#updated post

Jak stood frozen in front of a hut near the vehicle pit. There was a trail of blood, unevenly streaking from a smashed window shutter, out along the ground. Someone inside was sobbing violently.

The sound grated over Jak's ears, slipping down into his head, down his spine to wrap his lungs in tight claws.

The blood was tacky under his bare feet. Still relatively fresh. Jak wanted to move. He wanted to do something. But without Daxter he was frozen. The ottsel would never truly know how much courage he gave Jak with just his presence.

Daxter wasn't here to be brave for.

Daxter wasn't here to make wisecracks about the horrors in front of them, to loosen the grip they kept on the mind.

"H- hey?" Jak tentatively called.

The sobbing turned nearly to retching. Someone was trying to talk, but they couldn't get control of themselves.

Swallowing a deep sense of unease, Jak pushed open the door.

He stumbled back almost immediately.

The modest home had become a slaughterhouse. Even in his most uncontrollable state, unleashing pure carnage on the Krimzon Guard, Jak had never left behind a scene like this.

His kills were quick. Brutal, excruciating, but quick. You expended less energy that way.

This, this was like the aftermath of a metalhead frenzy.

Copper stung the back of his throat, and Jak knew better than to look down. He couldn't know what he was stepping in. He couldn't let himself see it. There was enough viscera on the walls to send static across his brain as it was.

Eco didn't leave corpses for long. Eco broke the bodies down into their component elements and ghoulishly recycled them.

Spirits clearly did not feel the same way.

The person crying seemed to be behind an upturned table in the back of the hut. Jak took slow, stiff steps.

Don't look don't look don't think about it

Jak pulled his dirty scarf up over his nose and mouth, desperate to block out the smell.

This could have been him.

It could have been his pieces scattered around a rooftop if Damas had not intervened.

Now Jak owed him a life debt twice over. It was very unlikely he'd be able to pay it anytime soon. Even if he found a way back to Haven, to his friends, Jak couldn't leave.

It wasn't safe to leave debts unpaid.

Carefully, Jak pulled away the table and found a girl there, maybe eighteen or nineteen. He couldn't tell if she was Sadbh, not with the blood obscuring her original hair color.

"S- Sadbh?" he asked cautiously.

The girl huddled tighter, choking on tears to force out two words.

"She looked."

Not Sadbh then. Jak reached out a hand gingerly.

"You need to get out of here."

For several awkward seconds, the girl stared blankly at him. A small, blue light flickered at her temple, and she started. She reached up then to take Jak's hand.

"You hurt?" he asked gruffly.

"N-no." Her hiccuping sobs made it almost impossible to understand her. "I didn't look."

The light flashed again, and this time Jak saw its source: a small, triangular piece of metal clipped securely to the side of the girl's head, over her right ear. Every time Jak moved, or they took another step, the diodes on the triangle flashed. He could just make out a faint voice coming from the device, saying something about an obstacle.

In that moment, Jak envied her. A Seeing Eye could describe the world in vivid enough detail for someone to navigate a city -- even combat -- with ease. But they described primarily what was most relevant to the path their wearer was on. The girl couldn't see the bloody clumps of unidentified pieces on every possible surface. And the Seeing Eye would only tell her what was in front of her.

"I didn't look", she'd said. Jak guessed that meant she'd turned off her Seeing Eye just before the disaster.

Having a second person present, having someone else to focus on, let Jak narrow his attention to a single objective: get outside. He led the survivor over broken glass, torn paper. His feet stung, but he didn't dare look to see if he'd stepped on something sharp.

"Stay here." Jak pulled the girl to a staircase across the street. He could see people further along the path, taking stock of damage. They would see. They would help, he hoped.

"I'm...gonna look for Sadbh."

He made it less than a yard before he looked down. His feet were scarlet, stained to the ankles with blood. Something glistened against his toes. Jak lurched to the side of the street as the roll he'd consumed less than an hour before crawled back up his throat. He retched, then vomited again when the smell hit him without the scarf.

This was nothing he'd ever seen before. Not even the very worst days in the DWP had had anything like this.

