Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel, DC or The 100. And I also, do not own anything Lovecraftian. Any Lovecraftian aspect, belongs to H. P. Lovecraft originally.
Yes, Lovecraftian. Anyone who has read any Lovecraft stuff, probably know what's going on in this story.
Warnings for child abandonment, anger issues, violence, murder, trauma, not to mention, mentions of severely bigoted language-referenced but certainly looked down upon and abhorred.
List of Clarke's romantic partner soulmates:
The list is going to be very similar to the one in my first fic, except, I'm adding Jessica Jones, Trish Walker, Sam Wilson and Elektra to the list, thanks to Valpolyto-adding in Matt Murdock too, and removing some of the other soulmates from the DC universe and putting in new ones as Clarke's romantic partner soulmates.
But Clint Barton and Laura Barton remain Clarke's familial soulmates.
Clarke Griffin's romantic partner soulmates: Natasha Romanoff, Pepper Potts, Helena Bertinelli, Dinah Lance, Diana Prince, Carol Danvers, Hela, Thor, Loki, Niylah, Anya, Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff, Maria Hill, Brunnhilde, Trish Walker, Jessica Jones, Yelena Belova, Melina Vostokoff, Matt Murdock and Elektra Natchios.
I know in another fic, the one with the nicknames, I made Shayera one of Clarke's romantic partner soulmates, to try it out and it just didn't work for me. So, Shayera Hol is one of Clarke's familial soulmates.
Shayera Hol's soulmate is the original female character I created, Tarina, who is also Clarke's familial soulmate, like Shayera and the Barton family, are.
A side note:
This fic, of course, will in no way agree with any of Howard Phillip Lovecraft's "moral views" on the world. There will be no room for xenophobia, racism, homophobia, misogyny, anti-Semitism, ableism, anti-Roma sentiment or transphobia. This is just about Lovecraft's creatures, that's it.
There will be a lot of references to Lovecraft's writing, which will contain potentially severely triggering language about those that are any skin color other than white, and Jewish people, so, everyone be warned.
(Just to be more specific, none of the repulsive xenophobic, racist and anti-Semitic language will be repeated, but will be referenced without being repeated.)
Again, I warn you, very potentially triggering bigoted language will be not said, but referenced. Anyone who has read anything Lovecraft-from his original work, knows what his prejudices were, so, just making sure those warnings are there.
And Clarke Griffin's soulmate mark, I'm going off of all the other fics where Clarke's soulmate mark is a golden sun.
War Dog
Chapter one
Experiment Two
Jake Griffin, age twenty-seven, had been sent out on what was arguably the most dangerous job in existence. He was being sent down to the ground, to see if the ground was safe.
His wife, Abby Griffin, whom he had been married to for over three years now, had pleaded with him not to go, but he, Thelonius Jaha and Markus Kane all agreed, that he was the only one equipped for the job.
And Jake had henceforth, been labeled in the files on the Ark, as "Experiment Two." Because he was the second person to be sent down from the Ark.
There had been another man that had been sent down. But he had died, soon after landing.
Which was why Jake was Experiment Two.
So, he hugged and kissed his wife and promised her that he would be careful. He swore he'd be careful. Then he got his spacesuit on, got into the pod, closed the pod up, and felt himself be jettisoned out of the Ark.
Abby was not his soulmate, he was not her soulmate, he honestly didn't know who his soulmate was; the name on his chest that named his soulmate, was in a language that he didn't understand. And Abby's soulmate, apparently, was Markus Kane. But Abby and Jake had met Kane years after the two of them had married. So, they weren't sure how to deal with that. Did Jake feel threatened by leaving and think that his wife would cheat on him with Kane?
No, Jake trusted his wife. He saw no reason not to trust her. He only worried about her worrying for him.
Jake was not an easily scared man. He wanted to think that in a worst case scenario, he would be one of the people least likely to waver.
However, he could feel every molecule in his body rebelling against being calm. His heartbeat accelerated and he had to clamp his jaw shut to keep his teeth from chattering from the vibration of the spiraling pod as it descended down to Earth.
