A hero down

Daxter looked up at the setting sun. He was really getting worried now. He had been waiting by the entrance to the cave for two days now. This wasn’t good. Jak should have found him by now.

He knew he couldn’t just sit there and wait for forever, but he simply couldn’t make himself move. He was too tired and too hungry. And he was afraid for what he might find if he went back inside the cave to look for his friend.

He had managed to get out of the cave by simply putting one foot before the other even after he first thought of giving up. As he finally had reached the free air of the desert evening, he had not cared about the chill against his naked skin, all too happy to still be alive.

But after the first night he had searched for a better shelter and had come across something reminding him of ruins, but far too crumbled by the merciless hand of time and the sharp seeds of sand washing over the metal and stone for an innumerable amount of times. What was important was that in this area he had actually found a piece of some old cloth, which he had instantly used to make himself feel a little more comfortable about moving around. Meaning he was now wearing it tied around his waist as some sort of bohemian skirt.

He had kept to the stone wall of the mountain that harboured the cave he had so recently escaped and some how he had actually managed to find the very same entrance that he and Jak had used when they’d first gotten there the day before.

Ascertained that Jak would find his way out to this very spot, Daxter had placed him self at the cave’s opening and waited.

But Jak hadn’t showed up.

This probably meant that something had happened to him.

Something bad.

Daxter shook his head and tried to get rid of the thoughts of Jak lying unconscious and bleeding somewhere in the darkness while he himself sat out in the sun doing nothing to help him.
He could probably get back inside the cave and go search for him. But what could he possibly do? How was he to find him? He could walk past Jak in the darkness without knowing it and then what would he do?

He had to get help, but how? He was in the middle of the desert, for crying out loud! He wouldn’t last a day out in the scorching sun if he set off for the closest habitation he could think of, let alone manage to get even close to the place before he was toast for the vultures.        

In the end, sitting outside the cave was the best option, but he didn’t like it. Not just because of the hot days and the cold nights, or because of the steadily increasing hunger he was feeling, but also because he wanted to know what had happened.

He wanted to make himself useful, for once. If only he had kept with him a beacon. He could have turned it on and then some wastelanders would have shown up in no time to pick him and Jak up. Assuming they still recognised their signal that was.

But the beacon was still in the car, and the car was left in the cave.

Wait… There was something he could do!

Daxter scrambled back onto his feet and steadied himself by putting a hand to the stonewall on his left side as he felt a bit dizzy for getting up to fast.

As soon as he felt ready, he went inside the cave, hand still on the wall for orientation’s sake. He might not be able to find Jak in the darkness, but he would be able to find the car that was big enough to partly block the hallway at the place where they’d left it.

And if he found the car, that meant he would find the beacon, and that meant help.

He just really hoped that there weren’t any more of those huge metalheads left in there and that the car hadn’t been moved by the beast that had chased after them at the time.

With this in mind, he quickened his pace and kept his eyes wide open in the search for anything moving in the shadows surrounding him.

Echoes of dripping water met him from a distance, sounding like steps by feet garnished with clicking talons against the sand and stone of the floor. But repressing a shudder and the rising panic in his chest, Daxter moved on through the darkness, knowing he had absolutely no chance whatsoever against the monsters that could still be hiding inside the mountain. But he also knew he had to do this, he had to find some help or else he might never be able to find Jak.

There was a stabbing pain in his heart at the last thought.

No, he had to stop thinking in those directions. He was going to find him! Jak was still alive, that he was pretty certain of. And if Jak needed Daxter to make this one easy thing, then Daxter would prove himself worthy of the assignment. He simply had to.

‘Cause if he didn’t, then how would he ever be able to face Jak afterwards? Jak, the hero, the one guy who actually liked him right from the start. His best friend, who had single-handedly saved him so many times he had lost the count. Daxter knew he owed him everything and more and for that he was greatful, even more than Jak probably knew, ‘cause Daxter just couldn’t get the words out when the occasion came up.