Grimly wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, Jak followed the blood trail leading out of the broken window. It streaked down an alley, as far as the gate to the vehicle pit. The trail stopped before a pile of debris surrounded by massive pawprints.

"S- Sadbh?" Jak's voice was failing him.

A hoarse, thin whimper rose from the center of the pile.

Someone else had survived!

Jak tore planks out of the way and shoved aside boxes.

There was Sadbh. Her face was slack -- shock, probably -- and spattered in her own blood. Two belts were secured tightly around her thigh in an improvised tourniquet, but she had still lost a lot of blood.

Jak didn't see any sign of the shin and foot that should have been attached.

How did you survive?!

Sadbh had to be strong. Incredibly strong to have lived through this even this long.

Jak's voice deserted him when he tried to call for help. He couldn't breathe. Backing away slowly, Jak turned and ran back to the street. By now, people had come to the aid of the girl in the house. Jak waved, flagging them down.

He didn't know if anyone else besides Damas signed, but he was about to find out.

"Found someone! Get eco, fast! She's bleeding out!"

At first no one reacted. Then a middle-aged sniper leaned out of the group.

"Say again? Slower, kid."

"S-A-D-B-H, back there!" Jak pointed. "She's alive! Get eco, now!"

-------------------------------------------------

They hadn't been exaggerating: Jak was covered in Sadbh's blood. Fingertip to elbow. Shoulder to waist. And he wasn't sure the pink foam of the surf around the boy's ankles was a good sign, either.

He'd done well to find Sadbh and Maire as quickly as he had. He'd saved Sadbh's life, and that was going to have to be addressed with the Arena drill instructors.

That kind of thing got a person moved up a bit in the queue for their next trial.

Damas would've had to speak to the foundling about it sooner or later. Selfishly, he was grateful the majority of the concerned West Quarter Wastelanders came to him after the bulk of his work was done outdoors.

"Jak?"

The boy twitched, but didn't turn. Unusual, given his attitude that morning. Damas eased up beside the kid and immediately understood: Jak's eyes were wide and blank, face still. He was in shock.

Damas held back a sympathetic sigh and put a hand on Jak’s shoulder. Instantly, the teenager made a choking sound and went rigid.

"Hey! Just me, it's just me!" Damas didn't withdraw his hand. "Listen, kid, you need to sit down. C'mon, unlock your knees -- there you go."

He took hold of Jak's arm to lower him to the sand and tried not to think about his first Home Night.

Tried not to think about the look on the tyrant's face when he found Damas standing in the middle of the street, covered with blood and shaking. The mutilated remains of a haunt-jackal at his feet had made it abundantly clear who had come out the victor.

That was when Atys first understood that the "mean little adder" General Charon had scraped off the desert floor was dangerous.

Sometimes, when the memories circled too near, Damas wondered which was worse: witnessing the atrocities Atys committed, or living with the knowledge that the monster's general had still treated him with more kindness, more hu'men dignity than his own father had. And for precisely the reason that his own father wished him dead so many times.

"Sadbh will live. You got to her just in time." He hesitated before adding, "You did good, kid."

Damas glanced down, but that didn't seem to have gotten a response.

"First time seeing someone lose a limb?" he asked quietly.

Finally, finally Jak responded. He barely shook his head, but that was still an answer. He stared vacantly into the water, rubbing his fingers together fitfully. Dried blood crumbled and flaked off into the surf. Damas’s thoughts drifted again, just for a moment, to the old general.

Charon had been a hard man, grown callous during his years of service. Even cruel at times. But he understood soldiers, and he understood the scars certain things left on the soul.

Of course, even Atys was gentled by the mornings after Home Nights.

Damas wrapped his hand around Jak’s wrist without looking at him.

"Breathe."

Like that old general had -- before Atys executed him for "going soft" -- like older warriors were supposed to do for newcomers in the barracks, Damas focused on grounding the boy in the moment. Scooping up a handful of seawater, he poured it over Jak's hand, relieved when he reacted more visibly.

"S'okay, kid. Just about every Wastelander deals with this at one time or another. Just breathe, and focus on what you can feel right now."

