Chapter 6
Jack slept for at least six hours straight, finally waking up to the sound of Marzun preparing his lunch. Stale bread and cold meat. Doesn't get much better than that, Jack thought ironically.
He grunted as he rolled into a sitting position, though the aches and pains of the night before had faded just a little. "Got any of that for me?" he asked when his stomach complained about being so empty.
"Of course," Marzun said. He passed Jack a chunk of bread and a scrap of dry meat, neither of which looked very appetizing.
Jack did his best to choke it down, all the while thinking about the hallucination he'd had of Daniel. "Meet me in the main square..." Yeah, right. Like he was going to risk getting jumped by Jumas again in the dead of the night. He couldn't count on Marzun to come to his rescue every time he decided to do something stupid, and chasing another delusion through the colony in a vain attempt to find a way to escape was definitely stupid.
But what if he wasn't a delusion?
Jack eyed the shoe that was still lying in the middle of the room where he'd tossed it at Daniel. He could easily have just imagined it hitting him, but... wouldn't it have fallen closer to the wall if it hadn't?
He stuffed the rest of his food into his mouth and slowly rose to his feet, stretching out his aching muscles as he did so. He could feel Marzun watching him curiously as he hobbled over to his shoe and picked it up. "You must be wondering why my shoe is on the other side of the room," he said.
"I felt it would be wisest not to ask."
Jack chuckled, more out of irony than humour. "I guess stranger things have happened," he said.
As he put his shoe back on his foot, he noticed the light reflecting on something over by the wall. The object was small, maybe four inches long, metallic, and shaped suspiciously like...
A US Air Force pocket knife.
Jack dove forward and grabbed it like a lifeline. There was no doubt about it - not only was it a USAF pocket knife, it was his USAF pocket knife. He hadn't been able to find it on his person when he'd arrived in this place, and he was sure he would have seen it if it had been lying on the floor the whole time. That meant someone else must have left it there.
Unless... unless it wasn't even real.
"Hey, Marz," Jack said, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. "What am I holding right now?"
Marzun approached Jack with a puzzled expression on his face. "I do not know," he said.
"But what does it look like?" Jack insisted.
Marzun looked at the knife closely and gingerly took it from Jack's outstretched palms. "It is... some kind of gadget from your world?" he said uncertainly.
Jack almost danced a jig on the spot. "And... have you seen it before?" he asked. "Was it with me when I came here?"
Marzun shook his head and handed it back to Jack. "I do not know," he said. "Why are you asking me this?"
Jack tossed the knife into the air and caught it between his two palms with a joyous clap. "Because I might not have imagined it after all," he said with a grin. He didn't explain himself further, though inside he was ready to burst with his newfound hope. It had to have been Daniel that had left the knife for him to find. It must have really been him the whole time.
He rubbed his hands together in anticipation and sat back down on his bed to wait for nightfall. In just a few hours, he would know for sure.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Jack gave it a good half hour after Marzun fell asleep before he got up and silently left the room. He'd spent the entire day playing Daniel's visit over and over in his mind, sometimes convincing himself that it had all been real, other times wondering what the hell he'd been thinking believing in it at all. But the pocketknife...
He patted his pocket as he walked down the dark corridor and into the main square, feeling somewhat comforted knowing that the knife was there. He would have to be careful not to lash out at anybody with it during a hallucination, but at least he'd be able to defend himself if Jumas found him again. Plus, it gave him hope that he wasn't just stumbling blindly along after an imaginary friend. Daniel was going to be waiting for him in the square, and he was going to get out of this hellhole once and for all.
So why was the square completely deserted?
Jack stood in the middle of the square and turned a full 360, searching the shadows for any sign of Daniel. Nothing.
"Daniel?" he whispered. "You there?"
He heard a faint cry from one of the nearby rooms, but other than that, the colony was completely silent.
"Dammit." Jack sighed wearily and walked across the square to lean against the wall most hidden with darkness. He could feel every ounce of hope that had been revived with Daniel's appearance start to fade away now that he knew the truth. Daniel had never been there at all. It had just been wishful thinking, and he'd fallen for it once again.
He felt his legs growing weak, and he slowly slid down the wall until he was seated on the floor, crossing his legs in front of him and leaning his head back in despair. "This will never be over..."
Daniel's sudden presence at his side didn't faze him in the least. He looked up at him in weary acceptance of his random comings and goings, though part of him felt he had a right to be angry with him after being left to face Baal's incessant torture all alone. Still, he was here now, and Jack didn't have the energy to hold a grudge anyway. "Daniel?" he said, his mind not functioning well enough to provide him with anything else to say.
"I'm here."
Jack looked away again, suddenly feeling too exhausted to even hold his head up. "You were gone."
Daniel squatted down beside him. "I know, I'm sorry," Daniel said sympathetically. "There was something I had to do, but... I'm back now, and I promise I'll stay with you till this is over."
"It'll never be over."
"Yes, it will."
"Daniel... you have to end this."
"I will, Jack. It'll all be over soon."
Jack looked over at Daniel in confusion. That wasn't the way he remembered this conversation going...
"Are you okay?"
Jack shook his head sharply and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. When he looked up again, he was back in the colony, and he could see even in the darkness that Daniel was back in the robe he had been wearing earlier that day. "No, I'm not," he said with a sigh. "I don't know what's real and what's not anymore."
"I'm real, Jack," Daniel said gently. "I'm going to get you out of here. You just have to trust me."
"Right," Jack said. "What are you gonna do... ascend me?"
Daniel's forehead crinkled in confusion. "What?"
Jack shook his head. "Never mind. What's the plan?"
"The plan is... the incinerator."
Jack laughed. "Yeah, brilliant idea!" he said. "I'll just follow my latest hallucination through the lethal force shield and into the fiery furnace. That'll solve all my problems... I'll be dead!"
"Not if we lower the force shield first, and go down while the furnace is cooling," Daniel said without missing a beat.
"And that would be..."
"Right now."
"Sounds like you've got it all figured out," Jack said. He didn't like to admit it, but he was actually pretty impressed with his subconscious this time.
"Yeah, we do," Daniel said. "Sam got her hands on the blueprints for this place, and we've spent the last two days going over them, trying to figure out the fastest and safest way of escape. We didn't have many options, so... this is it. Are you ready?"
Jack took a moment to weigh the pros and cons of the situation. The way he saw it, if Daniel was real this would be his one and only chance of getting out of here. On the other hand, if Daniel was not real... well, he probably wouldn't live to regret participating in this escape attempt. If he was being completely honest with himself, that might not actually be such a bad thing. At least he would save himself years of suffering and loneliness.
He wondered how many of the supposed suicides over the years were actually people hallucinating that their friends had come to rescue them.
"Okay," he finally said, slapping his knees as he pushed himself up off the floor. "I'm ready as I'll ever be."
To be continued...