Moonflower: Chapter Twelve

Recompense

09/06/24

One day to sacrifice

   Every moment after was a daze. They ducked under the steel entrance to Dawson City Jail and separated almost immediately, leaving him standing solitary and outcast amidst the disorganized grounds as they dragged Diana Koh away to her waiting cell for slaughter.

   Jacob Porter gradually moved about the campus, nearly invisible to the other inmates around him, his mind swimming in dreadful thought. He didn't want to think, but the fresh memory of the betrayed look on her face was playing over and over again behind his eyes. What could he have done? Every wild scenario concocted in his tired mind branched out into new possibilities, creating a million different diverting paths he could have taken, but every one led to the same place.

   There was nothing I could have done. I didn't have a choice.

   Was that really the truth? Jacob breathed in and moved forward.

   I didn't have a choice.

   Ending up in the infirmary, he sat silently as the doc examined his leg. The old man wagged his finger at him about a few things, but Jacob was barely listening. The weight of what he had done was worse than he imagined. 

   Why? Why was he being crushed with guilt over what was necessary to save himself? He had taken a million chances—yet none of them had ever hurt like this before. The ache turned to a shot of pain as the doctor clipped a boot around his shin.

   “Miracle this healed as well as it did,” the rough voice puffed an unpleasant odor in his face. “It's broken but there's no alignin’ the bone now, not with the supplies we have. This should help your mobility. Now, out.”

   Everything was muted and dull when he limped out of the door, a figure clipping his shoulder as he drifted mindlessly down the dreary halls. They shouted something back at him but Jacob didn't stop. He could barely move, his every action slowed like he was wading through a deep sea, his feet dragging across the echoing cold concrete and his pale blue eyes vacant and distant.

   “Everything in me told me not to trust you. I-I didn't listen.”

   Her words of broken trust were agony in his head as he wandered for hours. He had done what he had to do—they would have killed them both if he had tried to stop them. Diana had to understand that. It was survival of the fittest, and you would only die a martyr and be forgotten if you acted otherwise. That was how the world worked—how it had always worked. She couldn't save him this time. The realization that she was just another sacrifice for him to justify wounded his mind more than his body could ever endure.

   Jacob gritted his teeth. He couldn't think—he needed something to eat.

   An overwhelming hunger drove him to the overfamiliar chow hall where the tables sat empty under the harsh lighting. The huge wall adorned with tally marks loomed above him, high and unforgiving, an unexpected gut-wrenching reminder of every one of his sins. He glanced away and shuffled to the service window. Maybe it wouldn't be like every other day, maybe there would be something left for him this time.

   He struggled to string the words together and ended up whispering to the only man at the station. “Excuse me?”

   The stout chef back in the disorderly kitchen continued about the counter. Jacob could spy the meager few cans of food inside waiting to be rationed for tomorrow.

   He managed to raise his voice the second time. “Excuse me?”

   The man noticed him at last but only wrinkled his nose, stepping up to the window and reaching for the shutter to close off his one chance at a meal that day.

   “Wait!” Jacob had to speak quickly as the man tugged on the stubborn thing. “I-I haven't eaten, I…”

   He tried to use his height to keep the door open but the inmate just slammed it harder, the clang of the lock reverberating through the vacant hall. The needy ache from his stomach bent him over against the empty counter. They had found so little food over the past week…

   “Porter?” Brayden Edlund’s red hair and signature cracked glasses caught his attention as he trotted up to the starving man. “What the fuck—I thought you were dead!”

   Brayden wasn't exactly a friendly face, but Jacob was so happy to finally see anything other than flat disdain that he almost fell forwards, wrapping the surprised young man in a tight hug. He expected the relief he had received from Diana's presence but froze when he didn't even feel a hand on his back. Brayden was standing stiff and shocked when Jacob pulled away, his ears pink and a touch ashamed of his vulnerable attempt.

   Jacob shrugged nervously as he tried to regain the detached attitude of Dawson City Jail. “S-sorry, Brayden.”

   “Ha, um… it's cool, Porter…” He straightened his gray prisoner's uniform and glanced back up, softened by the kind sentiment of the hug. The surprise drew a good-natured and crooked smile from the young man as he laughed it off awkwardly. “You startled me there! Are you okay? Uh, wait, hold up. How the fuck did you make it out of the Ring alive?”

