A POUND OF FLESH

You Don't Know Jack

YOU DON'T KNOW JACK

29

"What?" She could hear her mother scolding her for lacking proper etiquette in the question she posed.

Emma had been prepared for a jarring confession, yet this somehow was not what she had suspected.

"I. Am. Jack. The. Ripper."

Each word stood out on its own, as a fully developed and weighted sentence, piercing the crisp air and leaving a bitter aftertaste.

"I heard you the first time." Emma keeps her gun trained on the self-proclaimed Victorian Era killer as she contemplates the various motives behind the statement - playing at insanity, a stall tactic, a means to be remembered, and the most likely - he actually cracked.

None of that mattered. She does not have the time, ability or materials in her possession to make the determination. At the present, her responsibility is to save 'Mary', Ron and stop Matt.

"It started with the nightmares. They were so vivid - I was living them. I could taste, I could touch, I could feel them. They surrounded me and when I woke, there were these headaches. But they were more than just headaches, my entire body ached. I was physically ill. I'm not sure if it was to repress or deny them that made me sick, but it took a toll. I was drained. My doctor thought maybe it had to do with stress. He ran tests..."

As he talks, Matt moves and leans against the brick wall to his right. He lowers his arms and Emma can sense a settling come over him as he continues his story.

"So I stopped fighting them. I paid attention to the details. When I woke up, I would write down everything I could remember, I studied them. They no longer felt as horrific. I researched the meanings of my dreams - bull shit for the most part."

"And then, I stumbled upon some case files from a well-known serial named Jack the Ripper and that is when I realized they were memories. I knew the information before I saw it, the black and white pictures, I had seen it all in color. Because they were my memories - From a past life! Can you believe it? I was not witnessing someone else performing these feats - it was me! I knew - sorry remembered - how to do it."

"And then I experienced my metamorphosis - the dreams and this voice. At first it was a whisper, barely audible. I thought I was hearing things. It pushed me and guided me, every so often, until it became more persistent...until it was no longer a passenger in my mind but a companion. We were the same, I could no longer deny who I was. Who I am."

"It's laughable really. My past me had come to help me in the present. Once I accepted it, everything became clear."

As if to signify the turning point in his strange account, the man who used to be Matt, pushes himself off the wall. Standing at his full height, raises his arms out to the side in a dramatic fashion. The movement casts shadows beneath his outstretched arms, recreating the imagery of a bird of prey from earlier.

Emma can make out a small moan from deep within the alley. At least someone is alive - whom she cannot be certain. The retelling is at the very least bidding her time, when they did not respond to their radio, the GPS tracker in Ron's vehicle will let help know where they are.

How much time it will take, Emma is not sure, but she can sense the story is reaching its finale.

"How?" She spurred him on.

"How what? That really is not a very precise question Emma."

"How did you do it? You do not have the medical background."

"Oh, that is really easy. I do have the medical background, I was a student of medicine, back in the late 1800s, before I perished - Consumption, dreadful thing - before I was finished. Yet who I was then does not truly matter, what matters is that I wasn't finished."

Before Emma can even breathe, he continues, "And I suppose that your second question would be 'why, why would someone who is sworn to protect, do what I did."

It is not her question, yet she shook her head in agreement all the same.

"As stereotypical as this may sound, once the first kill - Martha - was over, it was like this huge release came over me. It was euphoric. Previously it was like always walking in a constant fog, my mind dull, and mainly working on pure instinct as I went about my daily life. And then...Martha released me. After that feeling - there was no turning back. I was hooked." A small tremor overtakes his body as he cocks his head and smiles at the recollection.

Emma shudders, yet for a much different reason.

Coming to the end of his tale, Matt pulls the knife back out and lets the blade play against the fingernail of his left thumb as he gently turns it back and forth. A small crimson drop forms, he does not flinch as he continues the motion.

"So it isn't over. I hope I have made it clear. I may not have succeeded this time, but I will the next. In about 50 years give or take. Jack's mission - my mission - it will be finished."

His voice rises to a shrill shriek as he takes off in a full sprint towards Emma.

He falls.

All is silent.

Only then does Emma realize that she had pulled the trigger.

A/N: And there we have it. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read, comment and support this story. I am still posting the Epilogue to follow, however I have yet to decide if I am going to keep it or not.

Throughout my editing, I have also hinted on something that will be the next installment for Emma - however that has yet to be written and there are so many other tales drifting around in my mind that I would also like to see come to fruition. So for now, Happy Wattpading.