Matt will lead them to Jack too.
Jack awoke in from a peaceful sleep to find his surroundings had changed immensely. They were warmer now, then before. The room actually resembled a bedroom instead of a cell. He yawned and sat up glancing around the room. It was alot nicer. He saw a set of cloths on the desk. He moved his feet to resting them on the wood floor, it seemed he had healed completely. Was all that before just a dream? He began to wonder as he slowly stood up, wobbly. Or had they just been keeping him out until he was healed completely. He stumbled over to the desk and looked at the clothing. It was the attire of the clothing worn by the chinese army. He sighed heavily, it wasn't a dream.
"Your finally awake Jack" Someone said in chinese behind him. Jack turned around swiftly, but it was nothing like his old reactions, before everything.
"Get dressed" He ordered. Jack nodded slowly, then turned around to the clothing and started to dress himself in it.
"We're glad that you made the right choice, Jack, it would have been a shame for you to die" The chinese were being nice to him now. He found that quite erie after all the hell that they had just brought him through.
"The Warden wants to see you now, come with me" The chinese guard announced as Jack finished dressing.
Nat paced around the corridor of the FBI headquarters in LA. She was biting her nails nervously, waiting for an answer. They had yet to idientify the woman from the tape yet, or track her. The FBI said they had more important matters but they would get to it. The tape was found 2 weeks ago but they had yet to get anywhere. Nat finally went down to her work place and started to harass some of them, in concern, but they managed to keep her out in the hallway, saying they'd get to work on it soon.
"Sit!" The warden commanded with a stern voice. Jack sat down on the chair opposite of the warden obediently. Jack hadn't realized while he was asleep the chinese continued to brainwash him to obey their every command, no matter his own moral standings.
"Are you ready for your first assignment?" The warden asked. Jack nodded numbly, his now lifeless blue eyes just staring at the warden with complete attention. The warden pulled out a folder, setting infront of Jack and opening it. It had several pictures of woman.
"This woman is plotting to kidnap one of our young servants, I need you to take her out" The chinese warden explained pointing to the picture. Jack looked at the picture for a few long seconds, thinking he recognized that woman from somewhere, but didn't know where.
"Alright" Jack said, shrugging off where he had seen this woman from. The woman was in fact actually Nat.