   “I…” Her face flashed to the forefront of his mind. The gentle curve of her button nose, her cheeky smile, those striking brown eyes. “I had help. Well, I-I actually was stuck there for days before—”

   “Did you hear? We've lost five men in four weeks,” Brayden interrupted, still adjusting his glasses from the unexpected embrace. “Javi, Andre, Aaron, Tomás, and… well, you.”

   Jacob shifted to his good leg and rubbed his collarbone anxiously. He knew why those men were dead. Andre and Aaron were one thing, but Tomás and Javi? Javi had been starving, and Jacob could still remember the look in Tomás’s eyes at the train station, that inner rationalization of his ruthless actions reflected in their gloss. Jacob stared down at his own reflection in the stainless varnish of the counter he was resting against. Drawn face, dirty blond hair, his frame even thinner than before he had been trapped out there on that forgotten street. But there was something new, too. Maybe it had always been there, maybe he had never looked long enough to recognize it. That same look from the dead man at King’s Street Station: guilt.

   Was he any better than the rest of them now? Had he ever been?

   “Well, at least it will give us a better shot at some food tomorrow.” The younger man's insensitive snicker broke the concentration of his inner turmoil as Brayden patted Jacob's arm with a touch of fondness. His voice was casual and light despite the dark subject. “I have to go write up the wall inspection or Goliath will feed me to the devil.”

   “Of course.” Nodding, Jacob gently squeezed his arm back with an empathetic smile. He wanted to tell him everything, share what hell he had walked through, but he knew how Goliath took tardiness. “Um, good luck out there.”

   Brayden seemed surprised to hear it. “Oh. Thanks, Porter.” The young man offered him a friendly grin in return as he started off towards the doors. “Get some rest—you look like shit!”

   He stood on his own in the cafeteria, watching as Brayden jogged away at a brisk pace, the only one to greet him in this special brand of hell he had stepped back into. Jacob was alone again—it was an awful feeling.

   As he limped to the door by himself, Jacob could almost feel the strength of her hand wrapping around his waist.

   “C'mon, I'll help you.”

   “Damn it,” Jacob grimaced shamefully. It was no use, he had to see her.

   “I just wanna talk to her.”

   The gruff guard was shorter than him but definitely stronger, muscular arms folded tightly across a broad chest. He stood a bit more straight to challenge Jacob's thin but towering frame and huffed at the seemingly outrageous request.

   “She's gettin’ hunted tomorrow,” the guard stated indignantly. “No one gets to talk to the bait without Goliath's express permission.”

   Jacob flexed his fists at his side, frustrated with both the obstacle in front of him and with the terrible consequences of his own actions. He had no clue why he was doing this. Talking to Diana right before she was sacrificed to the creature was a stupid way to draw attention to himself, and for what? What could he possibly gain from a conversation with the doomed woman he had almost called a friend? He couldn't give her any kind of closure now, and she would never forgive him for what he had done. He didn't deserve it anyways—every action he had taken over the last four weeks only ever damned her further: the burden of his mouth to feed, his dead weight to care for, the lies as he had limped after her through the very doomed city that he had helped to build. Without him, she might have even made it out—but now she would never know the truth of what happened to her family… She would never even live to see another starry night sky.

   “Fine.”

   He stormed away from the holding cell entrance, the strong lurching of his gait only making him feel more aggravated. The rising frustrated fire in his bones surprised him.

   What did you expect to happen? He chided himself harshly as he wandered the sparse prison corridors. You're alive, that's all that matters now. She should've realized what kind of fuckin’ world we're livin’ in before she tried to help a dead man walkin’.

   But she hadn't, had she? She had refused to accept their reality—entirely rejecting his belief that there was nothing left in this world for either of them, battling defiantly up until the very last moment for the hope of it all. She was stubbornly searching and running and fighting—and for what? To be thrown from the roof of this derelict prison, dashed against the rocks, to be picked apart by the heartless alien creature that was haunting their cursed city?

   Whether her family was out there or not was irrelevant. She didn't deserve an ending like that. Jacob's throat tightened as he realized he was the one who had earned such a fate—a fate she had refused to give him time and time again, even when she knew what a waste he was. She was just as courageous as ever and he was just as cowardly as he had always been.

   Jacob couldn't take it. There had to be something that could be done for her.

   He was stopped at a crossroads, a million voices in his head holding him firmly where he stood and forcing a choice between paths. The familiar cell where he would sleep tonight was at the end of one hallway, and he knew Goliath's office was down the other.

