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Chapter Two
Who
Richard shook his head, rising to his feet and pacing away from, well, everything. The shade of the jungle trees enveloped him and no one followed. No person. Like a conscious entity, a creeping sensation on the back of his neck grew more intense. His skin itched and his shoulders were heavy, in the way one's body unconsciously reacts to being spied on. Richard fought the impulse to swat at the nothing hanging on his back.
He had decidedly wasted time returning glasses to an unconscious woman. He frowned to himself, casting a sideways look at Jack, who was busy tending to her equally inanimate ballooning partner, or husband, or whoever the hell he was--whoever the hell either of them were. He watched Jack examine the cut on the man's limp head, which rolled from shoulder to shoulder like a child's doll.
The man could not yet have been thirty. He had full features, a strong jaw, and a thick neck. He was handsome, though perhaps a little Richard thought of as "on the pretty side," and that was not exactly a compliment. Aside from that, his hair was matted with sweat and filled with sand; his skin was blotchy, scraped, and dirty; but all these thoughts were a long way from Richard's consciousness. Immediate was his attention to the attending physician.
The New Jacob.
Jack had stepped in to fill what Richard had begun to refer to as The Void. He had been proven to be "the chosen one". What that meant, exactly, was yet to be revealed, or so Richard assumed. Perhaps it was too soon for anyone to know. But there had been no ceremony, no great event, no signal of a change in anyone's life; the doctor had simply been chosen. He had won.
And Richard, like everyone else who had ended up not being "the chosen one," just remained.
He approached Jack with a short, quick march.
"Is he all right?" he asked, the little concern he truly felt almost imperceptible.
"I won't really know until he wakes up," replied Jack, focused on his patient.
"Then we have a few minutes."
Jack looked up with a quizzical tilt of his head.
"We should talk." Richard's voice had fallen back into its usual even tone, in spite of the turmoil within and the nothingness digging its claws into his shoulders. Controlled as ever, he walked a few paces into the jungle, and waited.
Jack followed willingly, but not quite so composed. The eyes of the crowd on the beach followed with unfiltered curiosity, concern, and low brows of distrust. Richard tried to ignore it, tried to pretend that he was still someone to be listened to, rather than a detached limb that Jacob had left behind.
"Talk about what... exactly?" asked Jack, raising his hands to his hips.
Richard did not reply right away. Instead, he held Jack's gaze with a firm grip, waiting for him to realize for himself what needed to be explained. A few more precious seconds passed. No attempt to begin was made. So, he gestured to the new arrivals with a sharp motion of his head. "Did you do this?"
Now it was Jack who held his tongue. His jaw clenched, his pupils narrowed. When he finally spoke, it was with a step to close the little space between them. "Do what?" he replied, though in such a manner that was more intended to reveal that he knew precisely what Richard meant, and that he was prepared to ridicule the accusation.
"Did you bring them here?"
"...No. No, I didn't."
Another sideways glance. "Are you certain?"
"What reason could I have?"
"Other than the fact that you're the only one on this island with the ability to do it?"
Jack's nostrils flared. He took another step toward Richard, who held his ground, who refused to even bend his gaze, let alone break it. Jack opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Kate, who had been keeping a close watch on the balloonatics, started to call out for attention.
The woman was awake.
Both men hurried to the tree where she was tied, dispersing the crowd that had gathered round. Jack dropped down to his knees, placing a hand on the woman's arm to facilitate her recovery, and partially to make sure she did not dislocate her shoulders once she was fully aware of being tied to a tree. Her eyes rolled aimlessly as she struggled to shake off a blanket of torpor. Then she convulsed with a jolt, and Jack was prepared to hold her firmly to the ground.
The most expected questions were the ones first asked. Where was she, who were they, what was going on? Why the hell was she tied to a tree? Jack refused to answer any of them. He only returned the volley.
"What is your name?"
"...Olivia. Riddle. Olivia Riddle."
Her eyes jumped from person to person. Her cheeks were flushed, but the color had drained from every other corner of her face. Richard took up a station at a nearby tree, leaning his shoulder against it as he watched, stepping aside in silent acknowledgement that Jack had the current situation under control. What Jack was, was a good doctor: he was caring, he was patient--Richard, a little less so these days.
