Jax felt unbelievably disoriented to even open his tired eyes. His eyelids felt so heavy that he doubted their lashes were tied to some kind of solid weights which were now keeping them from rising against his brows.
He was utterly clueless as to why he was feeling dog tired as though he had been forced to work for days without even being fed once.
It took him an immeasurable amount of willpower to will his grogginess away and finally open his eyes.
However, to his utter dismay, only darkness greeted him even after struggling so much just to open his eyes a bit.
All his other senses still seemed to be reluctant to come back to him, as he couldn't feel anything about the situation.
And it took about ten full minutes for him to realize he was not sleeping in his match box of a prison cell anymore.
Because the surface beneath his body didn't have anything in common to relate it to his stone bed.
It was not only dusty, it was also covered in something that was pricking his skin here and there through the thick fabric of prison clothes he was wearing now.
Where was he?
Why wasn't he lying in his prison cell?
As if these questions triggered something in his mind, all the events that transpired before he magically woke up in this place came back to his subconscious.
About making the stubborn adolescent system sleep, him trying to get rid of it by following Marco.
At that time, all he had in his mind was to get rid of the system after finding the Monarch, someone or something that Marco had mentioned about.
But then, some sudden turn of events had landed him in an even more confused state.
Jax still couldn't comprehend why the two mysterious men appeared out of nowhere and started fighting with Marco.
And, then Nexus' reminder for him about the repercussions of his refusal to accomplish the task, seemed to serve as a breaking point to his reality that he was thrown into a crazy and unexplainable fits of pain which were hard to describe in mere words.
Jax shuddered when he remembered the scorching pain that then washed over his every nerve ending in the span of a single milli- second as he felt like rolling on the ground while shouting for some relief.
However, instead of a helping hand, he found a lethal weapon, dangling on the finger of a pale white hand, in front of his eyes.
And before Jax realized it, a dark hand pushed the same gun into his own before asking him to kill his target, who was laying helplessly on the ground near them.
Somehow, in the middle of enduring the tremendous pain and thinking about what the right thing to do, his hand acted on its own accord and pulled the trigger that whisked out the remaining breath of life in Marco's body.
And, as though seeing the life leaving Marco's eyes clicked some misplaced bone in his own body to place, Jax remembered the pain slowly but surely disappear from his system.
After it was reduced to a pitiful numbing feeling, Jax finally understood what he had done as he felt the coldness of the metal object seeping into his hand.
And, minutes after realizing that he actually killed the fat guard, he lost conscious.
But if he recalled it correctly, the gun didn't make any sound, right?
Maybe, it wasn't loaded?
But, the blood red pool that took form beneath Marco's body then was saying otherwise.
Only after thinking about it carefully all over again, did he realize that the possibility of the gun's barrel being attached to a silencer was highly likely.
So, he indeed killed a man.
What happened then? Who brought him here?
Was he still in one of buildings of the Prison? Did they find out that he killed someone and thrown him into a much worse prison cell?
But wouldn't they first interrogate him before punishing him again?
Interrogation is mandatory before finalizing the truth, right?
All kinds of speculations started to rummage his partially hazy mind.
He wasn't even sure if he should make a sound and let whoever brought him to this place know that he had regained his consciousness.
Speaking of which, how long had he been lying here unconscious?
It was completely dark around him. He tried to adjust his eyes, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make out the kind of room he was lying in.
He then tried to call for Nexus. But, Nexus didn't answer him back for a really long time.
And even after responding, it didn't bother to answer his questions. It completely ignored him.
He couldn't understand what it was playing at yet again. He clearly completed the task. So it should be at least complacent, right?
Whatever, he could just explore this place on his own and find the answers he wanted.
While he was still busy figuring out how to make his stiff limbs coordinate with each other after lying down for God knows how many hours, he heard a switch being flicked on.
And in the next second, dim orange light flooded the room. But then, it started flickering like a damn disco light. The only difference was it was only flickering between dim orange and complete black.
Jax turned to the source of the tiny sound and saw a scrawny man, with another man standing behind him closely.
He didn't feel any animosity toward himself from them, so he could at least lower his guard a little for now.
He then took in his surroundings which seemed like the interior of a shabby and almost falling apart wooden house.
No wonder, he felt some pinching pain on his skin. It seemed that the wooden splinters happily lodged themselves into his body when he was thrown in here.
Right, he was just dumped on the floor. And not even a wooden bed.
Jax tried to reel Nexus back in, to talk to him and tell him where he was. But, the stupid system wouldn't budge even for a second.
Since Nexus wasn't willing to answer his concerns, he could try probing the two men who now walked forward, closer to him before stopping about three feet away from him.
"Who are you?"