He hit the ground much faster than he had been expecting.
His teeth chattered with the impact and he cried out as the pod landed.
He didn't move for several seconds, worried he might have broken something.
He eventually lifted himself off the chair of his pod, undoing his seatbelt and pushing the opening of his pod up.
As the pod's door slapped up, and Jake spilled out. He landed on his right knee and his left foot, wincing as he did. He was really grateful he had thick padding in both the shoes of his suit and in the knee areas of the suit.
He pushed himself slowly up to his feet, wincing.
He lifted his helmeted head and looked around where he stood. His eyes widened. It was a city.
A big, vast city that looked, while not massive, certainly decently sized.
"Wow," he whispered, "Wonder where I am."
He turned back to where the pod had landed and went to it, wanting to get the gun, the medical kit, the maps of the various countries and continents in the world, the supply of water and some food in a knapsack that had been prepared for him for this trip.
He pulled the knapsack on and headed to the nearest building. From the looks of the stone lions out at the front, he was going to go out on a limb and say that it was a library.
He walked up the stone steps, reaching the front door of the library and pulled on the door handles. They didn't budge. Then he tried to push. Nothing.
Jake sighed. It looked like whoever had last locked these doors before the bombs? They must have locked it up tight.
He quickly went down the steps, onto a moss and weed overgrown sidewalk.
He noticed several more buildings that had chains around their handles. He half wondered if all of those had been put into place during the bombings, because people had been worried about thievery during the bombings, or if people had just locked those buildings up and had been killed before getting to unlocking those locks.
He supposed that since no one was here, it wouldn't really be breaking and entering. Or, if it would be breaking and entering, he wouldn't be arrested for breaking in. Still, he half wondered what he possibly would be able to gain from breaking into one of these places.
If there was any food available, it had long since turned sour or wilted and would be inedible or toxic-or both.
He was glad that he had his own clean water and fresh food. For now.
He knew that radiation took a while to affect a person. Was it possible that he would melt and become deformed, then die immediately? Yes. But if he didn't take his helmet off? Then what would be the point of him being here?
His whole purpose on this mission, was to see if the air on Earth was breathable.
Hesitantly, he reached his hands up and turned the locks off of his helmet and grasped his helmet and began pulling it off his head.
When the helmet was off, Jake prepared himself. He was either going to die horribly and fast, or die horribly and incredibly slowly.
That was how radiation worked, after all.
He felt no pain, burning or anything like that. But he knew he needed to be cautious.
He walked through the city, the helmet under his left arm as he moved.
The towering spires of metal, glass and cement were impressive to see. Sure, Jake had seen pictures and videos of buildings like that. Multiple buildings like that. But seeing them in person was different. He had heard that sights that people looked forward to seeing tended to be disappointing. This was the opposite.
This was amazing to look at.
He smiled, seeing amazing structure to amazing structure. He wondered where he had landed.
He didn't recall these buildings from most pictures he had seen from cities on the ground.
His ancestors-the first ones that had loaded up onto the Ark and had taken off into space, escaping an inhospitable Earth, had come from Toronto, Canada. He had seen pictures of Toronto. And this city? It definitely wasn't it.
It wasn't New York City. And not Chicago.
Hmm. Jake wasn't sure where he was. He knew he might also have to entertain the possibility that he had landed outside of the United States and Canada, altogether.
It had been intended by the council, for him to land in North America, but the calculations tended to be off sometimes. Jake genuinely had no idea if he was in North America or not.
Now, he hadn't seen pictures of all cities of the United States or in Canada, clearly. But he knew a good number of them.
Which was what made him suspect he wasn't in North America. He wasn't recognizing any of the batches of buildings he was looking at. That was, until he turned a corner at where a couple of tree branches had fallen and his eyes laid upon the building in front of him.
While he didn't know the name of the building before him, or where it was located, he knew it well enough to realize that he was not in North America.
The building was white, with pale blue domes on it.
It was quite large. Jake decided not to approach it, but he was positive that he had seen this building from somewhere before. In some picture, or something.
