After a moment’s silence, it comes to mind that Jordan’d forgotten something, and he feels all the more guilty for it.

“Hey, uh– with those pictures–”

Jordan addresses Jocelyn, gesturing to her coat pocket.

“–did you see anyone else leaving the mountain, or that building? Like, other than one of those gas-mask riot-guys.”

Without a word, Jocelyn reaches into the pocket and withdraws a sheaf of pictures, larger than the one that’d been returned to it just a moment ago.

Flipping through it, and taking every picture of the mountain into her off-hand, she could swear she sees a streak of golden light arcing across the sky in one of them.

Allowing this a double-take, it is gone when she looks back to it.

Paying this no mind, she lays the mountain-pictures on the ground, just in front of Jordan.

She points out a certain one among the pictures. It focuses on a rocky, uneven face of the mountain. Unlike the one he’d been falling beside, it doesn’t seem to have any sort of footpath down its length.

The streak of color on the mountain’s face, just by the photo’s rightmost border, brings Jordan’s heart to leap. Just the idea that something– someone he knew was relatively nearby was, though just for a moment, comforting.

The moment ends, however, and his heart falls, not sticking its landing as he sees just how still the pile of neon rubble is.

Jordan sputters out loud.

Again, Rudy misreads Jordan’s shock as confusion: “Pretty sure that’s not just some weird ore-vein. We didn’t see it fall, but– see the hair?”

Jordan does, indeed, see the hair. The long, snow-matted locks are the only portion of the body that move, being thrown about violently by the winds of the tundra.

The scene is slowly being buried by the blizzard’s snow.

As he watches it pile, his anxious realisation is doing the same. As if he didn’t know, already.

Zain’s dead. This had all been– real. This is real. Real, and a threat to his goddamn life. By now, it’d been going on too damn long to be a nightmare.

The words Jordan– and only Jordan– hears from the apparition, just behind his ear, are like ice-water.

“Get a clue, mamma.”

He’d been denying the feeling for as long as he’d been denying his worries: Jordan feels like crying. The feeling comes not only from the fact that Zain existed now as only a frozen corpse, and some sort of trauma-ghost, but from everything.

The world’s going crazy.

Rudy’s tone is grim and careful as he addresses the despondent Jordan.

“All right, I uh– I’m going to brief you on what we’re dealing with, here, so try and focus.”

Jordan offers no reply.

“I didn’t choose to hide us in this cistern ‘just cause they– the guys from the building— weren’t likely to know about it. I also did it to avoid something just as deadly as bullets– or, even more deadly, since I can’t stop it with– you know.”

Rudy adjusts himself in his wheel-chair. The strange way he must keep his balance is obvious– he keeps himself leaned back, for if he were to lean even the smallest bit forward, the lack of calves and feet to hold him up would mean an embarrassing tumble.

“They use what’s called Amnestic gas to keep the population of the towny above unaware and easy to manage. It makes a person forget things, if they breathe it in– and they even have strains of the stuff that makes one forget certain things, rather than just the last few hours or so.”

Jordan feels sick– likely not just from the sewer-water he now smelled like, or the cold he likely had coming on, not even  from how utterly alone he felt now– but from yet another mind-fucking factoid being thrown his way. He felt like he was losing it, and sadly for him, it likely showed on his face as confusion regarding Rudy’s words.

“They use it everywhere,” the Captain continues, hoping to explain better, “everywhere the foundation does its business. They use it to deal with strange stuff like– like what’s going on with us, making people forget what they saw of things they didn’t think possible.”

Jocelyn, noticing how Rudy is trailing off topic whilst looking down and to his side, as if in shame, interrupts:

“The gas is made to stay in gas-form in really cold climates, like the one outside. Down here, the stuff falls to the ground, and probably mixes with the water. If we go out there for any longer than an hour, there’s too much a chance we’ll get caught in another run of the stuff.”

Something she says slaps Jordan from his befucked state. He feels trapped water finally leave his ear. Fucking amnesia gas in the water. Probably best not to think about that.

Something he liked about what she’d said was being outside. Specifically, being outside for a while. ‘Made him think of running. Of leaving the shadow of that damned mountain and that damn building and this damned nightmare where he’d lost one of his friends and both of his legs.

Even though he clears his throat before speaking, his words come out a miserable, sludged-up croak.

“So, is that stuff’s all that’s stopping us from leaving?”

Jordan knows the answer before Rudy even opens his mouth, of course. These guys are smart. They knew he’d jump off that cliff, and’d prepared a quintuple-decker firing squad.

“No,” Rudy replies, the grimness in his voice hardening into straight-up cynicism.

“they’ll have surveillance all throughout the town. And, don’t get the wrong idea, their guns are still a problem. That mountain-fall was one thing– I could see all of them at once. But, kid, I’m no panopticon. They surround us, we’re swiss cheese.”

Jordan feels his sick sensation getting worse. He wants to shout. He wants to hit something. He wants to go and jump into that freezing sewer-river, melted amnesia-gas be damned.

The look of loathing on his face as he looks to Rudy and Jocelyn is likely all too obvious. Here he’d found these two guys who knew so much, one of whom could block fucking bullets, and here it seemed they didn’t know where to go.

“Then we won’t get surrounded,” Jordan started. He was so angry– or maybe starved for hope– that he both didn’t know what he was saying and knew exactly what he was going to say next.

“I’ll make sure of it. I’ll melt ’em into nothing.”

Rudy and Jocelyn’s eyes drift away from Jordan’s sat form– drawn above it to the form of Scorched ‘El, summoned in its full glory.

The small, but bright flame cresting its forehead lights up the room better than any lantern– also brightened, for the first time– is Jocelyn’s expression.

Her eyes go wide at the sight of the spirit, and something in Jordan’s chest dances.

He sees something he can’t describe, in that expression. An ancient, untouched innocence in that face, one buried under weeks of uninterrupted apathy and lethargy– something uncovered by dumb, desparate hope.

Hope that Jordan himself didn’t have.

Firing Scorcho Sauce is one thing, but walking was another. He could move a few meters on his own, at best, before he’d have to rest– and he’d only be able to use his legs at all if he stood on those of his spirit.

As Scorched ‘El lowered, and disappeared behind him, he saw Jocelyn’s hopeful gaze fall onto him. Despite everything, he couldn’t possibly let them down, now. Couldn’t just say he “got riled up”, or leave.

That look nearly wipes away all that’s wracking his mind– Zain, dead– some government agency after his hide– the world going fucking insane– none of it seems to matter, as their eyes meet.

It feels as if, were he to look long and deep enough, he’d be absolved of all guilt. Even god would forget the men he’d killed, the friend he’d let down, after swearing to himself he’d save him.

When a girl looks at you like that, you can’t turn your back on them if you try.

Jordan imagined it; some sorry fuck in a wheel-chair having to roll himself through the snow, him on his lap. Even that’s assuming they don’t run out right as some of that gas is being loosed.

Even after they’d all calmed to silent contemplation, Jordan could still see it: Jocelyn’s face, now seemingly returned to its sleepy, expressionless state, still carried some air of that heart-rendingly naïve hope.
Maybe he could find another alligator to ride.