   Her words after the train station echoed in his mind.

   “Then I promise I'll try!”

   It was the least Diana would do for him. He had to try.

   “Come in.”

   Jacob pushed gently against the heavy office door, stepping into the small room and taking in its out-of-place grandeur. This space used to belong to the warden of Dawson City Jail, useless memorabilia of military service and distasteful awards of excellence still adorning its mahogany shelving. Knowing just how the prisoners had been treated, even before they were abandoned here to starve, stained those shiny trophies with a rotten irony for the convict.

   Jacob's jaw tightened. Of course, it wasn't much better now, was it?

   Cabinets and bookshelves lined the walls over the dark green rug that led up to the monstrously large desk at the end of the room. Goliath was an oxymoron in this space. His rough bare feet were propped up on the intricately carved wooden desk, leaning back in the expensive squeaky swivel chair, his signature red shirt a bright contrast against the sophisticated colors of the office.

   “Ah, there you are.” He sat up behind the desk, brushing back his flowy mix of dark and silver hair and staring up at Jacob with a quietly dangerous gaze. “So the prodigal son has returned! This calls for a celebration.”

   When he stood, Jacob was reminded of just how big the man truly was. He was at least six foot six, making him at minimum three inches taller than Jacob—and he was wider too, cutting an even more intimidating figure than the rest of the skinny and starved prison population. Those scarred hands told you as clear as day that he was not one to be underestimated. He commanded respect in every way except for the true one, treading over the line that differentiated admiration from fear… And Jacob was afraid of him.

   Their quietly ruthless leader opened a few drawers before finding a slim box of cigars and opening it toward his subordinate.

   “N-no thank you, sir.” Jacob waved his hand politely to turn it down, his eyes happening to catch the bony structure of his fingers in the dim green lighting. Fuck, he was hungry.

   “Right,” the man peered down his nose derisively as he set one in his teeth. “You were never one for the vices, were ya, kid?”

   A flick of fire from the lighter caught the end of the massive cigar. Goliath took a big breath, expelling the thick vapor from the corner of his mouth. Strange orange shadows from the burning end lit the lines of grit in his face as he held it between thin lips.

   “We thought you were a goner.”

   “How’s Diana?” Jacob asked tentatively, not managing to make eye contact as he fiddled with the rim of the desk he was standing in front of.

   “The woman? Oh, we threw her in a cell. Tomorrow's a big day for her.” He snickered meanly at the morbidity of his own joke before squinting down slightly, a hint of curious suspicion lingering in his small cold eyes. “Why?”

   Jacob swallowed. There's no time like the present. It was now or never.

   “I… wouldn't be alive right now if it wasn't for her…”

   It was the truth, but he could feel Goliath's stare on him intensify as he pushed himself to continue slowly.

   “I-I didn't get myself away from the creature. It… it was her. She rescued me an’ nursed me back. I can walk now ‘cause of her, I'm alive ‘cause of her.” He looked up, his voice surprisingly steady and determined as he announced it with all the bravery he had in him. “She deserves her freedom.”

   The big man chuckled from behind his desk. It grew into manic laughter as Jacob stood awkwardly before him, shrinking back as the obnoxious cackle increased, exhaled smoke billowing up to the corners of the ceiling.

   “What do you think this is, boy? A fuckin’ charity?” He lifted a fresh cigar to his lips and wiped a nonexistent tear from his eye. “Is Jacob Porter finally goin’ soft?”

   “N-no sir, I just—”

   “Listen, kid.”

   He sobered with a potent smugness in his eye and puffed a circle of smoke into the young man's face.

   “You like this girl.”

   Jacob froze. “I'm not—”

   “It's okay, amigo! We've all listened to what's between our legs ‘stead of what's between our ears every once in a while. More than a few times, I should say,” he smirked, “one good thing about livin’ in the apocalypse—no alimony!” The room rocked with Goliath's big laugh. The obscene tone of it made Jacob want to turn and run, but there was no hiding from the poison that had burrowed inside these confining prison walls. 

   “But the point still stands. You pissed that I left you out there? Porter, those fuckers are fast. You fall behind, you get left behind—you know the deal.”

   “Then why'd you let me back in?” Jacob felt the heat rising to a boil in his face. Why was he so angry?

   “Porter…” The threatening figure looked down his nose through the haze and puffed another ring into the stifling office air, his voice carrying a shift into an eerily calm tone that transformed the atmosphere of the room completely. “You really think I believed that little charade of yours?”

