PATRICIDE

There’s always interesting characters that come along in Spirale City, but this sure is a new one.

Bumping into someone always seemed to be a popular trend here, too, and yet this one felt a little different than usual. Emerald eyes peer up at the man she had ( almost ) bumped into, a look of worry on her features. She wasn’t sure what was going on with him, but he seemed like he was in need of help. Should she call the police, an ambulance?

     “Oh, are you alright, sir…?”

When he regained his balance, Monika took a step back to give him some room. His request, however, contorted her expression into one of confusion.

     “Payphone…? I think there’s one around the corner, but      I can’t say if it’s in service. Do you need to call someone?      Your phone can do that for free - no quarters necessary!”

“No, I... I’m not.” As soon as he manages to get those four words out, his throat freezes up. Where the hell would he begin to answer a question like that? First the plane, then Rapture, and now this place... he’d be here all day if he tried to say anything more than that.

“I don’t need to call anyone.” The words do not leave Jack’s mouth; they stumble, and tumble from the cliff of his lips to crash onto the pavement. “I need... space.”

His breath is ragged, his hands clenched tightly, his entire body wound up like a spring ready to surge forward but for the first time in his very short life, Jack is faced with a problem that he simply can’t fight his way out of.

In his time as a prisoner of the city, Jack had little knowledge and less desire to integrate with its citizens, preferring to eke out an existence on the periphery of the seemingly endless crowds. It was a futile effort at best... but today, Jack was lucky—this particularly shabby vending machine looked rather vulnerable. Sure, these machines weren’t anything like those back in Rapture, but how hard could it be to break one of these damn things?

Just as he had that thought, however, there came an ominous creaking noise from the machine... and in a sudden thunderous crash, the vending machine tipped over.

What do you want?

“Answers, mostly.”

A flame from the lighter built into the thumb of your right hand illuminates your features from the end of the alley for a brief half second as it lights your cigarette. Your expression is carved from stone. “Or just an answer, that’d do me just fine.”

You’re suspicious as hell.

Half of this island’s citizens are constructs. Not interdimensional travelers like you, but living decor. No extraordinary abilities, none of the confusion and tension that runs rampant in actual abductees, not much else in their holds other than clockwork and a mass produced emotional blueprint— no one’s told you outright, you didn’t read it in a book anywhere or anything, but it’s an educated guess.

The other half? It consists of those abductees. And the vast majority of them are marked with strange abilities, physiologies or personalities that make them prime subjects for observation.

Both those factions are easy to suss out and pick apart from each other with enough experience, leaving mundane and powerless human citizens… the surprising minority. Ten dust out of your booze money would say this guy’s more than the plain John Doe he seems to be.

Your confidence only doubles when you catch the familiar scent of death on the breeze.

“Heard a guy scream bloody murder. Followed it, and only found one guy standing when I got here— you.” Your voice is low. Even. “I’m not in a mood to muck up my boots tonight if I don’t have to, so I’m gonna give you a shot to explain yourself since I’m such a good goddamn sport.”

Time to gauge.

This is new.

In Rapture, people—or splicers, which could arguably be excluded from that group—generally started screaming bloody murder whenever they saw him, then tried killing him in any number of ways. Being glared at... it’s refreshing, but not exactly welcome. It would be better if this person hadn’t showed up at all.

But now that she’s here, Jack has no recourse but to size up the potential threat.

The stranger stands at Jack’s height, with a solid build and a posture that betrays her wary confidence, a confidence echoed by her voice. When Jack sees the light flicker into life, casting dim light across the stranger’s face, he thinks that they too had Incinerate or some other Plasmid—how terrible that would be—but no, it’s something else entirely.

Mysteries within mysteries.

“He started it. Pulled a knife on me.” Jack jerks his head to where the knife fell, among some crumpled wrappers. There’s a moment of silence before he continues. “He’s alive.” As if the world itself sought to condemn him, what little light that filters into the alleyway only serves to cast Jack’s face in a sullen gloom. “I was looking for his wallet.”

That day, Jack had decided to take a break in his aimless wandering by visiting one of the many parks lining the edges of Cotes Ward.

Rather than finding a measure of peace, however, Jack finds confusion and curiosity. It comes in the form of the woman sitting on the bench across from him. A woman... with horns and dark patches on her skin.

It's hard to tell from this distance, but... she can't be human, can she? But if she's not, then what is she? He's seen strange things before, and in comparison she looks only mildly different when compared to the denizens of Rapture.

But she's no splicer—there's no ADAM here to corrupt her cell lines, and the symmetry of her form. The mystery stares Jack in the face, and he's helpless in the face of it.

As Jack walks through Spirale City, he feels like he's caught in the midst of a kaleidoscope, a whirling storm of light and sound and color, of strange sights and stranger faces. It doesn't stop, it does anything but stop: it intensifies. When he reaches his breaking point, which doesn't take very long, he practically sprints down a side street, and almost runs into a young woman.

When he regains his balance, he opens his mouth, but it's not to apologize:

"Where's a payphone." Jack puts on his best impression of a polite tone, but it only takes him so far. There's a tightness to his expression, in his posture, in the way he clenches his fists.

He belatedly remembers his manners, and smiles—though it comes out as more of a grimace.

"Don't make this messy, man. Just give me your wallet and get the fuck out of here."

The would-be mugger is wiry and thin and about two heads shorter than Jack, but the piece of rusty metal in his hands seems to lend him a confidence he doesn't deserve.

In reply, Jack raises his left hand. His head throbs, and a trash can is knocked onto its side, its contents spilling onto the ground with a clatter.

There's a moment—lasting shorter than a heartbeat—where Jack realizes that instead of grabbing the trash can, he had instead picked up an empty wine bottle. The moment passes, and he flicks his wrist.

“What the fu—”

The bottle, which had been suspended in mid air a foot away from Jack's left hand, is sent flying into the face of the man with the knife. It shatters beautifully, into a few dozen shards of green glass.

The mugger screams, reeling backwards, clutching at his face. Without wasting a moment, Jack takes the opening and drives his knee into the reeling man's stomach. The force of the blow is enough to force him to the ground. After that, it doesn't take much to knock him cold.

Before Jack can stand up and start patting the man down, he hears someone clear their throat.

He stands up, and stares at the shadowed silhouette at the mouth of the alleyway. It's hard to make out any details, beside the fact that they have a clear view of what's just transpired.

"What do you want?"

I’m Nemo, I’m 24 years old, and I use he/him pronouns. This isn’t my first rodeo at Isola, not is it my first time RPing Jack—if you would believe it, he was the first character I ever RP'd, over 7 years ago!

Anyways, my public twitter is wrenhaven, and my discord is Nems#1260. Feel free to contact me either through tumblr's IM system or the aforementioned twitter or discord accounts if you want to plot or something.