Knowing LOST

The wall behind him sparked as the bullet glanced off it, ricocheting across the hallway, where it embedded itself into the wall and smoldered.

Ryan dropped to the ground, his hands shaking. “Don’t shoot!” he screamed. “Damn it, I’m not armed!”

The metal floor under his face was freezing. He was squeezing his eyes shut, unable to look up at the figure, whoever it was. He’d nearly just died, goddamn it, died. He couldn’t think, he could barely breathe, all he knew was that the figure was walking toward him and that ground was cold…

“Who are you?” the figure asked, and Ryan’s thoughts all snapped into one place, focusing on the question.

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I who am I who am I?

“Ryan… Page,” he managed to choke out.

The footsteps stopped, and the figure took a deep breath. “Really?” came the voice, that suddenly sounded familiar. It was someone who he’d seen before. A character that hadn’t really stuck in his memory, but was there nonetheless.

“Are you an Other?” he managed to sum up the courage to ask.

There was a biting laugh. “Yeah,” the figure said with a slightly nasal voice. “I’m an Other.”

Not Dogen. Not Lennon. Not Mac from Sunny. He was running through the faces of Others in his head, but none of them fit the voice, despite its familiarity. His heart was beating fast, so damn fast that it was probably bursting out of his chest. He finally opened his eyes and found himself staring at a tennis shoe. The Other had approached even more closely than he had thought.

“What’s your name?” he asked softly, and the figure dropped into a crouch. He was still holding the handgun he’d taken from Claire, though his index finger was nowhere near the trigger. The safety was even on, Ryan noticed.

Ryan slowly lifted himself from the ground, his eyes locked on the gun. Unlike before, the Other didn’t even flinch. He sat calmly as Ryan leaned up against the wall, his chest heaving. Finally, he glanced from the gun to the figures face.

“I know your face,” he said quietly.

“Don’t you?” the Other replied.

—-

He couldn’t have said that Ethan wasn’t thorough, though admitting so made him sick. He stared down at the body, his mouth gone dry. It was the true handiwork of a madman, though he was a talented madman.

They call it hobbling, Annie Wilkes had told Paul Sheldon in Misery. As Locke looked down on the cauterized wound that was on the bottom of Kevin’s ankle, he couldn’t help but feel the same terror he had only imagined Paul Sheldon to be feeling. Ethan had made Kevin a mirror image of himself; while his right foot had been destroyed in the cave, he’d sawn off Kevin’s left foot and presumably cauterized it with a torch.

Locke swore. He rarely did so, but this seemed the appropriate time. Ryan had been right about Ethan being a sick bastard, that was for sure. But this even went beyond Locke’s own expectations.

Kevin was unconscious, probably from the pain, and Locke bent over, hefting Kevin onto his shoulder. He knew the way back, and he needed to get Kevin to Jack before anything happened. Wherever Ethan was — that could wait. Kevin needed help.

—-

Ryan stared at the Other’s face for a minute. “I can’t… I don’t know you,” he said.

“Yes, you do,” the figure replied, the corners of his mouth twitching with a grin. “We’ve met before, face to face.”

Ryan stared at him, frowning. “You look familiar,” he said quietly, “But I don’t know…”

“Have you lost all faith, too?” the Other asked, and Ryan knew. It had been one of the last faces from the real world he’d seen before he woke up on this godforsaken Island, and here it was, once again.

“Jeff Olsen,” he breathed, and the Other grinned.

“Bingo,” he said, standing up. Shakily, Ryan did the same.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked after a moment, steadying himself against the wall. He glanced over at Claire in the chair, still unconscious, and hoped Olsen had a damn good reason.

“Looking for you,” he said. “Didn’t expect to find you here, but I was on my way to find you when I stopped by.”

Ryan frowned. “Why were you looking for me?” he asked.

“It’s a long story,” Olsen said. “And I’d prefer not to tell it twice. “Is Kevin around?”

—-

Locke could feel Kevin’s shallow and labored breathing on his shoulder, and he paced his steps along with Kevin’s exhalations. He didn’t know why. He’d long run out of the energy to keep up his jogging pace, and he had slowed to sort of a quick walk. Kevin’s breath was just an easy metronome, he supposed.

Darkness had fallen on the jungle quite suddenly, with hardly a twilight period between the sun overhead and the glimmer of a moon through the trees. That might have had something to do with his perception of time, he guessed. He’d been so focused that time had simply flown by.

Suddenly, his metronome disappeared. For a moment, he was afraid that Kevin had stopped breathing, and he stopped, lowering Kevin onto the ground gently, preparing himself to do CPR if necessary.

It wasn’t. Kevin’s breathing had only changed speeds as he regained consciousness, and he slowly blinked, his eyes fluttering around beneath his half-closed lids. He gasped finally, sucking in a lungful of air. Locke crouched beside him, feeling helpless to do anything but look concerned.

Kevin’s eyes soon gained focus, and he stared at the canopy above him for a moment, blinking. His eyes then snapped down to Locke’s face, and for a moment they widened in shock.

“No,” he managed to gasp out. “No!”

“What?” Locke asked, leaning in. “What did you say?”

“I don’t want to come back!” Kevin yelped, his voice gaining strength. “I was free. I was free!”