Definitely Normal

Jessica blinked a few times. She turned over on her side and looked at Mia strangely.

"What are you talking about? Why do we have to talk about Jack? I thought that you already agreed it would be fine to take him with us."

Mia took a deep breath.

"Come on, think about it for a little while. There's something off about him."

Jessica pouted slightly and put one hand under her head as a pillow.

"I told you before that's just because he's traumatized by things, so he's rationalizing everything inside of his head."

Mia shifted around uncomfortably and got a bit closer, lowering her voice as well.

"Jessica. Listen to me. I get that things have been really, REALLY fucked up in this place, but at the end of the day, we are all still people. It's not like we've been living in this kind of hellhole for our entire lives, so we won't really do certain things. However, Jack seems to be a different case."

Jessica didn't seem to be too excited about their conversation but resigned herself to it.

"What are you talking about? Just tell it to me straight."

Mia closed her eyes and mumbled softly.

"Remember what happened... to Mike?

Jessica slowly nodded and let out a sigh.

"Yes, unfortunately, I proposed that we should try to save him, but that just ended up putting the both of us in danger as well. I realize that my decision back then was rather naive."

Mia shook her head and grabbed onto one of Jessica's hands.

"No, no. I've already gotten over that. To be honest, I was leaning towards making that same choice on my own already, so you don't have to blame yourself. What I'm talking about is how he died."

Jessica raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, he died because of the game. What does this have to do with Jack?"

Mia's eyebrow twitched.

"...Don't you remember what happened? Jack was the one who found a loophole and caused him to die in the first place."

Jessica pursed her lips together before looking at Mia like she was a fool. She ended up laughing out loud.

"What are you talking about Mia? It's not like Jack actually killed Mike, it was the game masters."

Mia stared at her for a long while. She didn't understand why her logic wasn't getting through.

"Look, the person that did it can be debated, but it's a fact that if Jack didn't do what he did, then Mike wouldn't have died. He could've just declared the guard to be a 3 before drawing ten 2's. That way, everyone would've been fine. I'm not saying that the bastard deserved any better or anything but... Jack seems far too insensitive to killing people."

Jessica smiled as she brushed through the back of Mia's hair.

"You're overreacting. Jack just made himself see death in a different way in order to remain sane, it just makes him look cool and callous. What do you expect from a child?"

Mia blinked a few times. She pursed her lips as a frustrated sigh escaped her lips.

"Fine. I won't question his morality, but there's still another problem. When I first saw that he pried off his fingernails, I didn't think too much of it. But no matter what happened, he never looked like he was ever even slightly in pain."

Jessica opened her mouth to respond, but Mia raised up a finger, cutting her off.

"I know what you're going to say. He just makes himself ignore it or something. But it's more than just that. Despite having the injury half a day ago, his hands are actually completely fine now."

Mia frowned rather intensely as she rubbed the side of her head gently.

"In fact, I remember seeing that one of his hands was missing all of his fingers while he was still in that weird getup and wearing a mask. And right now, all of his fingers are fine. There isn't so much but a scratch on them. That definitely isn't something that a human can do, Jessica. Not to mention he somehow has a monster with him."

Hearing all of that sent Jessica into some thought. She could no longer deny that there was indeed something weird about Jack. However, she didn't look too concerned about it. She put a finger to her chin while pondering over it.

"I guess that is strange, but it's not like that's a bad thing. If he can regenerate, then that just means we don't have to worry that much about him dying. There are plenty of magical things in this place, saying that he isn't human just because he has one of those powers is stretching it a bit."

...

"You don't think it's strange that he has this power at all?"

"No, why would I?"

Mia took a deep breath, taking in and releasing all of the exasperation she felt.

"Why are you so attached to Jack anyway? I thought you were just trying to help him find his Dad, but the way you're talking about him makes it sound like you're his older sister."

Jessica let out a chuckle while putting the tips of her fingers above her mouth.

"What are you talking about? I'm just doing it because that's the right thing to do!"

Mia couldn't help but crack up, thinking it was a joke.

"The right thing to do? In a place like this? You've gotta be kidding me."

However, Jessica simply looked back at her with a casual smile.

"No, why would I be? I simply do the right things because I'm a good person, you know?"

Her eyes widened ever so slightly as she said that. Mia felt butterflies in her stomach as her laugh dissipated into a straight face. She came to realize that Jessica had her own problems, as did Jack. Mia thought that Jessica might be projecting her own problems and coping mechanisms onto Jack, but wasn't entirely sure yet. Regardless, there was definitely something similar going on.

Somehow, she was the most normal person in the group, which wasn't something she was too used to.

"Ah, well. Whatever. I guess I was just talking about some... useless things."

Jessica smiled and wrapped one arm around Mia.

"Haha, don't worry about it. Everyone's a bit frazzled, that's just normal at this point."

A bitter smile formed on Mia's face.

"Y-Yeah. Let's just get some sleep."

Jessica let out a yawn and weakly nodded. Her eyelids fluttered before closing as she very quickly fell asleep. Her arm was still hooked around Mia, which was probably a bit too personal considering that they haven't known each other for that long.

However, Mia wasn't disturbed by it. She thought for a while about the possible dangers and consequences of continuing to go with her current group. It was undeniable that Jack had saved her life before, but it was a similarly pure fact that Jack had something different about him that made him unstable and unpredictable.

If she wanted to take the most reliable and logical route, then she would try to break things off as amicably as possible, then go off on her own. Yet, as she stared at Jessica's gentle sleeping face, she felt the urge to do so disappear almost entirely.

Just the soft breaths that tingled as they brushed across her face made her feel relaxed. While the hand around her back had an incredibly weak hold, one that would easily be moved away, it felt like an iron lock around Mia.

Even though it was only about a day she had spent with Jessica, it affected her pretty deeply. She didn't really have many friends and wasn't always the best at communicating in a vulnerable way.

And she even felt a little bad about never seeing Jack again. Although she definitely thought his energy was needlessly extra, and that there were many very strange things surrounding him, that excitement made it a little bit easier to get through all the horrifying things.

Everything seemed a bit lighter than usual.

Mia pulled herself a little closer into Jessica's embrace and closed her eyes as well. Yes, it seemed that her party was a little crazy and weird. But in a place like this, that was practically considered normal.

And everything felt really warm.

So warm and welcoming, that even if it was a trap, she would willingly fall into it.