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Jack Empty

[i]One day you might meet a man. He'll have gray hair, gray skin and a gray suit. He'll be smiling a little too wide, just enough to make you think something's wrong. Then you'll see the eyes, the cold, dead, hollow eyes, and you'll know you're damned.

They've called him many things, Mr. Deadeyes, The Hollow Man, The Devil's Grin, and he's come to answer to asshole, but Jack Empty's his favourite name.

There are stories about him; you'll hear them if you're a Seeker long enough. They say he's older than Legion, kept alive by profane deals and unholy pacts. They say most of Them have passed through his hands at least once. They say he's not exactly a Seeker and not really a Holder, but something between. They say he's been to the centre of Hell and back.

Many people have wondered how a man can have seen so much and still be human. They say he's not. They say that the horror of his life destroyed his emotions, his very soul, and the void created a black hole. They say if you ripped off his skin you'd find nothing underneath, 'cause he's got jack inside him. He's empty. Get it?

They don't know why he still seeks. The cynical ones think it's a game to him. The sympathetic ones say that it's because he can only feel something when he gets an Object, much like a drug addict can function only after taking another dose. All I know is that when you meet him... just run.[/i]

Jack was running. He'd been running for two weeks now, since the seventh. Jack really wished he'd kept Self Control. Now he was almost out of juice. Jack was still laughing though, he really wanted to piss them off before They got him.

Jack had ticked off The End. Figured that if he could get out of the room in time he would win the Object. Jack figured wrong, and now Jack was in America with nothing but The Eyes, all of them, and the Liar's Note. Sure, the Note would work on a person but what good was it against Him?

So Jack laughed and ran and waited to die, but whatever hell-spun creatures that commissioned Jack's creation weren't done with him. And so Jack found a Haven.

[i]Havens are this grand idea. Probably a vain hope someone conjured up while their buddy was being chased down by one of Them. A Haven, supposedly, will keep Their Forces at bay for twenty hours, forty eight on the solstice. Just enough time for you to remeber what living without Them after you was like. If you - shall we say - overstay your welcome, then They would take all life in a twenty mile radius, forty eight on the solstice, as recompence. The main problem with over-staying your welcome is that these are happy places, places most people would be willing to trade themselves for: playgrounds, old home towns, grammy's house's, places we remeber from our childhood or places that remind us of when we were happy. They change for each person. 
What do I think a bastard like Jack Empty'd do? I think he'd tick a Holder off right before a solstice, just to watch the people burn.[/i]

Jack awoke in a warm bed. The place was happy, it radiated from the walls. Jack was disturbed by this, altough he wasn't sure why; Jack wasn't bad and held no grudge against happiness. Jack laughed through his discomfort and did a quick check of his surroundings. His bag was in a corner and since he wasn't waked in the night, whoever owned the house didn't know what was in it. Jack got up and looked in the mirror. He was dirty, unshaven and his suit was torn but other than that Jack was fine.

Jack, although empty, had his manners. He did his best to narrow his smile and warm his eyes so that he only looked to be a haunted man and not a mad one. Next, Jack headed down stairs.

"Thank you," Jack said in his best impression of humanity, "I assume it was you who helped me; I'm Jack."

The woman favoured her left hand, and the kid wasn't a threat, playing with his colouring book. The house was idilic, like out of a fifties tv show. Jack took stock of the room. He noticed all of the ways he could kill them, if necessary. He noticed all the ways they could try and harm him and how to prevent them.

"Nice to meet you, Jack. I'm Sandra, now mind explaining why I had to give a stranger a room in my house?"

Jack took out the Note and handed it to her. She stared at the thing for a while longer than it should take to read a sheet of paper and finally handed it back to him.

"So how long will you need to stay here, Jack?" her voice was dead, mechanicle the Note was still in her head, rooting its way through her.

Jack smiled, "Two days. That'll be enough."

[i]My favourite Jack story? Well there's this one; Jack's been wanderin' around in this dirt poor town, no one know's why he's there, just been walking around. So one day the villagers get together, there gonna kick Jack out, 'cause he's been there for weeks.

So they meet Jack and say, "You've been here for more than a month now, haven't contributed anything. We want you out."

Jack smiles and says he hasn't begged for food either, hasn't harmed no one and asks them to leave him alone.

The villagers just get riled, threaten to hurt him if he doesn't get out. Jack's eyes narrow and tells them how They were created.