With a terrible expression, Jak answered him.

"Feel B-L-O-O-D."

Damas nodded, understanding. "Guess we should do something about that, huh?"

He pushed himself to his feet and waded into the cove up to his waist. Then he turned to look back at Jak expectantly. Jak looked at him as though he'd lost his mind. He'd made that face a lot in the last twenty hours. After remaining motionless for close to a full minute, Jak finally forced himself up and into the surf.

The water was warm, pushing and pulling at him as he trudged forward. It was so-

It was so much like Sentinel Beach.

Jak missed the innocence he'd known then.

But he knew it hadn't been as idealized as he'd remembered in the prison. He knew why the scene in the hut had frozen him.

Green-gray in the fading afternoon light, the waves pulled gently at his fingertips. The blood slipped away in tiny ribbons that thickened whenever he rubbed his fingers together, or clasped his hands. Sadbh would live. Sadbh survived. Sadbh would live. He just had to keep telling himself that the blood on his hands came from someone he actually managed to save for once.

"That kurta is probably done-for, but you should try to rinse it out anyway."

Damas nodded to the blackened, caked on blood covering the tunic.

Stoic, Jak crouched, letting the water reach his neck. Were there sharks in the cove? The fishermen spoke of a reef that made the cove more of a lagoon. Sharks didn't come over reefs, right? They were too big?

He hoped the amount of blood he was mechanically scraping from the cloth and his skin wouldn't tempt one over the reef anyway.

Jak glanced up at Damas, but the man's attention was elsewhere. That was a mercy. After he'd managed to keep his head the entire night -- even destroy one of the Forgotten Dead with dark eco -- now he lost it? Pathetic.

"Sometimes I think fighting is the easy part."

Jak blinked away a splash of salt water and stood. Damas was right: the kurta was thoroughly stained. He wrung it out without success and turned to face Damas.

"Easy how?"

The king shrugged as if he'd seen Jak's signed question, idly watching his city's coastline.

"You know? You don't have to think about the aftermath in the middle of battle. What you're going to see when the dust settles. All you have to focus on is surviving. But then the dust does settle, and you have to deal with the death that comes after battle."

Jak tensed. It was as if Damas had read his mind. Damas closed his eyes and forced a slow breath.

"Kid, my first new moon out here was- I didn't handle it well." he shook his head. "I don't think I spoke for two days. We're not...We're not meant to be at war with spirits. But no one remembers why the raids began."

"There was so much blood."

Jak didn't notice at first that Damas couldn't see his hands. Damas didn't open his eyes until the second time he repeated it.

"So much blood. Killing with eco doesn't leave the muscle and tissue behind. Even in Haven, didn't really see guts unless someone got caught in a blast. Or shanked, I guess."

"That...was probably one of the worst things you've ever seen, wasn't it? And you waded right into it to save someone." Damas reached over to prod his shoulder. "That...tells me a lot about what kind of man you are, Jak. What kind of Wastelander you're going to be."

"I left her there. I ran." Jak glanced up with dull eyes.

"You understood that the situation was outside of your abilities and you made a judgment call," Damas corrected him, "That cadet is alive right now because you went for help. Because you didn't try to handle it alone this time."

He didn't know whether Jak understood that -- or accepted it as true -- but something in his eyes reminded Damas of how he'd looked when telling him the reason for his transformations. Like he'd needed that external validation to relieve him of a guilt that wasn't his to carry.

"...is M-I-R-E going to be okay?"

He did his best to guess the spelling, at least he could say he did his best.

That wasn't an easy question to answer. How did one define "okay"? Physically, Maire had gotten out with only superficial injuries. But emotionally, she was intensely traumatized. Two of her friends were torn apart in front of her hiding place and the third barely survived. And she'd had only the sounds to tell her what was happening. She had to live with those screams.

"She will struggle." Damas decided it was best to be honest. "And so will you. These aren't the kind of memories you can chase away like common nightmares. It takes time to heal body and mind."

"It got inside because S-A-D-B-H looked. That's what she told me."

Jak finally made full eye contact with Damas.