   The blood ran cold in Jacob's veins. He helplessly watched as the big man released another long, dark laugh. Goliath settled down, looking off to the old warden’s plaque of recognition on the wall before returning those beady eyes to the terrified prisoner before him.

   “You've got grit, kid, I'll give ya that. I'm givin’ you a second chance here.” His gray lips curved into a twisted smile. “I know, I know, we don't believe in those in Dawson City Jail, but ya might just have some skills we can use after all. Now you know how the bait thinks, where they go, that cold-blooded instinct. You can help shore up our defenses, huh?” He put out the freshly lit cigar butt on his desk, carelessly burning a dark circle into the spotless wood and watching as the crimson embers flickered out. “And who knows, we might even recreate this little play sometime. You, the bait, a daring escape. It was pretty clever.”

   The thick smoke wasn't making Jacob nauseous on its own. The idea of falling back into this torturous cycle of death, of continuing the endless wheel of survival that cost the lives of everybody else? It made him sick.

   Jacob fought to control his breathing, having no answers that would satisfy what the intimidating giant was saying to him.

   Goliath was growing agitated at his lack of a response. He leaned forward on the desk, staring him down with rising frustration as his voice morphed into a mockingly comedic cadence. 

   “You know what we have to do to survive here. Hell, you already did it yourself!” He leaned back in his seat conceitedly with a raised eyebrow. “That girl is in a cage right now even though we all knew ya wanted to stick up for ‘er… Stupid bitch.”

   Jacob bristled at the slur.

   “You still got that instinct in you, Jacob.” Goliath's knowing smile only made him more terrifying. “The one that will get you through anythin’ to survive, the one that makes us different from all the bones we've created. We see the world as it is and as it has always been, not as some kind of fantasy made up by the top to pacify the weak. This shitty system was designed to keep us down. You know what it's like—you have for a long time. What's the point in fightin’ it? Sure, you lost it for a minute there, but the fact that you're out here and she's in there proves that it's still in you.”

   He casually tossed the barely-used cigar to the rug and stood up, sobered. “Look, I like ya. You're cutthroat, kid, but let me tell you one thing right now: nobody leaves Dawson City. If you try anything as fuckin’ stupid as that again…” Goliath didn't need to finish that sentence for Jacob to understand him.

   He swallowed hard but his only thought was of Diana. She had come so far… Was this really the end for her? He didn't want to accept the awful answer but in that speechless moment all he could see was what he was staring into—the inevitability of death's smug, soulless face. Jacob was just one person, what could he do to stop any of this?

   Maybe Goliath was right.

   No, Goliath was right. There was no point in resisting human nature's fight for survival. Fuck empathy—if you wanted to live, you were going to have to take—and there is none better to take from than the compassionate.

   He felt he didn't have a choice in the hardened bitterness of his surrender. “Yes, sir.”

   Goliath smiled boastfully with a glint in his toothy grin—it amused him, making others squirm.

   “Say thank you.”

   The long moment of quiet held Jacob captive. He looked down, burning shame heating his cheeks red as the flame of anger flared weakly in his chest. He had nothing left—but Goliath would reach out and take his dignity nonetheless.

   Jacob barely managed the humiliation of the mumbled response that was asked of him. 

   “… Thank you.”

   “What was that?” The giant leaned forward, a finger behind his ear, pressing him even further with a cruel and mocking smirk. “In my good ear, son.”

   He felt pathetic. Jacob clenched his fists and forced eye contact as that last small flame of resistance finally flickered out.

   “Thank you.”

   “Atta boy.” His lofty sneer faded as his head jerked to the door, clearly over the fun of toying with the young man. “Now get the fuck out.”

   Jacob's knuckles were white at his sides as he silently obeyed, lowering his head and quickly scuttling out of the room into the freezing hallway outside, taking the bloodied shards of his broken hope with him.

   He couldn't sleep. Tossing and turning, Jacob remained awake all night, every second of the past four weeks rolling over and over again in his mind. There were two unavoidable patterns in the memories: the past wrongs on his part, and the past kindnesses on hers. How he had managed to do one good thing by hiding Diana's presence from the others up on that rooftop, before promptly throwing it all to shit by standing aside as they took her that morning. Was he incapable of loyalty or just too afraid to try? 

