2Author's Note: Inspired by the song "Life Sentence" by Chelsea Grin. I actually discovered it through the cover by Misstiq, so I recommend both versions.
Warning: Mental anguish and illness and all around depressive.
Disclaimer: Don't own neither Arcane or the song, but damn the inspiration.
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Let's do an exercise.
You can't do it.
You can't do it.
"Shut up."
Okay, you can. But only mess it up.
She'd only just started, for fuck's sake...
Jinx bangs her hands resolutely on her desk to make her point. A bit of silence, please.
So. An exercise to deal precisely with this. Pesky little shits who don't shut up. She could see Mylo, but most of the other voices were kinda faceless, crossed out amalgamations of people she sometimes wondered if they were just herself echoed back.
That'd given her the idea for a little exercise: exteriorization. She already did that, of course, through every piece of colorful art and every grenade she pulled together. What better exteriorization than a nice little bomb?, but what if she could channel it from her into another? Another her, in this case? She already had puppets for Mylo and Claggor, she could have one for herself.
A plushie. Why not? A fluffy outside to pour all the fuckedupness inside. Knitting and sewing the scarps of fabric like she had once done with Claggor would help her shut everyone up, push everyone into the new head, rip them off hers and stuff her other head instead. Wouldn't that be nice? That'd be really cool.
Jinx thinks so, smiling as she sews with needle and thread and gets distracted with little colorful crayon touch ups. Maybe she and the little doll could even take turns?, but at least it'd be off her own head for a bit. Her other self would carry all those burdens of insecurities and fuck-ups. It was worth the shot. Not like it'd do any harm.
That's so stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
...focus, Powder.
"Yes, focus, Powder," she repeats in a mumble, catching herself a second later and holding her hand midway in the air.
Powder? Powder was stupid and weak. She fucked up everything. All she does is useless and broken. She'd be the type of person to think of making a cute little useless plushie to distract herself.
Her eyes drop to the ugly amalgamation of fabrics.
...you're a jinx!
The hammer scratches across the table and comes down banging the button eye as sharpnel into the fabric skull.
Jinx looks at the new state of her doll. She doesn't see any of the redeemable qualities, what could be worked around and improved. Just sees trash.
I said it was stupid. You're such a little kid. Gonna cry, Pow Pow?
"Will you shut up for once?!" Jinx screams, shoving the doll and hitting Mylo's own doll with a 'boop' sound. Jinx grits her teeth and snarls. What a brilliant idea it was to make a fluffy little plushie, huh?
A fluffy little plushie. Like a rabbit plushie. Like her. Like Vi.
It was just a metaphor. Just an exercise, it wasn't real.
Of course. It's fake. You're a fake.
"How am I a fake? I'm trying-"
You're faking it all, faking to be in control. What's Silco gonna think of you?
"What are you saying? Why are you bringing him up?"
Because if you slip, he'll see you're useless. Useless, useless, uselesS
"No!"
SlipslipslipSLIP
"I'm not gonna slip! He trusts me!"
He hates you.
-HATES YOU
Just puts up with you. You just pester him.
"You're lying. You're lying, stop!"
Trying to see how long you can push his buttons?
You just pretend to be better than Powder. You're not.
You'll fail him. Powder fails. Powder fails everyone.
Jinx fails.
"No, shut up," Jinx demands, hating the crack she hears in her voice. "That's not true. He's had every chance to get rid of me."
Just wait.
He doesn't know what you do behind closed doors, the useless shit you wish to do.
The useless shit you do.
What was her idea again? A stupid little doll with no control over anything? Helpless, useless little-
"No, I can do it! I can! Look at everything I've done already!"
What? A doll?
A pile of junk?
Blown up buildings?
A whole bunch of dead bodies?
"No! Stop that! I didn't!"
LIAR!
FAKE!
JINX!
A round of laughter echoes around her, many voices she can't tell apart. Jinx grits her teeth and shuts her eyes, willing it away.
Of course it fails.
Because she's stupid, useless little Powder.
She snarls and stands up, snapping Claggor out of the way and charging down at Mylo and punches him in the face like she had learned from Vi. The pain that shoots from her knuckles up her arm makes her yelp and she stumbles back, rage seething and frothing at her mouth. She throws a kick this time that sends Mylo over the sofa and then throws a second kick at the bundle she'd sewn laying on the floor, making it slide and drop over the edge into the abyss below.
She returns to the table, hitting and banging everything in her wake as she puts pieces of metal together, sloppy but content thread-pulling now blind and angry nail-hammering. If she willed to stuff all that into her proxy self, her fake self her real self, now she hits and bangs it all out, inside, outside, inside, out out out out out OUT!
Jinx screams and throws the metal junk head first into the mirror, punching a hole in it and littering everything with shattered glass. She shoves pieces of glass into her palm when she grabs the substitute new doll and spins around, shoving it to the abyss behind her, letting it sink and sink and sink and hoping it'd explode and drown and scream itself apart down in the depths. Only a very faint clanking of it reaching the bottom echoes up the walls.
She grabs a brand new grenade from her workplace, rips the pin off and throws it into the abyss. The sound of the explosion rattles something inside her bones, inside her head, dislodges it and puts it in its place.
Jinx sinks in her seat. She feels suddenly breathless. Her head is slightly dizzy. Blood pools on her palm from tiny cuts.
There. Now it was quiet.
It worked.
It worked.
All it needed was an explosion.
It worked.
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the end
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Author's Note: Thanks for reading.