Next thing you now most of the villagers are dead or crazy. Except one. This little kid: not old enough to know what Jack's talking about, parents to selfish to save it from the misery of existence. Jack takes it and trains it like an apprentice or pet, then years later after caring for this thing and raising it, Jack just abadons it in an alley. That one always cracks me up.[/i]

Jack had it nice in the Haven. He wasn't sure what The Note had said about him, but it must've been pretty good. The kid was bothering him though, it was... familiar. Jack only ever knew one other kid, it made a good pet. Scared the crap out of him one day. Called him "Dad". There was just something wrong about that.

But the woman was leaving him alone with the kid. The Note had him come across as trustworthy. Jack wouldn't go out of his way to hurt the kid, but if it came down to it, at least in Jack's mind, who was more important than Mr Empty?

"So, kid, what is it you're drawing," Jack tried to be nice, he was tired and didn't want to have to kill something today.

"My name's John, not Kid. I'm drawing my family."

Jack looked at the drawing. It was crappy, but Jack could still count the figures in it, "Is that your dad? Where is he?" Jack pronunced dad with two sylables.

"Daddy left last summer. He and Mommy had been fighting alot. Wanna play hide-and-go-seek?"

Jack was good at hiding. He could slide between the cracks in the walls, merge with shadows, rest between ticks of the clock. It took the kid five minutes to find him.

[i]Have I ever seen Jack? I think I did once. I was going after Peace when I saw him. He was asking to see "The Holder of the Cost" I pratically screamed when I saw him. The way he moved, it just wasn't human. He'd be perfectly still until he moved then he'd go so fast you could still see him where he used to be.

A friend of mine, Charlie, said that he had Fame, and I'd believe it, he hadn't found an item until then and your first changes you. Charlie didn't brag about it to no one other than me, and I didn't tell a soul, but two weeks after he found it Jack shows up at his door. He told me before I killed him. Poor guy. Jack's a rat bastard. Jack could have just killed Charlie, but instead he did... that.[/i]

Jack was having fun. He remebered what it was like before he'd been Jack Empty. He remebered his childhood.  He remembered hunting down rodents and braking their necks. And something else clicked.

"John," Jack called, "I want to ask you a question."

"What is it?" John yelled from his hiding place.

"What's your last name?"

"Dempty."

Jack felt the gun against his head. Jack was calm. Jack realised he was going to die.

"John, go to your room!" Sandy Empty called.

"But me and Jack-"

"JOHN GO TO YOUR ROOM!"

"I'm already there."

Jack smiled, "You named him after me."

"You're an egotistical bastard."

"So it was an accident that my pet's child has the same name as her master?"

"Shut up. Why are you really here?"

"Why did you leave me alone with your spawn?"

"I needed to buy the gun."

"You could have sent him to a friend's house last night," Jack smiled, the conversation brought him back to happier times. It reminded him of pulling the limbs off his first Holder.

"Why did you bring me into your hovel? Why aren't I dead yet? Put the gun down, Sandy. I own you today just as much as the day I found you."

"And I'm sorry for that," Jack stood up. And Jack smiled. It was a human smile, not the bland mockery he normally plasters across his face, "Not really. I hope you burn in hell!"

And Jack stepped out of the house and onto the street. The End was waiting.

"Well, Jack, We thought you'd say in your Haven till your time was up. Came close to. Almost a shame those people don't have to die. Why'd you come out?"

Jack smiled, " The kid. He's going to be a monster. I've got the eye for it. That, and a planted a horrible little thought in his brain. The kind that makes you rip the faces of kittens," Jack laughed, he remebered being happy, "I thought you didn't talk."

"This vessal is not talking, We are. You have done nothing but shuffle the deck. You don't work out of greed. You don't work to destroy the world. You don't even work to kill Us. We are tired of you," the man smiled, its approximation was worse than Jack's, "But we will take great pleasure from your screams." Then the man grabbed Jack.

"No you won't," and Jack laughed as he was dragged back to that room in the sanitarium. He laughed the whole time.

[i]They say if you had seeked The End during the ninties instead of the usual man talking to himself you'd have heard laughter. Nobody knows why. Some also say that if you had heard Jack's laugh before, you'd have noticed a remarkable similarity.

Do I think Jack's dead? I'm not sure. If he is though, I thank god the guy's got no soul.

'Cause they say he's older than Legion, kept alive by profane deals and unholy pacts. They say most of Them have passed through his hands at least once. They say he's not exactly a Seeker and not really a Holder, but something between.

They say he's been to the centre of Hell and back.[/i]

[[Category: Those Who Seek]]

Object # of 538
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