But he just didn't know where he was.
He heard water moving somewhere in the distance.
He could be in South America, for all he knew. But he doubted it.
"Alright," he said, "Not in the United States or Canada. Alright, I can deal with this. This can work." And it could. Just because he hadn't landed where the council had wanted him to land, didn't mean he couldn't still see if the ground was livable.
After all, how different when it came to the ecosystem could this place be from North America? From how the weather felt and from the flora that he could see, it didn't look to be tropical. So, he had theoretically been trained to survive in the right "biome."
Well, hopefully he had, anyway.
There were multiple types of biomes-that being, places that had different climates. And he had not been trained to survive in biomes like tropical, rainforest, or anything like that.
He'd been trained to survive in biomes like grasslands, temperate forests, taiga landscapes and even savannas, not the more extreme tropical areas.
Still, he could work with this-if he was in a tropical landscape.
He looked around the road, seeing a set of cement stairs leading down to some park. He went down the stairs, deciding to see if he could investigate some of the plant life here, see exactly what sort of ecosystem he was dealing with.
He went down the steps, going to the plants.
He wasn't a botanist, not in any sense of the word. He was an engineer. But he had been trained for this, before being sent out. He had been told what plants to look for and which to identify to figure out where he had landed when the time came.
Jake got down to the park, and looked over all the plants. But nothing. Plants just weren't his forte.
Alright, fine. So, he couldn't figure out where he was this way. But maybe he could find another way. He looked to where several other unfamiliar buildings were. He ran past the park, going to those buildings, noticing some restaurants.
As he ran to those structures, he felt his suit shift around in its bulkiness.
He needed to get to one of the restaurants. All the food there was now rotted away, as you think it all would be. But a restaurant had menus. If there were menus, there were words written out on them. And if those menus were covered in a language that wasn't English, a language that he might be able to recognize, even if he didn't speak it-he might have a rough idea of where he was.
He got to the nearest restaurant and looked around for something he could break into the doors with. There were chains around the door handles with a lock on those chains, which meant, he wasn't getting in that way.
He lowered himself down, placing his helmet onto the ground, and his hands went to a huge, rough looking rock.
He reached for that big rock and pulled it right out of the ground. It wasn't as difficult as he had thought it would be. What was difficult, however, was being able to raise the big rock and bring it down against the glass doors. That would require way more strength than he was equipped with.
He then stopped and laughed.
"Jake," he said to himself, grinning, "You idiot."
He dropped the rock to the ground and it caused some of the dirt to cave in.
Jake pulled off his knapsack, unzipped it and reached into it, pulling out the firearm he had been given before being sent down here.
He took the safety off his gun and aimed it at the glass doors. He backed up, making sure he was out of the way of the shattering glass.
He then opened fire on the glass and metal doors.
The noise of the "bang" filled his ears and he cringed.
However, the bullet shattered the glass of the left-hand door and he watched as the glass fell apart, falling like sharp bits of shining rain to the bottom of the doorway of the restaurant.
Jake grinned.
Checking the frame of the left-hand door. No shards of glass sticking out around the black metal frame.
He slipped through the doorway, his booted feet crunching the glass under his feet as he walked into the building.
He put the gun back into his pack and pulled out the flashlight, zipping up the bag and putting it back on his back. He turned on the flashlight and let the flashlight beam guide him.
Almost the entirety of the restaurant was bathed in layers and layers of cobwebs and dust. The smell of rotten food thankfully didn't even exist. Obviously, it had all decayed ages ago, so it no longer was an issue.
His eyes found stacks and stacks of leatherbound menus. Or almost leatherbound menus. They were scuffed and dirty. But he knew they were menus, nonetheless.
He stepped over to them, reaching out and grabbed one of the menus. He opened it up and shined his flashlight over the pages of it.
His eyes took in the language. He had his answer given to him as soon as he read the words. The words, while stained with crud and dust, definitely were in fact, English words.
He noticed another menu, open and it had English words in them, which meant while this country might speak mainly another language, there, however, had beenEnglish speaking people here.
