So high, so far to fall
So he goes hunting, but even that doesn't help. The ritual of waiting, moving, stalking and springing doesn't do anything to soothe him. He stands in the snow with his breath a cloud in front of his face and he listens to his heart beat, unsure of any word for what he's feeling. He's lost a lot. Maybe more than this, before. Maybe he shouldn't be feeling anything; Lennox has more right to be a mess than he does.
But he's not a mess. He's hunting.
He goes through the motions like he's been programmed: the flash of moving brown through the trees, the crouch, the aim, the sharp crack of gunfire, an explosion of red above the eye and the quick spasm of death before the elk drops. It's cold, cold as the snow around him. It's a lot of meat, and he's gotten as far as stringing it up from a tree by its hind legs before something just... breaks.
He's cutting from the hole where the genitals used to be down to the throat, making the same incision he's made so many times before, and the metallic smell of blood is sharp and sweet and hot in the chilly air, and the blood dripping onto the snow is shockingly red. He's got his knife in his hand, and it's been a long time since it was an instrument of violence any more than this, but as he stares down at it and at the blood smearing the blade it's all he can see, and he starts, almost methodically, to stab.
It keeps taking things from him. It's taken Danny and Clay, and Sirius, even if it's brought him back again, and Stu and Jeroen and so many other people. It's taken Eostre and now it's taken Chris, and what's most terrifying is just how much he still has left to lose. And it did that, too. It gave him all this. It made him want it. It brought him here and gave him a life he never got as far as hoping for, and this is what it does to him.
The crack of the ribcage as he kicks through it is almost as loud as the gunshots but he hardly hears it. He drops the knife and reaches into the steaming viscera, still hot, still almost pulsing with life, and he beats and tears at it with his hands, and he might be screaming something. The elk is the Island, and he wants it hurt it in as many ways as he can think of before he gets too tired to do any more.
When he looks down again the elk's heart is in his hand, huge and glistening with fresh blood, one side of it torn open, and with a snarl he turns and smashes it against a tree trunk until it's a crushed mess, and not all of the blood on his hand is the elk's.
He steps back from the blood-spattered trunk, shaking his hand and hissing with pain he's only just starting to feel. It's like the world comes slightly back into focus, and he sees the mess in the clearing: so much blood, strings of guts all across the ground, splintered bone and the battered carcass of the elk, still dangling from the tree, still swinging lightly in the breeze.
The elk is not the Island. The elk is dead and far beyond anything he can do to it. He's filthy with blood and Chris is still gone, and it seems only fitting somehow, in the darkest possible way, that his reaction to that fact is violence.
He makes a quiet, defeated sound and leans back against one of the trees, staring down at his hands. There's no winning against this. There's no fighting it. It just is.
But he's not a mess. He's hunting.
He goes through the motions like he's been programmed: the flash of moving brown through the trees, the crouch, the aim, the sharp crack of gunfire, an explosion of red above the eye and the quick spasm of death before the elk drops. It's cold, cold as the snow around him. It's a lot of meat, and he's gotten as far as stringing it up from a tree by its hind legs before something just... breaks.
He's cutting from the hole where the genitals used to be down to the throat, making the same incision he's made so many times before, and the metallic smell of blood is sharp and sweet and hot in the chilly air, and the blood dripping onto the snow is shockingly red. He's got his knife in his hand, and it's been a long time since it was an instrument of violence any more than this, but as he stares down at it and at the blood smearing the blade it's all he can see, and he starts, almost methodically, to stab.
It keeps taking things from him. It's taken Danny and Clay, and Sirius, even if it's brought him back again, and Stu and Jeroen and so many other people. It's taken Eostre and now it's taken Chris, and what's most terrifying is just how much he still has left to lose. And it did that, too. It gave him all this. It made him want it. It brought him here and gave him a life he never got as far as hoping for, and this is what it does to him.
The crack of the ribcage as he kicks through it is almost as loud as the gunshots but he hardly hears it. He drops the knife and reaches into the steaming viscera, still hot, still almost pulsing with life, and he beats and tears at it with his hands, and he might be screaming something. The elk is the Island, and he wants it hurt it in as many ways as he can think of before he gets too tired to do any more.
When he looks down again the elk's heart is in his hand, huge and glistening with fresh blood, one side of it torn open, and with a snarl he turns and smashes it against a tree trunk until it's a crushed mess, and not all of the blood on his hand is the elk's.
He steps back from the blood-spattered trunk, shaking his hand and hissing with pain he's only just starting to feel. It's like the world comes slightly back into focus, and he sees the mess in the clearing: so much blood, strings of guts all across the ground, splintered bone and the battered carcass of the elk, still dangling from the tree, still swinging lightly in the breeze.
The elk is not the Island. The elk is dead and far beyond anything he can do to it. He's filthy with blood and Chris is still gone, and it seems only fitting somehow, in the darkest possible way, that his reaction to that fact is violence.
He makes a quiet, defeated sound and leans back against one of the trees, staring down at his hands. There's no winning against this. There's no fighting it. It just is.