"Why didn't that happen to us? Was it because I was with you?"

Damas had known what spirit had been responsible from the moment Sadbh's injuries were reported. And it ate away at him, knowing that even if he'd been able to get to that hut the previous night, he would have been helpless to save those scouts. He wasn't...strong enough. And he didn't know if he ever would be. Every five years he seemed to gain some new aspect to his giant form, but would it be enough to fight the Blood-Wolf* one day?

"No, Jak," Damas said after a pause heavy with thoughts. "There is only one spirit that can access a victim through sight. It- it's called the Blood-Wolf. Your fellow cadets can explain it to you tonight. I...have not the heart to describe it right now."

"How long has this been happening?"

"For two hundred years."

Two hundred?! Jak gaped at the man. That was almost as old as the metalhead invasion! The Wastelands had their own version of the metalhead war all this time. But only one of them was capable of fighting back.

Just like Jak.

"Are you alone every time?"

Jak glanced back as he began to wade to shore. Damas still looked lost in thought.

"....physically, yes."

How many times, Jak wondered, had Damas had to see grisly aftermaths like that? He swallowed, but the splash of seawater that had struck his mouth had left traces of salt behind. For an instant, it tasted like blood. Jak coughed and retched once when the images of gore flooded his mind again. Damas looked up and cringed almost sympathetically.

"I'm...sorry you had to see that, kid. Really." He rubbed the back of his tense neck and sighed. "Wish I could say it'll be the last time."

"Wasn't the first."

Taken aback a bit, Damas pushed through the surf to stand beside Jak. He shook off soaked boots -- a futile endeavor -- and folded his arms.

"You've seen that before?"

"Back where I grew up." Jak had neither the wherewithal nor the memory to explain Sandover at the moment. "I...saw what happens when Lurker crabs get trapped in a half-sunk fishing shack for two weeks."

"They turned on each other, huh? Picked up a taste for meat?" Damas guessed.

"I climbed up the roof to hide from a really mad Lurker-" he wasn't going to explain that, either. "He thought I was inside. The crabs um. They left parts of him all over the shack."

Damas bumped his shoulder, either sympathy or camaraderie.

"Terrible way to die. How old were you?"

"Twelve, maybe."

The king turned slowly with wide, horrified eyes.

"You were twelve years old when you witnessed this?!"

"Maybe older? Not sure. It was bad. Only Daxter knew what I'd seen, because I didn't talk voice already. Stopped making other sounds for three years." Jak shrugged. "Thought what Haven did made all those memories fade. Wish that one had."

Damas looked at him with a horrible expression of pitying sadness.

"No one should have to witness something like that. Especially not a little boy."

"Daxter thinks I saw something worse a long time ago and my brain like...locked it away." Jak made a futile effort at picking dried blood from under his nails and gave up. "He says I didn't make sounds at all when they first brought me to the village. Says I hid under a porch for two days. Think I'll forget this, too?"

Well. That was probably how Jak had been orphaned, if Damas had to guess. Or what the immediate aftermath was. It was a blessing that the boy couldn't remember it if that had been what it did to him. How much had Jak suffered? Who had let a child see such things?

"I don't know, Jak," Damas answered as gently as he could, "there will be more moonless nights. You...may see things like this again if you join rescue parties."

"...thought I was strong enough to help." Jak winced. "I'm. I don't think I am."

"You're a kid," Damas said simply, "you don't have to be."

An incredulous look.

"What happened to "strength and survival above all"?"

Well, he must have been feeling more like himself again if the sass was back. Damas roughly tousled his hair.

"Focus on the survival part first. Strength can come later."

* each spirit operates on its own set of rules. King Owl hunts by sound only, Sack Man can't open doors or enter places with crocadeer bone charms on the door frame. Cry-Boulders are not malicious, but very heavy and very careless, and need to be distracted with chicken bones; all requests for piggyback rides should be immediately denied. And the Blood Wolf is why you cover your windows: if it feels someone's eyes (including camera lenses in adaptive equipment) on it, it can gain access to that building and anyone inside who has their eyes open.