Thread by @LMsDread

He leans back and wipes the blade on the fabric of his pants, each breath forced under control regardless of the hunger thrashing in his lungs, and the Beast curls under his tongue - dark stinging taste of adrenaline and biting cruel satisfaction.
"Aren't you precious, Sunshine?"

It twists around his neck and slithers down his arm. Jack follows its movements to the body lying under him, hand stopped millimeters from the mask covering the man's face, fingers trembling with apprehension digging its cold claws deep into his spine. The Beast nips at his ear.

"Do you truly want to know, Sunshine?" His fingertips wedge under the mask. He idly notices the marking on the chest armor says 'S116' instead of 'S114'.
"Doesn't matter what I want, does it?" Jack slowly lifts the facemask up. The fractures propagate. The clock is broken.

There's blood, of course there's blood, on the lips, couldn't be anything else when the knife went through the throat and then up. It's his face staring back at him, younger, unblemished, blue irises almost hidden under the dilated pupils, and a twisted derisive smile.

"You did want to know, Sunshine," the Beast laughs, a menacing sound splitting the reality into fragments that do not fit together no matter how much he wants - needs - them to. "They are lambs led to slaughter, and us, we will kill them all, this I promise you."

"Clones. They're all... That's what she..." Genetically engineered soldiers. S114. S116. S76. An obsolete model to work the kinks out of the system.
The mask falls from his numb fingers. He's not even a person, only a failed copy of one, of someone else Reaper is searching for.

Everything falls apart around him, the long grass tickles the skin of his palms, and Shaanxi makes the turn on the final approach to the landing strip. This time Jack hears it, the sound of a shot, and one of the ghosts falls to the ground - but now there's a third shadow behind.

All of this is wrong, completely wrong, the gunshot, it shouldn't be here. Because when the plane touches down, when the wheels tear on the tarmac, he gets his throat cut and bleeds out. This is how it happens, that's how it's been, and how he saw it play out before.

"Did you, Sunshine? Or is that a story you told yourself to feel better?" The Beast bites into his neck with its fangs, snarling, all the pretense of prior cordiality gone, and brings him down to his knees. The blood trickles into the thirsting ground.

"All the lies told to the good doctors, Sunshine, all the fabrications, I know them all. Oh, they all came in, they did," the Beast laughs now and its bite does not lessen, "but the only one out was you. All those times, what were you trying to kill, the truth, or the lie?"

Something hard is scraping the back of his throat, the intrusion moving deeper and deeper. The water in the bathtub runs russet red, an old antiquated razor in his hand, and he cuts again and again, against the muscle, fat, and skin, all knitting back together meticulously.

A different kind of fascination - desperation maybe - why had he forgotten? Was it only because he didn't want to remember? Jack clenches his teeth, words come halting and slow.
"I don't... Did I...? Was that me?"
"One-in-a-million lucky shot, or the perfect shot, Sunshine."

He digs his fingers into the dry dust between the clumps of the grass' roots, dry even if soaked with blood, the bitter aftertaste of alcohol and crushed pills on his tongue, he doesn't remember why, can't remember why, can't remember because he will break.

The Beast quietens. Gives out a faint chuckle of satisfaction and slackens its jaws, lets Jack fall to the ground. Allows him to breathe against the red dust as it laps at the holes left by its fangs.
"What were you trying to kill?" The seductive hiss brushes his senses.

"The truth, or the lie?"
"Myself," Jack admits. "The lie. Everything's a lie, I'm not a person, there's nothing true about..." His voice hitches and almost fades. "Did I kill him? The original, the one Reaper's looking for, because he's searching for him, isn't he?"

The Beast slots its maw under his chin, needy and insistent now, nudges his head back towards the airstrip, and Jack shuts his eyes closed because facing this truth is a gnawing terror somewhere in the back of his mind.
"You wanted to know," it hisses. "Look, Sunshine."

Again, two shades walking on the side of the tarmac, Shaanxi on the final approach, the crack of the rifle - single shot - the third silhouette lowering the barrel and firing again, at the ground. His heart is trying to escape from behind his ribs, hammering against them wildly.

The plane touches down. Translucent shadows running, not important as everything freezes in place, the flock of birds stopped in motion on the backdrop of the swirling crimson sky, out of place here as the tree is, and his vision tunnels, his gaze focused on the shooter.

The vertigo is here to stay. Nausea twists in his insides. The familiarity of the mannerism - the open palm of the hand resting on the side of the Patten with fingers bent at the exact right angles - stirs panic and hate surging in one bright flash of conflicting emotions.

And the face, the cold relief that washes down his body in waves at the recognition, putting the name to the shadow like putting a period after a sentence, or a bullet in a human. Gerard Lacroix. Butcher.
"That's rich coming from you, Sunshine," the Beast chortles.

