Chapter 1
Jinx was never afraid of the dark.
How could she be? She grew up, first, in the dirtiest, busiest corner of The Lanes. Vi would take her and her brothers out to Piltover every week just so they could see a little sun. Then, she was raised in a massive, cold, metal breadth; a black abyss waited for her every morning when she woke up from bed.
She belonged to the dark.
Zaunite children whispered about a wraith, a quick shadow, deep within the underground. At night, if you're ever so vigilant, you could find its spectral violet eyes hunting for people who spat on undersiders. They say that it punished those Pilties, and the like, in a manner that made The Kindred proud.
Her crimes at The Commune had only confirmed what she, and all of Piltover and Zaun, already knew. She is the lonely absence of light, of goodness, and kindness, and the willing agent of misfortune and death.
Jinx thought that she had accepted that destiny a long time ago.
If she hadn’t, the gray walls and the cold stone floor of the Kierraman dungeon would make certain that she would. It held a darkness which was so solid, and so strong, that it formed an iron rod to beat her spirit into submission if she ever dared to deny the part that she was meant to play.
That metal rod took the shape of a small, mute, dead child.
The specter of legend was now left a scared, caged, injured animal.
The poor creature crawled back into a dark corner of the cell. A sliver of moonlight timidly greeted her through the cell’s small window.
She turned away, ashamed to face the naked night stars.
“I shouldn't have brought you,” Jinx said to the darkness, after a small century of silence, thinking back to when she and Isha arrived at the commune She picked a blue orb, a hex-gem, from nowhere, and palmed it. “But I had to bring you,”
She looked down at the gem.
“I always have to bring someone.”
Jinx lobbed the glowing stone at the opposite wall hoping for a moment of self-annihilation. But, her muscles had atrophied here, and her eyes had dulled to a muted pink.
It klinked unceremoniously against the wall. It echoed a sound across the prison that sounded like malicious laughter.
The stone vanished. Just another figment.
Jinx, broken, crumpled inward and fell to the ground. She laid naked and cold, next to the gem, and prepared to spend the night how she's been spending all of them since she killed her daughter: in tough, restless sleep.
A burst of white light swallowed the walls of this-wherever-and-whenever. From nothing, a ball? An orb? full of maddening red and blue and whites and purples screamed into existence. it grew many, many sizes- until it surrounded the room. There were three others there- hazy figures just out of reach- their outlines hazy, their presence indistinct.
She did not know them, but she wanted to scream for them. WATCH OUT WATCH OUT,- but the massive colored-thing forbade it. She, instead, could only watch as the men- two tall, and one maybe small- screamed as their bodies were shattered, copied, and fractured. They were splintered across space and scattered across the shape that SCREAMED.
It howled into the white, into the men, and into her, grew larger and larger, its colors bleeding into one another, its own wild world consuming everything.
Then as quickly as it grew, it collapsed into a near-nothingness.
And the three men were gone.
In that living moment of will, across the white, across the endless folds of space and time, the colorful wild-shape whispered two words into Jinx’s dream-ear:
“Become whole.”
The freezing stone floor shocked her body awake and pulled a gasp from her stomach.
Her weak legs wobbled her to a stand. But they were far too weak to do that . Jinx fell, and collapsed to her knees on the stone floor.
Flashes of white, red, blue, purple, and the dark silhouettes of three men lingered in her head.
Yet, she thought that she could recall one face that had died some weeks ago.
“He's long gone,” she choked. "Splattered into chunks over the Piltie river.” But, still, deep within her beating heart, something clung to a feeling that she long forgot the name of. It reminded her of how it felt to see a rainbow after a long hurricane, or of receiving a hug after seven long years away.
Bound to desperation, Jinx spoke the ghost’s name aloud, just as she had done many times with Isha's, with Vander's, with Silko's, Mylo's, Claggor's, her parents', and many others.
She wanted to believe that they were prayers that could make the dead leave her alone.
"Ekko."
Maybe It'll work this time.
⋆ ⋆ ⋆
“AAAAAAHHHH!” Screamed Ekko, falling a long, long way down, without a bottom in sight.
Then Woomf! A plump, soft bed had cushioned his fall- and his tired body welcomed it as he lulled into sleep.
A woman's raspy voice pierced Ekko from beyond the realm of dreams. “Come on, silly,” said the woman, as she came into focus. The warm, green duvet was yanked away from Ekko. “You've got a big day today,” she continued, and she ripped the thick curtains open, “and I said I’d help ya!”
Slowly, the voice started to come into view. But, there was still too much fog in his head for Ekko to make heads-or-tails of its owner. Where a woman should be, Ekko only saw a hazy pillar of moonlight.
Then, sporadic bright colors and quick movements attacked his senses. He moved from place to place to place but his mind could not hold on to a single one of them. He could see familiar haunts, smell familiar smells. His heart could recall them while his mind could not. Then, came the floods of faces.
The fog did not allow him to place them. It mangled his memories into soup and his stomach into chunks. He could swear that he was seeing ghosts.
That same voice from the morning popped back in. “Hey, are you ‘lright?” She said, resting a small hand on his shoulder.
Her sudden touch triggered his fight-or-flight. It wasted no time to remind him who the white-and-blue belonged to.
Jinx.
Survival reflexes took over. Honed by years of loss and pain, Ekko didn’t hesitate. He lobbed a wrench that he hadn’t even realized was in his hand, at her head.
Ekko growled, “Stay… stay back!”