attempt at No I'm Not A Human Vi Jinx au
Vi lives in what used to be Vander's house — a hollow monument to a man no longer there, lost to catastrophe she still can't bring herself to name. The absence of her sister haunts her more with each passing day. How long has it been? She wonders what Powder's up to now, whether she's safe, whether she's even alive. Fresh from Stillwater's gates, Vi has to rebuild everything from scratch, get her life back on track. She'd planned to search for her missing sibling once she steadied herself, but the world has other plans. An oppressive, relentless heat doesn't back down and the earth seems to grow steadily hotter day by day. She doesn't remember the summers to be this brutal in Zaun.
Her childhood friend Ekko, to Vi's surprise, still lives in the neighborhood — in a house just a couple hundred meters from Vander's. One sultry evening, he warns her about the rise of some epidemic, though the news are too confusing for Vi to make sense of. Exhausted, she chugs soothingly cool beer down her throat. The Little Man follows her example, and they both sit in companionable silence in Vi's cramped old kitchen. Survival is the unspoken pact between them. They'll endure this nightmare together.
Weeks bleed into one another as she remains trapped indoors. News broadcasts blur with cryptic radio chatter. Strange refugees drift through her door, and she shelters them despite her better judgment. Vi pieces together fragments, desperate to understand the disaster consuming her city. She must survive — for Powder. The thought of losing her sister, the only family she has left, the sole person she suffered through prison for, is unbearable. Can't die, not now. Not when she finally has a chance to make things right.
A FEMA agent begins visiting with increasing frequency, offering assistance in unraveling the mystery. Her name is Caitlyn — a former Piltover enforcer, which immediately sets Vi's teeth on edge. Distrust simmers between them until Caitlyn utters a name that resurrects Vi's darkest memories: Silco. The mafioso the agent is hunting. Something shifts when Caitlyn speaks of her determination to help the undercity. Against her instincts, Vi considers an alliance. Temporary, of course. Just until they crack the case.
But there's a price. After each visit, Caitlyn's colleague — a figure in an unsettling yellow hazmat suit — takes one of the house inhabitants away. Vi doesn't know what happens to them afterwards — no one ever made it back once. Sometimes Vi is forced to hand over people she believes are certainly human, and Caitlyn insists it's necessary, that the ends justify the means. Vi wants to believe her, but the half-truths are suffocating. She catches the detective scanning her surroundings during their late-night conversations, as though searching for something — or someone. Eventually, Caitlyn reveals she's hunting a particular visitor. The creature wreaked havoc among the FEMA troops in the nearest areas in Piltover and Zaun causing chaos and destruction. Exceptionally dangerous. A super-visitor.
The revelation chills Vi to her core. She's heard the whispers — stories of a pale visitor that has slaughtered whole crowds like it's nothing, roaming around the outskirts of the city. They called it Jinx.
One night, minutes after admitting yet another creepy stranger, Vi hears a soft knock at her door. When she turns back and approaches the entrance, muffled giggles drift through the wood. She takes in the sight before her and almost gasps: a young woman with powder-blue hair and a smile that's all teeth and malice. A sense of familiarity flickers somewhere deep in Vi's chest. "Could it be?..." she breathes.
"Who's there?" Her voice trembles despite herself.
"Please help. I'm just a helpless little girl." The stranger's voice is small and pleading, her expression a childish pout — until it fractures back into something unhinged.
Something about this woman is profoundly wrong and uncanny, but Vi presses on regardless.
"What do you want?" Her tone incredulous.
"Isn't it obvious?" The pale woman's condescension drips like poison. She laughs. "Spacious house you've got yourself here. I like it. How about you let me in?"
"And why would I let someone who looks like a literal psycho into my home? How'd you even end up here?" Vi's voice sharpens to a blade's edge.
She can't stop catalogueing the stranger's features: braided blue hair with one rebellious strand falling across her face, an upturned nose dusted with nearly invisible freckles, thin lips stained the color of bruises, and those eyes — wide and wild and terrible. Despite the horror before her, Vi can't shake the feeling that she's looking at someone she once knew intimately. Someone she loves with a desperation that borders on devotion. Her little sister.
But Powder was gentle. Sweet. All bright eyes and innocent smiles. Vi cannot reconcile that memory with the twisted visage before her. Even Powder's natural pallor was nothing like this — this woman's skin is the color of moonlight on bone. Corpse-pale.
"Oh, it's a long, long story. Doesn't matter right now, anyway." The woman's voice roughens, drops to a husky rasp. "What's important is — are you alone?"
The older woman is baffled at the question, a tinge of fear crawls up her spine like frost. Adrenaline coursing through her veins, Vi pauses for a second before saying, "No, I'm not... alone."
The girl's grin widens. "Yeah... I can hear someone whispering inside. You aren't lying."
Chills run down Vi's body before she questions angrily. "Then what was the point in asking?"
The blue-haired woman shrugs. "Just wanted to see if you'd lie or not. Though I knew you wouldn't. You never could. Same as ever."
Vi's brow furrows. "What do you-"
"I'll see myself out then." The interruption is casual, dismissive. The girl backs away, then pauses, looking over her shoulder. "I will come back soon."
Before Vi can respond, she hears it. Her name — "Violet" — spoken with devastating softness.
The word hits like a punch. Vi gasps, eyes flying wide. "How did you- wait! Where are you going?!" Her scream tears through the night, but the figure is already dissolving into shadows.
It can't be. It can't be. It can't be.
The mantra loops endlessly as Vi clutches her head. This cannot be real. This is not what she thinks it is.
Her hands shake as they drift across the nightstand near the curtained window, searching for her cigarettes. She finds them where they always are, beside a picture frame — her mother's photograph, that gentle purple-haired woman frozen in time. Vi lights up with trembling fingers. As smoke fills her lungs, she glances at the faded image before squeezing her eyes shut.
She is bewildered and scared. Sleep is impossible now. She wanders to the kitchen and retrieves a can of Bober Černý from the humming refrigerator. The resident cockroach that occupies the middle shelf crawls into the corner at the sound. She makes a mental note to order some more beer and energy drinks for restocking before returning to her bedroom. She doesn't bother changing. Just collapses onto the stained mattress.
She drinks to drown her thoughts. Analysis can wait. Right now, all that matters is preventing more death under this roof.
Morning arrives with a grim revelation: the unmistakable smell of death hangs in the air.
art cr: @angel1naax on twitter
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