The Butcher, a nickname taken up with the kind of morbid humor people in their profession have, not much different from Sunshine. The breeze brings the smell of broiled jungle hiding under the odor of burnt fat and roasted meat.

Cloying; revolting and appetizing at the same time. Inhale. Count to five. Exhale. The Beast nudges his head back from the still nature, to the side.
Reaper. His form keeps its shape now, the face framed by the hood and stringy hair no longer changing with the ebb and flow.

Crimson eyes are transfixed by the memory that now rewinds itself in a rush to play out again, and Jack is certain it repeats on a loop here - wherever here is.
But what startles him is his doppelganger facing Reaper, fists clenched and trembling at his sides.

As long as the apparition's attention is not focused on him, Jack takes in the small details. The uniform is non-descript, no discernable insignia anywhere, but the make and the pattern, it's Blackwatch. Black bloody stain spreads from under the jacket, exactly where the seam is.

The perfect shot. The partially congealed blood spilling from his doppelganger's mouth and the dilated in shock pupils fit. He had drowned in his own blood, there, on the tarmac. Bone shrapnel tearing through the tissue, too much damage, too rapid.

"You left me behind." Desperate rage simmers in the words. "You left me," the apparition's voice raises in pitch, becomes forecful. Accusing. "You promised to take me with you when I go."
Reaper remains rooted in place, giving no indication he even notices the presence.

"I'm here. I'm here!" His doppelganger screams, clotted blood falling from his lips as he draws in heavy breaths - almost panicked, his chest heaving - and then he starts pleading. "Why don't you look at me? Why can't you see me?"

And again, defeated, hands shaking.
"Why won't you see me?"
In a way, Jack can understand him, the desperation of screaming into the void where there is no-one who will hear you, no-one that cares enough to hear you, but it's not it.
Help him find that person, she told him.

How can you find someone who’s dead, and the other choice is forcing him to understand there is nothing to be found, not anymore, only retribution remains - but this is untrue when his screaming double persists in its existence?
“He’s here. Don’t you see him?” Jack softly asks.

Crimson eyes move, shift with glacial speed to gaze at him, focused until space stumbles over itself, and Reaper is in front of him, his claws tracing the line of Jack’s jaw. It leaves him pondering their peculiar texture again, of something left to stew in warm pond water.

Then the realization comes when they brush over his lips - not claws. Fingers. The flesh shorn off on a hard surface and the bone underneath tapered to a point, both blackened by the decay permeating all - mildew and rot on his tongue, the sickening sweetness of a thing long dead

He parts his lips for the intruding finger and the taste spreads further, addictive and revolting, familiarity undercut with decomposition - all there, ready to be experienced anew.
It's not a need, it's a dependency. Now, he understands what has been lacking in his life.

A dutiful little soldier. A failed prototype. The doctors say jump, and so he does, isn't that right?
The standing orders from his Commander remain, no witnesses, no evidence, only charred bones and black ash after they pass through, and Reaper's vengeance is indeed righteous.

"See, Sunshine?" The Beast licks his fingertips, reassuring, proud even. "This is how we are together, now and always."
"Now and always," he echoes with something dark curling around, slithering into his mind and twining with every thought. All he ever needed, his orders.

"No!" Something collides with him, hard and solid. Back of his head hits the floor and Jack brings his arms up to shield himself from the unexpected onslaught. Blood splatters on his face. "You will not take my place!" His double snarls over him, raising the fist agan.

The training takes over and the blow slides along his forearm as he grabs the side of the apparition's neck with his left palm, and thrusts forward with his other hand. The blade of the knife he is somehow still holding goes through the jacket. Scrapes against the rib.

The apparition leans back with a subdued gasp, almost a whine. Looks down at him with hate palpable on his face as it starts to break up into smoldering embers drifting on the air.
A kind of Déjà vu, only this time Jack is in Replica's position, and the copy is victorious.

The embers snuff out, one after another, and the black ash they turn into swirls slowly until it fades too.
Jack falls back to the floor, next to the corpse still radiating heat. The ceiling above is grey, sooty around where the wall joins with it.
Inhale. Count to five. Exhale.

There's a lot of land to cover between here and the Still Island facility. He has his orders. He climbs to his feet and wipes the blood of his face. Straps the knife back to the jacket, shoulders the plasma rifle, and curls his fingers around the Patten's grip.

//OOC: scrap done!
"Ain't no mercy in that self combat" & "Hood on his head when lifted a face stared / He was looking at himself, that's when he became scared"
Plugging in the best PTSD song I know, Greeting the Menace by Zack Hemsey. (Since this is songfic to Ronin album.)