Jack glided his fingertips up and down the length of her arm, to calm her, Richard assumed. Or maybe to make sure she had not hurt herself upon waking. "Olivia..." he began, "You came here by balloon?"
She stared at him blankly for a few seconds, then craned her neck to search the sky. The balloon was still hanging from the tree like a stretched out piece of pink bubblegum. Then, she looked to her left, to where her partner was tied up a few meters away, still unconscious.
"Is that Adam?" she asked, which Richard thought an odd question. The chain of reactions from the rest expressed the same, as if flinches were catching.
"Is that his name? Adam?" asked Kate.
Then, with a groan, Olivia's head rolled backward. She stared up the length of her tree, blinking her eyes aggressively. Then, she convulsed again, only this time it was just her head, which she shook from side to side, as though she was trying to cast something off. Whatever she was doing, it was sudden and jarring, and it sent an icy shot through everyone's veins.
Jack grabbed hold of her by both shoulders, the muscles in his arms visibly tense.
"Something's wrong with my eyes..." she said, her voice clear, but far from calm. "I can't see."
"You can't see what? Anything?"
"Everything's... blurry."
Richard stepped to the side, pushing himself away from the tree he had been using for support. His brows were knitted as he recalled the glasses that had fallen from the balloon, and how he had placed them on the woman's face while she was still unconscious. In a few short steps, he crouched down beside Jack, and motioned for a little room in front of the woman.
He studied her for a moment, noticing the manner in which she strained to see over the edge of the glass, and the way her pupils dilated and constricted without aim. He placed his fingertips on the hinges of the plastic frames and slid the glasses off her nose. At once, the woman sucked in a sharp breath. She winced at the sunlight, then lifted her head. Her eyes locked on his face, the pupils pointed and focused.
Richard chewed on his bottom lip. "I'm sorry," he said. "I thought they were yours."
"They are. They're my glasses." Her body shook as she instinctively tried to touch her face with her hands, only to be refused by the tree that anchored her to the ground. She fell back, every muscle collapsing under her own weight as she struggled to catch her halting breath. Her eyes moved between the faces before her like someone roused from a long coma, surrounded by attendants at her bedside; her lips were parted, forming silent words of disbelief, broken intermittently by a smile of sheer amazement. "I can see... everything."
"You couldn't before?" asked Jack.
Olivia shook her head. "I've worn glasses since I was in sixth grade."
Jack rolled back on his heels. Richard held his breath, pondering the implications of what she was saying. A medical miracle, a healing, occurring minutes after setting foot on the island... well, it wouldn't have been the first time. What it meant, why it happened to only a select few, that was one of the secrets the Island still refused to divulge--or, that Jacob refused to explain. Whether it was the Island or Jacob himself who was the healer, Richard had never been sure. It was possible that Jacob had only channeled the massive pockets of energy beneath their feet, that he had only been a conduit.
It made Richard feel a little better to downgrade him like that.
He looked sideways at the doctor. Richard's hand moved to the cross around his neck. He fingered it tenderly.
Meanwhile, Olivia had found something of her own worth focusing on. "Is Adam... is he okay?"
"He hit his head... Is that your husband?" asked Jack.
"No, he's my brother."
Jack nodded in consideration. "Twins?"
"...Yes."
Now, with this new information, it was as if the floodgate had been lifted, and Richard was struck and somewhat in awe of the two's keen physical similarities. Fraternal twins, obviously, but siblings indeed, with an uncanny correlation to one another; though what caused the man to look soft around the edges--the large eyes, full full lips--had the opposite effect on his sister, adding provocative features to an otherwise plain face. They shared a thin, squared-off nose and angular chin; they both had large masses of matching thick brown hair. Hers was equally disheveled, with what had once been a crafted network of braids loosed and pulled out of all recognition other than a bird's nest.
Most notable, however, was a sudden explosion of familial energy. Olivia's breast heaved with growing agitation. Her gaze could hardly move from her brother's face. "How long has he been... is he going to be okay?"
"We're waiting for him to wake up," said Kate.
"Who are you?" Olivia asked, not to Kate in particular, but the entire group.