Wherever he was, it was not in North America. Of that, he was sure.
But he was clearly in some place where people had, if nothing else, been aware that they had required English translated menus for English speaking tourists. Arguably, that was most of the world's population, before the radiation. But still, it left him with no clue as to where he was.
He wasn't fluent in anything besides English and Mandarin Chinese, but seeing the first menu with a language that was neither, told him nothing.
However, he felt like he had seen the language from the first menu, from somewhere before.
He closed the menu up and tossed it onto the black leather seat of a booth next to him, making dust fly up all around the booth on the menu's impact with the seat.
He walked out of the restaurant from the opening of where he had come in, figuring he would find nothing else to tell him where he was exactly.
He turned the flashlight off when he was outside, and checked the sky. The sun was still up, so he had a lot of hours of light left.
He pulled out his wristwatch and checked it. It was 5 PM. But clearly, that was the "North American," time, which he had set the watch at. He had no idea what time it was supposed to be in other countries or continents. He was positive that there was a big time difference where he was, next to the Americas. He didn't know how big, but he doubted it was just an hour time difference.
Which, in a way, probably should have told him immediately that he wasn't in North America. His watch had been set for 5 PM, and it was late in the year, which meant the sun should be long down by now. But it wasn't. Not for him it wasn't. which meant he was in another time zone from North America's time zone. Really, he should have figured that part out from the start, as soon as he had seen the sun high in the sky.
So, okay. He was in an entirely different continent than the one he had been expecting to land in.
Which meant that he probably needed to report this to Abby, Thelonius and the rest of the council.
He kept walking, looking for indications of where he was, but just couldn't. All he saw were old buildings. Beautiful buildings, but he was positive, old.
He kept walking, then gasped, when he almost fell off the edge of the strip of land he was walking on, staring down into water that surrounded the land mass.
The fuck?
Jake looked from one side to the next.
He was on an island. Clearly, he was on an island.
"Wow," he said, stunned. Okay, he had suspected that he might be in a landmass near water, but he hadn't expected this.
It seemed like where he was, it was completely cut off from the other landmasses and only had water around it.
Even more curious as to where he was, Jake ran to the end of the stone walkway, looking over to the right, eyes widening when he found several canals. Canals that had small, of course, empty boats in them.
Jake's eyes widened. The thing was, he recognized the boats that he was looking at-that was, he recognized the style of the boats he was looking at.
"Oh, shit," he said, more out of shock than out of anything bad. He knew where he was. And it definitely wasn't the Americas.
He put the flashlight away and pulled out the radio, turning it on and calling into it.
"Abby, Thelonius, Callie, Markus!" He said, "Any of you there?"
After a few seconds, Abby's voice came through. "Jake? Honey?" She asked, desperation in her voice, "Are you alright?!"
Jake grinned. "I'm alright, Abby," he said, "Promise I'm alright. But I think our navigators might have miscalculated. Thelonius Jaha wanted me to go to North America. But I'm not in North America. I'm positive I'm somewhere in Italy. Specifically, in Venice."
Abby asked, stunned, "How did you end up there?!"
Jake laughed, "Hell if I know. I just know that I'm here. But there's a lot of upsides here. The air doesn't feel like it's toxic. Not that I can see, anyway. I haven't eaten anything from the ground yet. Or drank any of the water. But it feels alright. For now."
Abby whispered, "You…we'll try to find a way for you to be safe. And to get you back to the Ark. Is there any way to get to another part of Italy, away from the water?"
"Got no idea," Jake admitted.
He heard Abby groan, "Okay. We'll send a rescue pod down."
"Don't worry about it," Jake said, "I'll give you time. It will allow me time to investigate the area. See if I can find out if the water is safe to drink. And if there are any nuts, berries or animals that are safe to eat."
Jake knew that there was some sort of nature in Italy, unlike what a lot of people thought of the place.
He heard Abby say quietly, "Alright, just be careful, Jake. Please. We don't know if anything down there is poisonous or not."