How do you tell someone that he’s your hero, without making it sound too cliché and all fairytale-princess-sweet?

And now he had a chance to repay him for all the heroism, even if just by a little act of courage, walking alone and half-naked through a cave infested with all things dark and evil.

Despite his fears, Daxter managed to reach the car without any mishaps. The vehicle was standing where they’d left it, carelessly parked in front of an opening too small for it to pass through. Daxter would probably have walked straight past it, had he not bumped his knee into one of the tires.

“Ouch! By the mother of all things small and fuzzy…” he cursed under his breath and forced himself not to jump around like crazy on one foot. Instead he examined the car with his hands, and finding the front seat, he climbed in and started his search for things that could be of use.

Jak’s morphgun was of course not present. Daxter knew Jak had taken it with him as they’d left the car. He also knew the gun was hopelessly lost somewhere underneath that same black pool of ooze that he himself had fallen into a short while later as he had followed the gun over the edge.

He kept rummaging about in the backseat and actually found the bag containing a change of clothes for Jak – the greatest treasure he’d found that far. He quickly sneaked into the slightly too big pants and the sleeveless tunic and placed the provisional “skirt” as a scarf around his neck, before he continued the search.

Being dressed again, wearing clothes for the first time in all too many years, made him feel almost giggly with the mere feeling of the fabric against his skin and he had some trouble maintaining the seriousness of his mission in his mind.

Finally, as he was about to give up, he found an electric torch, stuck underneath the driver’s seat. He picked it up and, wonder above all wonders, it came alight as he pushed the button.

“I’m actually starting to feel lucky,” he mumbled as he let the light sway across the seats. Finding nothing in the backseat resembling of the small metallic device that was the old beacon, he moved back to the front seats.

As he, in a last try to find what he was looking for, opened the glove compartment, he was almost attacked by the water flask that fell out and landed between his bare feet.

Suddenly he felt the hunger which he had hid from himself during the last two days, scratching at the inside of his stomach and giving up a noise that Daxter was sure would give off an echo throughout the entire cave.

He picked up the flask and as he found it to be half full, he greedily gulped down the remaining water, feeling the hunger lessen for a bit. Sadly though, it actually made him thirstier. But, as the water was gone, he threw the flask on the floor again and looked into the compartment from where it had emerged, and there, in the far back, was the beacon.

“BINGO!” he cheered in a hushed voice, still perfectly aware of the risk that something he didn’t want to come running could hear him. He reached out and grabbed the small circular piece of technology and pushed the activation button. As a reassuring red light started to blink, Daxter managed to smile, relieved that his plan had worked. Now all he had to do was to wait.

He looked at the driver’s seat, touched the steering wheel and inspected the pedals with the aid of the torch he held in his hand.

He could probably figure out how to drive this thing.

But then he looked at the surroundings and gave up the thought. Given the car’s placing, and the shallow tunnel he had come through, he would be forced to drive backwards almost the entire way, and he simply didn’t find that thought the least tempting.

So, in the end, he decided to leave the car and get back outside. He figured it would be easier for who ever picked it up, to read the signal, if he was outside the cave. Besides, he really didn’t want to sit around waiting in the darkness without knowing if something was creeping up on him from out of the shadows and the torch was already getting weaker, it’s batteries being old and worn.

As he reached the outside for the second time since he had been turned back to normal, Daxter guzzled for the cool air with new reassurement that he had done a good job.

As the stars came alight on the darkening night sky, he sat down and looked up at the vast space above, clutching the beacon in his hand as if it was a lifebuoy and he wished, upon whatever star that might be falling somewhere, for Jak to be safe and for help to come soon.

Sometime during the night, Daxter fell asleep, exhausted and fatigued by hunger and thirst. He never noticed when the beacon slipped out of his hand. Neither did he notice that it suddenly stopped blinking, somewhere around the sunrise, as the old and battered mechanism gave in.