He should not be here without Forrest's say-so. Jack knows this. He agreed to it. Because he wanted to run right off and find Cricket as soon as he heard he was alive (ish?) somewhere, but Forrest was very very firm with his No. You Stay Put, and after watching him recover from not one but two terrible near-death experiences (one of which was at least partly Jack's fault), he's gained a new appreciation for his older brother.

Forrest seems solid as the mountains themselves, but that doesn't mean he ought to be taken for granted. Even mountains can crumble and collapse.

The thing is, Jack's pretty sure by now that Forrest doesn't intend to ever give him permission to come here, and after hearing a whiff of how the winter went here, and packing all kinds of food to take to Cricket, he can't stand it any longer. He's got to see him.

Boy, did he pick the wrong damn day.

The first thing that pops into his head when he hears the explosion is shit, did someone's still blow up?. Such things happen with relative frequency in the world he comes from. He doesn't notice when the Nexus helpfully translates his inner monologue to 🥃 💥 🔥 ⁉️

It may take him a minute to pick up on the floating emojis. He's never heard of an emoji and this is his first exposure to Nexus strangeness.