"I know," Jake said, "I know. That's why I'm here, remember?"
After a while, Abby again pleaded with him to be careful and he asked her to take her information back to Thelonius Jaha. And he said goodbye to her and he began wandering again.
He eventually found a few street signs, but they were mostly eroded around the numbers and letters.
A few hours passed, and he ate some of the supplies that had been packed away with him.
He drank some water from his supplies and after a few more miles, he found a startling structure that caught his eye.
He immediately knew that this was another library. One unlike the previous one he had seen.
It was huge. With windows, cream-colored bricks, and multiple stone statues on each cornice of a balcony.
His mouth dropped. This was incredible.
He knew immediately he wanted to get inside. He walked forward, remembering his gun.
He went under the overpass of the building, going up to the front doors. he looked at the handles and his eyes widened, almost feeling for a moment like this was fate, despite him being a man of science. He reached out and pushed the doors open. Yes, the doors had no chain on them. Hence why Jake wasn't beyond suspecting that this might be fate.
He entered the building and looked around, seeing even in the dark, multiple shelves stack full of books. So, this was another library.
Jake pulled out his flashlight again and switched it on, shining the beam in various parts of the room around him. Despite all the dust, crud and cobwebs, which as to be expected, were prevalent everywhere in the room, it was truly a remarkable room. With endless shelves of tomes, gold-colored telescopes, big, round globes of the Earth, old fashioned desks, some small, colorful religious statues.
Jake reached the stairs and went up them. He reached another floor and saw all the beautiful things there. Honestly, he had no idea where he was, but whoever had built this library, had built a work of art.
Eventually, after a few hours of exploring the library and going out of the building and exploring for a few hours. When it started getting dark, he went back to the library and hunkered down, setting up a place to sleep.
He placed some books in a pile, placed a blanket that was packed away in his backpack, placed it over the books, lay down against it and fell asleep.
Two days later, Jake had been here for almost three days now. He had learned a good deal. None of the plants he had eaten so far were poisonous. So, if they were dangerous, they probably would take a while to affect him.
Nuts, berries, they all appeared to be safe.
Jake had fished, caught a couple of fish and cooked them and ate them. Both fish seemed safe.
He had a book packed away, explaining how to set up a fire for survival.
And he had survived his first few days on the ground.
He had seen no sign of any life, outside of plants, fish and the occasional birds.
He got to the edge of one part of the city, when things changed.
He reached a new highway, when he noticed something odd. There was a big, wide, black, plastic tunnel of some type on the road. Long. Extending far. It was bigger than two of Jake. It was a long tunnel that was made entirely out of rubber or plastic.
Jake peered into the tunnel, looking down it.
He pulled out his flashlight, turned it on and shined it down into the tunnel.
He saw nothing. Hmm.
He raised his left leg and stepped forward into the tunnel. The sun was shining and it was a clear day, but despite that, he saw nothing down the tunnel.
Unfortunately, that meant that he'd probably need to go all the way into the tunnel to investigate.
He went down the tunnel, going through the dark.
Somewhere in the back of his brain, something told him to go back, but he had to wonder what could go wrong. After all, there weren't humans here anymore. What could go wrong?
He almost laughed at that question that he had asked himself. Because no one wanted to ask that question. That was a dangerous question to ask in situations like this. As soon as someone asked that question, something inevitably went wrong.
Jake followed the beam of his flashlight and kept moving.
It occurred to him, as he made a turn, that the tunnel was expanding. He frowned and turned, flashing the light of the torch in his hand over the part of the tunnel he was in.
There was some type of socket around the tunnel. It looked like someone had stuck the opening of a larger tunnel to the one that he was in, expanding it, making a longer tunnel.
But why? What had the people who had made this gained by making these tunnels?
He then almost crashed into a startling sight.
A bookshelf of sorts.
Frowning, Jake raised his flashlight, allowing the flashlight beam to show him the contents of each shelf. The shelves were all empty.
Save for one thing.
A small statue.
Black. And it was…a very strange statue.