   Then there was the myriad of her good deeds—how she had pulled him from the rubble, and how her persistent optimism crashed against his grim realism as he tore down every single thing she offered to encourage him. Their extreme perspectives had been forced to adapt as time rolled on, the two growing closer to understanding each other's differences right up until the shatter-point of their end. But what did it matter? It was all over now. He couldn't tear his eyes from the tragic saga—his guilt demanded the attention, and he could not look away this time. Closing his eyes tightly, he desperately tried to rid himself of the memory, but it was just no use. He could not forget her.

   Jacob rolled onto his side. He must have done it about ten times now, the quiet creaking of the beaten-down mattress unable to rise above the symphony of obnoxious snoring that was echoing through the cell block, but Jacob's mind remained elsewhere. Those big brown eyes haunted him, forcing him to watch the hope wash away from them like a tide on dark sand, this delicate trust they had built together splintered into a million pieces by one single choice. Broken by him.

   He was always the one to break, wasn't he?

   Jacob pulled the thin blanket closer to his chest. What else could he have done? Jacob Porter wasn't a hero—he felt he could barely even call himself human at this point. He was a coward, afraid of death, afraid of being alone, afraid of the creatures outside of these city walls, and of everyone around him too. And worst of all, they all knew it.

   She knew it.

   Tears stung in the corners of his eyes. She was going to die tomorrow.

   I'm sorry, Diana. I am so sorry.

09/07/24

Twelve hours to sacrifice

   The sound of bustling feet and coarse conversation woke him with a jolt.

   Fuck, morning.

   Jacob had barely slept, his glazed eyes cloudy with drowsiness as he glanced at the barracks around him. All of the other inmates were up, a few of them already making their way into the derelict jail for the daily duties that kept them fed by the man in the opulent office. Jacob struggled to stand as they hurriedly flooded past. Their indifference returned him to that emotionless expression he had held for so long before he had met her.

   “Same as it ever was,” he muttered flatly under his breath.

   His whole body ached, but Jacob managed to dress himself back in those familiar grays as well as the new jacket that Diana had scavenged for him before staggering after the others, the boot covering his hurt leg making him significantly slower than the rest. At least it wasn't as touchy with the rigid support.

   Breakfast was served on the dot at seven o'clock each morning. If you were late, you missed out—and Jacob was late.

   By the time he had limped into line the last can had already been given out. He watched, exhausted, as the remaining prisoners argued over it, spit flying as they shouted and fought for the last scraps of the life-giving food. It would be coming to blows again, no doubt. Jacob sighed and sunk down at the end of a table. The red tinted spot where Javi had fallen amongst his hidden stash of rations still stained the floor a few yards away, the cruel memory of the heartless execution continuing to haunt the recesses of his mind.

   The inmate beside him pulled his portion closer to himself, giving Jacob the stink eye, slurping up the last scraps before rushing off. The can rolled toward him and Jacob picked it up, dejectedly using a finger to root out the little bits of cold residue left in the shallow ribs of the metal inside. Staring vacantly into the empty hole, he slowly licked his finger, the sound of his stomach rumbling longingly drowning out the shouting of the inmates still fighting amongst themselves. He was fatigued from restless sleep and sore as hell, but now he could add starving to the list too.

   Absent-minded, he fiddled with the can, boredly turning it over in his palm before something simple stopped him cold. It was canned ravioli—not the same brand as the one Diana had given him the day they met, but still, there it was. His throat tightened as he remembered the thud in his lap after those brutal days of hunger on the street.

   “Go on, you must be starving.”

   What was he doing? He looked around, taking in the yelling and scrapping of the few inmates still on their feet and the selfish apathy of the rest. It all felt so obvious to him now. They didn't care about him—they didn't care about anyone. It was only a matter of time before survivors would stop wandering into the city and they would have to start sacrificing their own to hold their place—and Jacob knew that when push came to shove, they would do whatever Goliath told them to.

   “We'll find another way.”

   Diana would never turn to that. Survival was not worth the price of her humanity. She would find another way, somehow he knew she would. They both would.

   Jacob's mind cleared as his eyes dropped down to the familiar pink line that formed the old scar that was dug into his forearm. He could still feel the gentle squeeze she had reassured him with in the tower after the terrible truth had come to light, the ghost of her kindness now speaking those impactful words in his ear as clearly as if it was happening right in front of him.

   “You are not just one moment, but also the next. What is Jacob Porter going to do now?”

   No. Diana was right—this life was his life, and what happened next was his choice. He wasn't like them anymore—and he was going to do something about it.