by J.P Jackson
*
Taylor opened his eyes, arms out and gasping for air as if drowning.
The sun burned his face, wet marsh soaked his boots and a bed of tall grass nestled around his bare back. As a black cloud of mosquitoes swooned over his body, Taylor stood, hobbled as far as he could from the marsh then puked his guts out.
Coming to rest against a crooked palm tree, he raised the torch under his eyes and sighed when he read the gauge. “Two percent. Two fucking percent.”
He knew where he was, knew he was back in the heat of ancient Egypt; when he was was another matter entirely. The image of Penelope fixed for her own torch flashed between Taylor's eyes. Gnashing his teeth, he activated the audio log. “Lanza, you son of a bitch! Why did you use her? Why'd you let her talk you into it? Fuck you both! Fuck the pair of you!”
Taylor buried his face in his hands and gave himself time to cool down.
"My fault,” he whispered, rubbing his forehead. “It's all on me.”
Taylor asked himself how many times Penelope tried to tell him about her work? Then asked himself how many times he ignored her? He then pondered why he jumped back to Lanza's apartment in the first place. Taylor nodded when he arrived at a probable answer. That moment in time was Lanza's original coordinates, before Taylor drunkenly screwed with the torch. Lanza wanted his old friend to know what he did to Penelope, a sort of retroactive confession.
Taylor's eyes glistened so he snapped himself out of it before the emotion overwhelmed him. It didn't help, it wasn't over. Since her disappearance, Taylor said she was still alive, still out there somewhere. Now that feeling was as strong and vital as ever.
He gingerly inspected his personal doomsday clock at the back of his head. The throbbing infection had shrunk but would grow again.
"First thing's first,” he groaned, standing.
Inspecting the sun's location in the sky, he estimated the time to be around 5am. With that, he forced the chronic migraine from his mind, then headed west, ripping and tearing through energy sapping jungle.