There were batlike wings protruding from its back. It was crouching, with claws, and there were tentacles on the thing's face. The thing had a bulging head.
The head was essentially an octopus.
Jake stared at the statue, understanding innately, that the statue was…abnormal.
Yet, something possessed him.
He reached out with his free hand and grabbed the statue off of the shelf, and opened up his bag, and stuck the statue inside, then closed up the bag, unsure of why he had done that.
He then went further and further through the tunnels, finding more expansions. He then stopped walking, freezing as he stopped, eyes widening when he heard something.
Human voices.
Human voices talking. They weren't speaking English. He didn't know what they were saying. But he heard them.
They were most likely speaking Italian.
He followed the voices, going down the left-hand tunnel that was the next expansion, away from the right-hand tunnel.
He went through the tunnel, getting ever-closer to the sound of the voices.
He heard the voices getting louder.
He entered the next expansion, finding a vast room, constructed from the black plastic tubes. Wide and to his surprise, lit up with multiple metal stands that had lit candles all over them.
The "room" was illuminated by all the candles. And in the middle of the room, was a big pedestal, with a child sitting on top of it. A baby, really. Small, only a few strands of white-blonde hair, with only a pure white cloth around their small body. The platform they were perched on, was black and stone. It looked ceremonial.
That wasn't what disturbed Jake. What disturbed him were the two figures that flanked the pedestal with the child upon it.
Both figures were robed in dark cloth, hoods up, both of them tall, thin and held long, curved daggers in their hands.
One of the figures said something to the other in a language Jake didn't understand.
The language they were saying? It didn't sound like Italian.
Jake was in no way fluent in Italian. But he had heard it in movies and had heard some fluently Italian speaking people on the Ark, speak it and knew what the language sounded like.
This? This definitely did not sound like Italian.
The other figure nodded and began approaching the baby, raising the knife in his hand.
Jake's eyes widened, not even caring that there were three other humans here-which meant there had to be more, horror hitting him as he realized what he was about to witness. Ritual sacrifice.
These men were going to murder this baby.
Jake moved fast. He pulled out his gun, took the safety off and aimed it right at the man closest to the pedestal and pulled the trigger.
The bullet fired out, hitting the man straight on in the chest, making him cry out and drop his dagger, stumbling back, blood firing out of his wound.
The second man whirled on Jake, shock on his face marred by scars. Jake actually gasped at the sight. The scars on his face made him look ages older than he probably was.
The scarred man's face darkened with anger and he came forward, raising his knife, spitting some words in another language at Jake and Jake presumed he was being cursed at.
He had no idea what the man was saying, sure, but when one was yelling at him the way this man was yelling at him, the assumptions for vulgarities were quite easy to come to.
Unable to think of anything else to do, Jake raised his gun, took the safety off and pulled the trigger.
The bullet fired out and hit the man right in the stomach. He screamed and collapsed, knife falling out of his hand.
Jake then looked at the baby, knowing he had to save the kid.
He had no idea where the baby's family was, but he wasn't going to leave them to get killed.
He ran past the man that he had shot in the stomach and reached the pedestal.
The man who was bleeding from his stomach protested, speaking in a language Jake didn't understand.
But Jake wasn't listening. He didn't need to hear some fanatic's crazy reasons for wanting to sacrifice a child.
He ran to the pedestal, and with the arm that wasn't holding the gun, he scooped the baby up, turned and ran back down the big, black tube from where he had come from, ignoring the yelling from the dying men at his back.
"It's okay, baby," he said to the child in his arms, "I'll keep you safe, promise!"
He ran with the baby in his arms, down the tunnel. He ran and ran, ignoring the baby's crying. He had to get the kid out of here.
He felt his lungs burn as his feet pounded against the black, plastic floor of the tunnel as he jetted out of there.
He finally got out of the tunnel and ran out, turning to the left, running away from the tunnel, holding the child against his chest protectively as he ran.
He had run another six blocks when he finally came to a stop, panting and gasping, his insides feeling like they were going to explode-a sign that he was deeply out of shape.
