Cold tile pressed up against his cheek. Naked and wet, he was slithering on the ground regaining his consciousness.
Jack pushed himself to a seated position from where he was on the floor. He was in his bathroom, right beside the tub on the dirty tile floor of his old apartment... before everything had happened.
"Jack are you alright?" He heard a sweet, female voice in the next room, followed by a gentle knock on the door. Jack could do nothing but groan in confusion. His brain felt like he was blown to bits with a shotgun. He could barely see clearly.
"Jack, please, are you hurt?" She asked again after hearing his groan.
"I don't know..."
"Jack, I'm coming in!"
She pushed the door wide open (apparently it had been unlocked, a bad habit Jack has. She would always have to lock their front and back doors before going to bed.), and seeing Jack on the floor, let out a stifled shriek. Immediately she was at Jack's side on the verge of tears just saying, "Oh my God what happened? Jack, how did you do this? What did you do?" It sounded like T.V. static to Jack; just white noise.
Jack's blurry vision cleared and he saw the face of his wife, Penny. His head felt numb, but his brain continued to suffer that aforementioned shotgun blow.
"Jesus Christ! I think we need to call the E.R.! Jack, talk to me!" she was splashing water in his face from the tub.
Jack pushed her aside drunklike, and staggered uprite on his two feet. He was hunched and for that moment Penny was silent, just watching her husband with swallowed anxiousness. Jack stumbled to the mirror and looked at his reflection. His forehead was kissed with a large, bloody gash in the middle.
"Look at me, I'm Mina Harker!" He said to his reflection in a way a second grader would mock their parents.
"Jesus fuck, Jack! What the hell is wrong with you!?" Penny wasn't pleased at his literature jab. Jack didn't respond. He was avoiding the confusion. All of this seemed familiar, and after just having been in a space prison, he was having a hard time adjusting to his surroundings. Penny had slammed the bathroom door, leaving.
"She's a nurse," Jack thought to himself. "She must know that my injury isn't that bad... I can't even feel it."
Jack staggered over to his bedroom to get some clothes on. After dressing, he sat down on the sofa in a nice, patterned button-down; he was reviewing his memories. The last thing he remembered was the fact that he was on that stupid platform in the middle of the galaxy with the Warden. Why was he now at his old apartment? He remembered everything that had happened. Why the FUCK was he here? Was he dreaming? Maybe he was, as he felt barely anything. He felt nothing from seeing Penny. It took him too long to even look at any pictures of her but now...
"My head hurts..." he mumbled to no one but himself.
Penny waltzed her way inside the room in different clothing. She was dressed in a black evening gown complimented with long, pearls draped around her thin neck. "I made you tea," she said, offering Jack a steaming, olive green mug.
Jack stood up, slowly, never breaking eye contact with Penny. Her eyes followed his, looking more frightened the more he stood up, but her mask of a smile still held strong like steel. "I uh... made you tea..." she repeated mousily.
Jack took a step closer to her so they were inches a part. Penny dared not to step back from her husband. "What's your name?" he asked her.
"P-Penny Darling," she responded quickly. "Why?"
"What's your birthday?"
"July 9th, 1994."
"What was our first dog's name?"
"Ralphy."
"What's your favorite video game?"
"Uh..." she hesitated. "Doom."
"I thought it was-"
"ODST! I'm sorry I meant ODST!"
Jack grabbed Penny by her shoulders, making her drop the mug to the ground, burning her right foot that was stuffed inside a black flat. Her face folded in on itself in a state of pain. Her mouth opened wide, snarling her teeth, but no sound came out. She stayed silent the entire endeavor. She lifted her burned leg and stomped it down with apparent pain. Jack stared at her, his face unmoving. He thought his emotions were broken. Her eyes watered and she tightened her jaw as she said, "Yes, Jack?" Jack could see her fists were clenched. She was trying her best to outlive the pain.
She could feel pain.
That didn't matter.
Jack shook her. "How are you real?"
"What? Jack I-"
"HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU REAL!?" He shook harder and harder. "HOW ARE YOU ALIVE!?"
The blankness he had been feeling had suddenly washed away, and tears were flooding his face. It made his head pound harder. It was like he stepped out of a mental fog he was stuck in. Perhaps he just started to process where he was. He crashed his lips onto Penny's before he violently threw her away from him.
Grasping at his hair, and his face turning red from crying and screaming, he paced around the room as his wife looked terrified. She sat on the bed to cradle her burned foot.
"Jack? Are you okay? Did that fall mess with your head?" Jack could barely hear her breathy tone.
Jack sat on the ground next to his bed, his fit of insanity temporarily over. Penny got up from the bed and started walking over to Jack. "Jack, I said are you okay? I would love to know-"
Penny's irises had slated away from each other. She stood still for just a moment before she started leaning over. Jack immediately dropped the gun and pushed it back under the bed as his wife's body fell on top of him, the blood from her forehead pouring out, staining his patterned button-up and the carpet he sat on.
Jack held her tight and kissed her head.