"Who are you?" Jack repeated.
She replied with a dark glare. "I just told you... now, it's your turn."
Richard flexed his brows, surprised by her sudden boldness. And impressed.
Jack sighed. "Okay, Olivia... you'll have to forgive us if what we've done seems a little..." he paused, searching for the right word.
"Barbaric?" Richard offered, somewhat flippantly, but also quite seriously.
Jack's jaw tightened, but if he wanted to correct him, he decided against it, though he also seemed at a loss for a better description of what they were doing. He skipped over the word and pressed on: "But you flew here on a hot air balloon." There was a pause, pregnant with incredulousness. "Where from?"
"Christchurch... New Zealand."
"When?"
"Two days ago..."
"Where were you going?"
Resentment turned to irritation like licks of flame in Olivia's eyes. Beads of tears appeared to douse them. "The Chatham Islands. And I assume you're going to ask me why I was going there." Her voice crackled in her throat, which must have been very dry. "To sightsee. We're from Idaho. Coeur d'Alene, Idaho."
Jack held his breath. He let his chin fall to his chest, as his lips parted with an amused chuckle. Richard couldn't tell if Jack was surprised or annoyed, though he was somewhat preoccupied with calculating the probably of a hot air balloon traveling several hundred miles without a pilot.
The pilot!
Richard was back on his feet like a shot, his eyes already pinned on the basket, which the wind rocked from side to side like a clock pendulum.
"Hugo," he called, lightly snapping his finger.
Hurley trotted to his side. Richard didn't have to look to know his gaze was pointed in the same direction.
"Is he... still up there?"
Hurley winced. "Yeah... he's still up there."
"Dead?"
"Yeah... he's dead." There was something almost sing-song about his voice.
Richard ran his hand across his forehead, where a ache was building just above his nose. He pulled in a long breath. "Alright, well, then we have to get him down."
His eyes twitching towards Jack and Olivia, Hurley moved his weight from foot to foot. "Right now?"
"Yes, right now." Richard turned and motioned for more help with a sweep of his arm. "What, are you busy?" With a well-crafted smile, he tried to dispel a little of the tension.
"I just thought that maybe we should wait for Jack to decide what to do with the balloon. You know, wait till he's done talking to them, or whatever."
Richard looked at Hurley with a sideways tilt, his brow forming a level line parallel to his tightly pressed lips. The little levity he had attempted to inject was now entirely gone. He fought his stiffening jaw, determined to remain composed, but the pressure was building. "Just... get it down."
Delegation over, he sharply turned back to Olivia, approaching on the offensive. It had occurred to him that whatever she claimed could be verified through Hurley's peculiar communicative gifts. Perhaps Miles could help, as well. Richard was about to form this plan into some sort of threat when he saw the tracks of tears flowing down her face. He halted-faltered, even.
"We're sorry," she said. "Please, let us go. We'll walk to the nearest city or... anywhere. We're sorry. If this is your private beach-"
At this, without warning, Richard emitted a caustic, high pitched giggle--almost a snort. Jack and Kate's heads turned. Even Olivia seemed taken aback. Richard shook his head and gestured that they ought to ignore him. It was almost an apology. Almost.
But private beach, indeed.
Jack returned his attention to Olivia, with Kate following, leaving Richard at a loss for anything worthwhile to say. A quick glance behind showed Hurley and several others taking up stations below the balloon, gesturing and speaking amongst themselves. Miles moved to the dangling rope and gave it a few tugs. They seemed to be discussing who would be the best candidate to climb.
Richard sighed, for the first time feeling the full weight of the morning upon him. In spite of everything, it was the first quiet moment of the day. He hadn't eaten, yet. His shoulders buckled. Sitting down on the sand, he rested his head in his palm and watched Jack comfort Olivia, his hands moving soothingly up and down her arms, and her tears drying at his medicinal touch.
Richard allowed himself to admit that he envied his skill, his gifts. Then, he took it back.
A few seconds later, the man on the opposite tree released a pained moan. Eyes raced to his side, followed by bodies.
And the whole thing started all over again.
Previous Chapters:
Ch 1: The Hot Air Balloon