Jak moaned. A hideously bright light shone directly in his face. The Baron! He jumped up with a growl, expecting to break free in hopes of crushing his captors. Instead, he found that he was much too weak to turn dark, instead slumping to the ground in a puff of fine sand. He lifted his head slowly, finding that he felt much better than he had during the previous awakening. However, he could not remember a time when he had ever felt so much like crap. There was the time that he had been captured and experimented upon with Dark Eco, but that had not left him exhausted, instead, quite the opposite. Then there was the time he had been banished to the desert. He recalled nearly dying of thirst in that terrible heat. Now he thought of the Wasteland as home.

Jak sat up. "Mar." He was puzzled. Why had he decided to say that name? It was his own name, but what importance did that hold? "Mar!" He said again, his voice ringing in his ears. The sound did not echo back, it seemed just to be swallowed up in the surrounding darkness. After a few moments he began to hear a noise. He could not place it and brushed it off as his imagination. But it gradually grew louder and Jak turned his head toward the sound. It was the soft scrape of sand. The bright beam did not allow him to see into the darkness, but he sensed that something was just outside the lighted ring.

"Mar." A raspy voice whispered.

"Hullo? Who's there?" Jak gained his feet and crouched in a defensive pose toward the voice. But no other noise came. The voice did not respond and the scraping of sand did not reoccur. He slowly walked toward the source of the voice and the beam, of course, followed, lighting only his immediate footsteps. Jak found nothing in the direction he thought he had heard the voice. The sand was level and undisturbed. Jak slumped to his knees and almost wept. Endless hours alone in the bright light surrounded by silent darkness, and now, this elusive voice, were more than he could bear. Jak began to get the feeling that he was undergoing something far worse than he had ever before endured. He almost wished that this voice was some delusion in his aching head.

He knelt with his face to the sand and wondered exactly why his head ached so. It seemed to be fine, no abnormal bumps or scratches. He checked over the rest of his body thoroughly. Nothing was abnormal at all. He looked over his many old battle scars and felt all of his muscles, reassuring himself that he was not really hurt. He rubbed his chin, the green goatee scratching loudly in the darkness against his calloused hand.

It had been years since he had been so alone. He hardly remembered stumbling around in the wilderness. He hardly remembered the day his uncle found him and took him in. Is he really my uncle? He shook his head sadly. He hardly remembered the precursor artifact around his neck. He did not remember it being placed there. He did not remember the circumstances. Why did Damas send me away? Did he really send me away? Jak began to get confused and decided not to think back that far.

He chucked at the memory of the revelation of the mighty precursors. Ha! The fact that Daxter himself was one of them all along made Jak shake his head in wonder.

"Jak? Ja-ak." Daxter was leaning over him waving a furry paw. "C'mon, man, get up. Time to kick some butt." He bounded out of sight and Jak sat up and pushed the scratchy blanket off. He wandered out of the room.

"Jak! Hurry yer butt, man! Beakkist is getting cold. Heh." Daxter climbed onto a rough-hewn wooden stool and spooned some porridge into his mouth. Jak slid onto the stool beside him and smiled up and the pretty young girl who placed a bowl in front of him.

"This is the life, y'know?" Dax stared after the girl until she disappeared around the corner.

"Hurry up, Dax, we've got work to do." Jak downed his hearty porridge, the specialty of Spargus City, and strode back to his room to retrieve his gear.

"All right, old pal. What's up today? We gonna blow crap up? Save the world as usual?"

Jak glanced down at his friend and strapped his armor on. "We're going to the monastery today." As was his wont, he did not include more that the bare essence.

Daxter rolled his eyes, exasperated. "And do what? That monk boy is cu-razy!" He paused. "It is a guy, right." Jak grinned and slid his morph-gun into its customary place on his back.

"Let's go."

Jak sat up and stared long and hard into the beam of light. "Curse you." He muttered. He did not continue speaking. As much as he yearned for something to break the monotonous silence, he did not want to go against his natural introspection.

"For heaven's sake, Dax, strap your goggles!" Jak turned toward his passenger. "They keep frickin' hitting me in the face!" He was tired and sore from a long day of tramping through endless miles of jungle terrain, jumping from stump to rock and swinging and climbing. Now the light was getting low, and they still had not found what they needed in order to continue. And to top it all off, Daxter's damn buckle was smacking him in the face as he ran.

Daxter could not help but retort. "Jak, yer not the only tired one, man! I been sittin' here all day, getting saddle sore on this old hunka metal." He gestured to the pauldron, and rubbed his bottom. Jak stopped and simply looked at Dax. Daxter opened his mouth to continue, but, seeing the look in Jak's eye, lowered his head and buckled his goggles.

A tear formed in the corner of Jak's eye. A frickin' tear? Where'd that come from? Jak was not aware that he even had the capacity to cry. He had seen many people die, and had caused many deaths, but he never remembered ever crying. He sighed. He wasn't even really crying now. My eye is just a little wet is all. Not true tears. Oh, Dax, where the heck are you?