Chapter 23

Locke struggled to make it through the dense undergrowth of the jungle, the dawning realisation that he was still a few miles away from the caves filling him with despair. The painkillers he had taken a few hours earlier had provided only temporary relief, and now with each step he took the pain in his abdomen intensified. It felt as though an invisible hand had taken a hold of his guts and was squeezing them into a pulpy mess. His stomach was on fire.

His breathing was ragged and as his chest felt too tight for him to carry on as he came to rest against a nearby palm tree. His head was spinning and he was dizzy from lack of oxygen – he could no longer breathe properly and move at the same time – and he was alarmed to find that his already weakened legs gave way from underneath him. Silent tears rolled down his cheeks as he curled tightly up into a ball. The knowledge that it could be days before anyone found him out here filled him with fear – he knew that in his current condition these would be days he probably didn't have.

"Jack!" He cried out – full of despair – but he barely managed a hoarse whisper. "Jack!"

Suddenly he heard a snap of twigs from behind him and he turned abruptly to see the figure of a tall unfamiliar woman standing before him. It took a moment for Locke's blurred vision to focus enough to see her clearly, but as it did and her hazy silhouette came into clearer focus the dull light penetrating the dense jungle overgrowth revealed her piercing blue eyes and mucky brown face staring down at him – framed by the long chocolate locks of her wavy unkempt hair.

"Who are you?" Locke asked her with as much strength as he could muster.

He felt intrinsically vulnerable – his voice shaking slightly from both the cold which had taken hold within his body, and the pain.

"Are you the French woman?" He pressed after he failed to receive a response from her. He remembered Sayid's tale of the woman who had captured him in the jungle only a week or so earlier.

"Are you sick?" She asked him, finally.

"I need Jack." Locke explained.

"Are you sick?" The woman asked him again.

"Jack… I need Jack… Doctor." Locke strained, trying to make her understand – she may well be his only hope now.

But without another word the anonymous woman suddenly raised her hand to reveal a gun… a gun which Locke was horrified to see she was now aiming straight at him.