Chapter Text
They scraped against a tree and Eyeless Jack gritted his teeth. The girl next to him cursed under her breath. Being this close to her, he could hear her muscles twitch.
She smelled of weakness. No wonder. After being locked up by the Compound for any amount of time, one did not simply get out and walk it off. Still, this did not exactly make her a trustworthy driver.
EJ did not mind his blindness most days but today? Today he wished he had been more cautious where his father’s hands wandered while he killed him.
“How much further?”
“Stop asking that,” Lulu hissed. “I don’t know.”
Not promising. Did this girl even know what she was doing? Eyeless Jack racked his brain, trying to remember if he ever interacted with her. Lulu’s scent and voice were familiar.
She was one of Jill’s girls. Didn’t Virgo tell a joke about her? About how she and EJ…
Pause.
“How are you driving right now?” He hated how fearful his voice sounded.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re blind.”
He heard her huff. “I’m not.”
The cannibal frowned and turned to her. “You are. You have no eyes. How are you driving?”
They had not crashed yet which was a miracle. But also a mystery. Jack could only guess from their speed that they were on a highway. The cannibal felt the urge to hold onto something.
“I can see. Haven’t crashed yet, have I?”
“Explain."
“Why would I?” The leather of the wheel squeaked as she gripped it tighter.
EJ leaned back. “You have not been in the Underrealm for a while. Things have changed. I am not your enemy.”
Lulu scoffed. Silence followed. Oppressing. EJ’s thoughts started wandering again. Chains. That familiar scent of liquor and smoke. He pressed his palms hard enough against his eye sockets that he could feel them ache.
“It’s the same thing with your senses being enhanced. You can smell…feelings, right?”
“That’s right.”
“The Well gave me something different.”
Everyone’s abilities were enhanced when they passed through the Well to the Underrealm for the first time. EJ was sure he left behind his humanity during his fall.
“The further away I am from my eyes, the better I can see. The Compound stole them.”
Her teeth gnashed and she sped up. Jack wished he believed in a higher power so he had someone to pray to. Instead, he just gripped onto the seat.
After a pause, he said: “They still have them.”
He could hear her teeth grind together, a sound like stone on stone.
“The further I am, the better I can see. But I still…feel them. Squelching in between their filthy fingers. Poked, cut, burned…” Lulu spat out each word with such hatred.
Eyeless Jack could not imagine such a thing. As absurd as it sounded, fear was so common in the Underrealm, most did not feel it anymore. And mortals never even got close to scaring the people on the other side of the Well.
But the Compound had changed that. Now that Jack had seen a glimpse of the horrors himself, he felt even more misery at the thought of the many Triskel members who were trapped in its halls. Members he left behind. Just like…
“Oh shit!”
It was the only warning he got before the car swerved and he was pressed against the car door. They slammed into something and the entire vehicle lurched.
Jack’s head slammed against the dashboard and a rain of glass descended. Lulu cried out and he heard her slam on one of the pedals.
A mess of sounds, sensations, of movement. And then it stopped.
“Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.” Lulu let out a panicked, breathless giggle.
His head still spun and he slumped back into the seat. Warm blood ran down the side of his head.
“What did we hit?”
“What do you mean what did we…oh. Right. Hold on.”
He heard her door open and then her movement as she shuffled to his side. Lulu opened the door and quite roughly yanked him out.
Eyeless Jack was still unsteady on his feet and his haphazardly stitched-up wound was threatening to open up again.
But none of that mattered.
As soon as he was out of the car, a scent hit his nose. The familiar undertone that every person who passed through the Well had clinging to them. So faint, he would not have noticed it had he not just spent an extended time in the Overrealm.
Wet grass. A hint of earthy amusement. Wood bark and squirming worms. A scent so specific, he had only smelled it a handful of times in his life.
But it could not be real. That hit to his head must have messed with his senses.
“Hello, Jack.”
EJ sucked in a sharp breath and tried to step back but Lulu held him in place. He felt her fingers quiver in his bicep and her fear and excitement wafted over with every twitch.
“Why…how…?” The blind killer was still disoriented and the air had been knocked out of him so hard it was hard to speak.
“I have come to get you. And you as well, Lulu. Jill will be happy to see you.”
The Slenderman stepped closer and placed a hand on EJ’s shoulder.
Jack expected his mind to break, for him to actually discover he had died and this was some sort of hellish punishment.
“You are not dead, Jack. Not yet. And I have no plans to harm you. Far from it. But we have to move. Neither the Overrealm nor the Underrealm are safe anymore.”
The Faceless Man removed his hand and started walking. Jack did not get to protest before Lulu started hurling him forward and dragging him with her as she followed the ancient cryptid to who knows where.
“I knew it. The Slenderman hasn’t abandoned us,” she mumbled.
Jack did not dare ask what that meant.