Jinx dreams about Ekko.
Not the violent, twisted dreams that usually haunt her broken mind, populated with the faces and the voices of the dead. Not the fight on the bridge where she and her oldest living friend had tried to literally tear each other to pieces. Not even about a few days ago, when Ekko had found her ready to pull one of Chomper's pins and talked her down from the edge.
Cold and shivering, alone in the wreckage where she belonged, Jinx dreamed about another world. One where Powder never died, where Ekko got to live out his life as the Boy Genius instead of the Boy Savior. A world where Mylo and Claggor actually got to grow up, and where Silco had found Vander's letter of apology. It was almost perfect, except for the missing piece…
Jinx wakes up slowly, visions from this world and the one from her dreams blending together before slowly separating again, like oil and water. She wonders vaguely to herself if the stories Ekko had told her had been… real? If there really was a world out there were Powder still existed, never became the monster looking back at her in the mirror?
Voices float down to her from above; it sounds like enforcers. Jinx considers lying there, waiting for them to find her, to drag her away, to punish her however they see fit for her myriad crimes, but even now she just can't bring herself to give up like that. Not for them, not after losing Vander and everyone she ever loved again.
She pushes herself up, groaning in pain. Her left arm is covered in burns, already scarring over thanks to the wondrous powers of Shimmer. She follows the tunnel she'd been hiding in, into the strangest network of pipes, vents, tunnels. Some lead to some other building or passageway in Zaun, most lead nowhere at all, but Jinx had spent her entire life crawling through the Undercity. The only secrets left to this place were her own.
When Jinx emerges, the sun has long set. She pulled her hood up over her head, grateful that Ekko had chopped her hair off beyond recognition. The streets are quiet, mournful. If she lets herself look at the walls as she passes by, Jinx sees her face over and over again. Her people have made her radiant in death, powerful. She pulls the hood further down, not wanting to be recognized, not wanting to take this away from them. She figures she's better to Zaun as a symbol of rebellion and the battles won than to Jinx them with her presence any longer.
Picking through the dark streets, she's surprised by how empty it is, but grateful she doesn't recognize any of the faces that pass her by. More than once she thinks she does, then has to stop herself from pulling down her hood and calling out. She doesn't know what she'd do if she saw Ekko or Vi, and she knows that she has to stay away. To let them think she's gone. That she'd finally broken the terrible cycle of death and pain that surrounded her entire life.
She wants to stop by her old hideout, to loot it for everything it's good for, but when she gets there she's stunned halfway to tears. The damn fools had memorialized the place, for Janna's sake. Jinx covers her mouth with her hands when she notices the mural - clearly painted by Ekko - that dominates the massive, open space inside.
Jinx and Isha. Running through the grass together, butterflies circling them, holding hands. They look so happy, it makes something break inside of her. When Jinx looks down at her side, Isha's there for just a moment, grinning just like in the painting, before disappearing in a haze. Looking back and forth from the empty space beside her to the depiction on the wall, she feels something break inside of her.
"I just can't seem to die," Jinx mutters again, her new mantra. "Why you, and not me, huh, kid?" The world starts to close in around her, laughing bubbling up from the depths of her psyche.
"We don't want you," seemed to say the dead. "Here, we're safe from you."
Jinx's eyes dart around the hideout, frantic, searching. Maybe someone is here? Sevika, or…
But she shakes her head, backing out of the memories and the memorial, panic setting in. It had never been more clear or more obvious than in this moment; if she can't die, then clearly, she will have to leave.