Eric saw how his friend was still struggling with the break-up, and had happily ran himself into a tree - if there had been any in their apartment - for bringing it all up again.

He instinctively felt that Jack had assumed he had passed the worst, and now things hit him harder than before. Eric should probably tell him that this was normal, that this was a just phase, a thing that would fade and leave only small scars if given proper time. He could see Jack wanted this all to be over so badly, but it just couldn't be.

But what Eric didn't know, was that it ran much deeper than that.

The feeling of being rejected that Jack had gone through at that moment of the break-up, had also brought back the heartbreaking memories of his childhood. He had managed to shut those feelings out since that night with Rachel. But as all the tension and frustration of the past two days poured out over him, they started to surface once again. The fear, the distrust, the frustration, the rejection by the people he loved and his humiliation over and over again… He couldn't suppress it anymore and it overwhelmed him. The thick, black darkness that still haunted the eight-year-old inside of him, had him there. In his might. It pinned him down and laughed. Spat him in the face. Beat him up until he felt no more. Told him that he was useless, a nobody. A rat. Dirt.

It was all too much, too much pain in too little time. So Jack escaped.

Eric saw the light in Jack's eyes go out like a candle in the wind. One minute it was there; the next, it had gone. Just like that. Before Eric could grasp what was going on, Jack had leaped over to the front door and disappeared into the night.

"Jack! JACK!" Eric screamed as he jumped up and ran up to the open door. "Jack! What happened? No! Wait! Come back here! JACK!"

He needed less than a second to decide to go after his best friend. Without a jacket, wallet or keys, Eric slammed the door behind him, crossed the hallway in two huge leaps, stumbled and fell his way down the stairs and ran outside, into the pouring rain.

He frantically searched for a sign that Jack was still around. He couldn't possibly be far away. Right? He continued to call Jack's name, while looking to his front. To his left, down the street. Right. Left again. Right once more. Front.

No Jack.

Eric estimated he had been wondering outside for almost five hours now. It had to be around three in the morning. The raining hadn't stopped pouring all the time he had been out here, so Eric was soaking wet and cold. His voice was hoarse, his eyes swollen; he didn't feel his feet nor his fingers; he was shivering and stumbling more that walking - but he didn't give up. He just knew that if he stopped looking for Jack now, things would end up with something really, really bad – so bad, he didn't dare to think of it.

So he continued to scream and run. "Jack! JACK! Where are you! Jack…" His voiced drowned in his own tears. He was exhausted, desperate. He had seen the darkness in Jack's eyes.

He had searched all the usual hangouts. Then parks, clubs, supermarkets, cinema, every corner of the neighborhood of which he knew it existed. It appeared as if Jack had vanished from the earth surface. Panic raged through Eric's frozen body.

A faint sound in the far, far distance woke Eric from his daze. Suddenly he knew where to look. He started to run. Run for his life.

Run for Jack's life.