Something felt wrong, something was wrong.
Out of nowhere, Jax became aware of the cold. Not the bitter kind that came with winter drafts but the cold that seeped into your bones like death. A cold that felt inside, not just of the skin, but inside his blood, in his marrow.
Then the pain came.
Like fire,
Like steel being hammered into every nerve ending all at once.
He gasped and air rushed into lungs that had been still. Dry, cracked lips parted as he choked on breath and mud. The body jerked upright on instinct, coughing up rainwater and the blood that had turned black in his throat.
He was alive.
Wait! Alive?
His fingers clawed at the dirt and shook. His chest ached, he remembered the gunshot, the cold press of Deek's pistol, Liss's eyes, blank and distant as he had been dragged out of her apartment to his death.
Gasping, shivering and damp, Jax dragged himself into a sitting position.
The world around him was grey. Early morning mist clung to the rotyard like smoke. Everything was silent. No voices. No boots. No scavengers.
He was alone.
Again.
Still.
He touched his chest.
The shirt was soaked, stiff with blood but his skin underneath was smooth. The hole where the bullet had torn through him was gone. Not scarred. Not stitched.
Just… gone like there was nothing there in the first place.
"No," he whispered. "No, that's not… what the hell?"
He scrambled backward, heartbeat rattling.
His body didn't feel right.
His breathing didn't sound quite right.
He looked at his hands. They were his… but the veins beneath the skin pulsed faintly with light. A soft glow, too dim to be seen in the early daylight but it was there.
He swallowed thickly.
"What the hell is happening to me?"
And then, memory hit him like another bullet.
The artifact.
It had to be.
The strange warmth, the way it buzzed against his palm, alive with something not of this world. He had hidden it inside himself and from all appaerances, it had saved him.
Jax stood, slowly, and stumbled to where they had buried the box.
There was the shallow grave. The displaced dirt but there were no signs of the box.
He tore at his orfice, desperate, frantic. His body ached, but he ignored it as he grunted, trying to push the foreign object out of his body to no avail.
Nothing came out.
There was no object.
Just skin.
He crouched, fingers shaking, then pressed his palm to his gut, stomach twisting.
He remembered the heat, the pressure.
The moment of pain when he shoved it inside.
And then…
Nothing.
"Did they take it?" he muttered, his voice hoarse. "Did they cut me open? No… no, they didn't…"
His heart pounded.
They left him for dead.
He remembered their laughter.
Deek's last words:
"Dirt doesn't bleed for long."
Jax closed his eyes.
He wanted to scream, cry, collapse.
But all he felt was empty.
Not only inside.
Everywhere.
There was nobody to turn to; there was nobody to trust.
She had kissed another man while he was being escorted to the grave. Had sold him out like he was pocket change. After everything, they'd left him here to rot.
He sat down in the dirt, hands over his face, shaking.
His mother's face then flashed in his mind.
The weight of guilt returned like a chain around his neck.
"I should've gone straight home."
But he hadn't.
He ran to Liss.
Because he trusted her.
He chose her.
And now everything was shattered.
He sat there, numb and cold, trying to make sense of the impossible for what felt like hours.
Alive.
He had been shot through the heart. And now he was breathing again.
No wounds, no scars.
His body felt… stronger.
He touched his ribs where Kriv had broken them.
No pain.
No break.
Maybe it had melted inside of him. What if the artifact had not been taken.
What it had become part of him.
"What the hell did I put inside me?" he whispered, staring at his glowing veins.
He didn't want to think about it any longer.
Didn't want to think about Liss, or Deek, or the way his body now hummed like living electricity.
He stood and began to walk.
Only one place left to go.
Home.
The slums were just stirring as he navigated the maze of rusted scaffolding and shattered glass. Children picked through the trash for scraps. Traders set up under patched tarps, their goods already shrouded in dust. Everything smelled like oil and ash and slow death.
Jax kept his head down.
Nobody recognized him.
He wasn't sure he even looked the same anymore.
A gang patrol strolled past. One of them glanced his way, narrowed his eyes but didn't say anything. Jax didn't stop walking.
He passed the stall where his mother used to buy cracked grain and nutrient broth. The vendor wasn't there anymore.
He passed a wall with faded graffiti: WE BLEED SO THEY FEAST.
Finally, he arrived at the alley.
Their shack was still standing.
Barely.
Tin roof sagging, window boarded, one side blackened by recent fire.
He climbed the steps slowly.
His fingers hovered over the latch.
Please be okay.
He pushed open the door.
Inside was quiet.
Too quiet.
"Mama?"
No answer.
The air was thick with the coppery scent of blood.
"Mama?"
He stepped further inside.
And saw the overturned chair.
The torn fabric. The blood on the floor.
His knees buckled.
Reluctant to give into his worse fears, he got on his hands and knees and called out.
"Mama?"
Silence answered.
His boots squelched against the blood-soaked floorboards. He followed the dark trail toward the small cot tucked in the back corner, the only bed they had ever shared.
There, half-hidden in the shadows, lay a broken figure.
"Mama!!"