He turned back to where he had run from, panicked. He looked around. He saw no sign of the men in their dark robes.
He let out a relieved laugh.
He looked down at the baby in his arms, seeing the child's tear-streaked face as the child whimpered.
"It's okay, sweetie," he said softly, "You're safe now. Don't worry."
He started carrying the child to where there were a series of stones and sat down on one of the bigger stones. He'd need to look at the child, make sure that the child wasn't hurt in any way.
He wasn't a medic. But he knew enough to know how to apply anti-infection lotion and other ointments to someone, if he needed to. He hoped the child didn't have anything more serious than a few small, superficial cuts at the most.
He put the child on his lap and began to pull the white cloth from the child's body.
He grabbed the child's pudgy little left hand, turned it up and looked at the palm.
It was usually considered an unforgivable act to look at someone's soulmate mark without their permission, but given this child looked to have no protector, he needed to find what he could out about the kid. Including about their soulmate mark.
Looking down at the child's soulmate mark on their left palm, he took the mark in, interested.
The mark was of a golden sun with golden fire right under the golden sun.
He nodded. Alright. He knew what the kid's soulmate mark was.
He looked at the name under the mark. He frowned. The name was in a language he didn't recognize. Not English or Mandarin Chinese, and it didn't look like it was in Italian, either. So, probably in a language that was common around here.
Sure, he hadn't even known that humans were even here, but yeah, humans meant culture and language. And this kid appeared to have a name in a language that he didn't recognize.
He said quietly, "Sorry about this, kid." He pulled the cloth away, looking at the rest of the child's body, inspecting for any injuries.
He saw that the child biologically, was female. And there were thankfully, no injuries that he could see.
There was, one thing that caught his attention. There were multiple, multiple soulmate marks on the child's chest, under the girl's heart.
There were dozens and dozens and dozens of marks, with dozens and dozens and dozens of names under them.
To his surprise, he was able to read a few of those names. One of the first names he read was, "Pepper Potts," another one was, "Tony Stark." Another one was "Natalia Alinovna Romanova."
There were two names in languages he couldn't read. But something was clear. This girl had many, many romantic partner soulmates.
His eyes widened when he saw one soulmate name. "Steve Rogers." But he dismissed that.
It couldn't possibly be the same "Steve Rogers" who Jake had idolized almost his whole life. Not Captain America.
After all, Captain America had disappeared centuries ago.
He then turned the child around on his lap and inspected her back. His eyes got wider. If this girl had had multiple romantic partner soulmates, this girl had even more familial soulmates.
There were so many familial soulmate marks with names under them. The girl's back was very covered; full of familial soulmate marks and names.
"Holy shit," he said, mouth dropping. He didn't even think about the child hearing him speaking a vulgarity.
"Well," he said, chuckling, wrapping the cloth around the girl's body, "I better keep you safe. Don't want an army of pissed off soulmates to come after me for not keeping you from getting killed."
He kept the girl wrapped up in the cloth, picking her up and carrying her off to the library where he had basically made his "base."
He had brought back any edible food that could last a while, as well as his weapons and self-made weapons from sharpened sticks and big rocks. He also had stored away any flammable stuff and things he could use to make fire.
Sure, there were books in the library, and a person could argue that he could start a fire with those books. But burning a book was disgusting and horrible.
He knew that some books were meant for the trash bin. However, he didn't want to burn any books. That was what Nazis did.
He brought the child into the library, hand going to the girl's back and patting it, trying to calm her crying down.
"Shh," he whispered gently, "You're safe. You're safe."
Grabbing his lighter, and switching it on, he set a lump of grass and cloth that he had set inside a circle, away from anything else flammable, ablaze, and as the fire shot up, providing light, he turned off his lighter, put it back into his pocket, and sat down, setting the child back onto his lap, looking the kid over.
The girl looked alright. And he had already confirmed that the girl was not injured in any way.
That was good. But he now knew something really important. The first thing he had learned, was that there were people down here.
Which meant one thing for sure.
Earth was livable. Life outside of plants and animals could live down here. Perhaps not thrive, but survive.
The other thing he had learned was that the people down here were dangerous.
And willing to commit child sacrifice for whatever rituals they wanted to fulfill.
He shuddered. He had to keep this kid safe.
And if the child had been about to be sacrificed, he had to assume that there were more people after the child. A cult was a cult, after all. And cults always had lots of devoted zealots.
Which meant that there would likely be people looking for this child. To kill her.
He held the child protectively. He had no idea what these people thought they'd benefit from murdering a small, helpless child. But if they were after her? Then he had to protect her. Had to.
"It's okay," he said, "I'll keep you safe, kid."
He then looked down at the girl's name below the sun mark. He had no idea what the name said. "So, what do I call you?" He asked.
He didn't want to mispronounce the child's name. He doubted that the child would take offense, as the child wasn't old enough to be able to perceive a cultural offense, however, he still didn't want to mispronounce the child's name.
He started thinking of temporary names he could give the child.
He then remembered the names of some of his favorite science-fiction authors.
Maybe he could give the child a temporary name.
He remembered the name Arthur C. Clarke.
He grinned. Alright. Why not? This was just a temporary name, after all.
Besides, Thelonius Jaha, when his young son had been born, Thelonius had decided, after his wife died in childbirth, to name his son after his wife's favorite science-fiction author.
H. G. Wells.
So, Thelonius Jaha's son, was Wells Jaha. Wells was almost two years old by now.
So, why shouldn't he name the child "Clarke," after Arthur C. Clarke?
"Clarke," he said, looking down at the child on his lap, smiling slightly when the child looked up at him, confused.
"You like that name?" He asked her, "Is that a good name? Clarke?"
The child's face split into a grin, giggling.
Jake chuckled. Okay. So, the girl liked the name "Clarke." Nice.
He looked down at the nuts that he had found that were safe to eat.
Black walnuts, as he had learned, were safe to eat raw. They were edible and not poisonous. He picked up some of the walnuts he had stored away, cracking them open against the stone floor and offered them to "Clarke."
Clarke looked at them, sniffed, then reached out and with chubby hands, gripped one walnut after another, tossing them into her mouth, crunching them between her pearly teeth.
He needed to make sure that she didn't choke or anything like that. He watched the girl eat carefully.
Thankfully she didn't choke on any of the food. He smiled.
"Like those?" He asked.
The black walnuts were surprisingly tasty.
He had never been very into learning what foods were edible on the ground, and what weren't. He didn't have the brain of a biologist or botanist.
Everything he knew revolved around actual mechanics.
But he still wondered what he was to do.
There would be people after this girl.
And he had to keep this girl safe. Where were her parents? Did her parents know what had happened? That the girl had been stolen? Or had her parents given the girl up to be sacrificed?
Jake felt sick at the thought. He did not want to think about that possibility.
So, assuming that that second possibility was the case, what did he do then?
His mind automatically went to Abby, his wife.
If this girl had nowhere to go, would Abby mind if he brought home a child?
They had been talking about having children for a few months now. And while Jake knew that Abby was talking about them having a child of their own biologically, wouldn't adopting a child allow them to give love to a child that needed it?
A child that very clearly needed love and protection?
He would talk with Abby.
He looked out of the dirt and crud encrusted window of the library. The sun was beginning to lower.
Tomorrow. He'd talk to Abby tomorrow. Right now? He needed to make sure that no one got at the girl. He had to keep her safe.
"Don't worry," he whispered to the girl, smiling at how the girl grinned at her, warmth filling his chest, "I'll keep you safe, Clarke."
Later that night, as Clarke got to sleep on the cloth that Jake had provided the child to sleep on, Jake opened up his bag and pulled out the statue that he had grabbed.
The statue with the octopus head was now in his hands and he eyed the thing in his hands.
He supposed this statuette must have been a symbol of this cult's god.
For some reason? Even though Jake was an atheist? He had a very uncomfortable feeling about the statuette he was looking at.
Author's note
Anyone who has a strong suspicion that Clarke is not entirely human? You would be right.