Are we still friends?

Chapter VI

As the echoes of Ekko's departure faded into the darkness, Jinx remained lost in a sea of her own emotions. Her mind raced with threatening thoughts and feelings, each one fighting for dominance over the chaos within her. She wanted to reach out, to call him back, to beg for his forgiveness and understanding. Yet, pride and fear held her back, she wasn't worth it.

With a heavy heart, Jinx buried her face in her hands, her body trembling with silent sobs. The weight of her guilt and shame threatened to crush her, suffocating her with their relentless grip. How had everything gone so wrong? What had become of the girl who once believed she could conquer the world? She felt so lost. She needed Silco to guide her, but she had murdered him. The blood on her hands would never wash off.

In the middle of the darkness that threatened to consume her, a flicker of hope emerged. It was small and fragile, like a tiny flame struggling against the wind, but it was there nonetheless, almost like her. The memory of Ekko's words lingered in her mind, a beacon of light cutting through the shadows of her own mind.

"I built the base for you. I thought, maybe one day, you'd come visit."

The sincerity in his voice resonated within her, stirring something long dormant within her soul. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Jinx dared to entertain the possibility of redemption. Perhaps there was a chance for her to make it all right, to find a path forward out of the darkness that had began to consume her.

As Jinx remained seated in the darkness, a heavy blanket of despair settled over her like a suffocating fog. Despite hope Ekko's words had sparked within her, she couldn't shake the overwhelming sense of self-doubt that threatened to consume her from within. The voices in her head grew louder, taunting her with accusations of weakness and failure.

She clenched her fists tightly, her nails digging into her palms as if to anchor herself to reality. But the pain offered no comfort, only serving to tone down the turmoil raging within her. With each passing moment, her resolve crumbled further, the weight of her guilt and shame dragging her down into the depths of despair.

"Why bother?" she muttered bitterly to herself, her voice barely more than a whisper. "I'll only mess it up again. I always do."

The echoes of her own self-deprecation reverberated through the darkness, a relentless barrage of negativity that threatened to drown out any shred of hope she still clung to. She felt like a prisoner in her own mind, trapped in a never-ending cycle of self-loathing and despair.

As the minutes stretched into hours, Jinx remained frozen in place, her thoughts spiraling further into darkness with each passing moment. The prospect of reaching out to Ekko seemed like an impossible feat, an insurmountable obstacle standing between her and the redemption she so desperately craved.

In the end, she resigned herself to the belief that she was beyond saving. That the darkness within her was too deep, too ingrained to ever be vanquished. And so, she remained seated in the darkness, a silent witness to her own downfall, consumed by the weakness that had always lurked within her.

Her thoughts wandered back to the night when her big plan had faltered, the night Silco's unexpected demise forced her to abort all plans she had. She had envisioned the downfall of Piltover, a revolution that grant Zaun the independence Silco had craved. But instead, she found herself standing in the middle of the wreckage of her shattered dreams, her ambitions crumbling like dust in the wind.

As the memories of that night gnawed at her conscience, a flicker of determination ignited within her. Despite the setbacks and failures that had messed up her path, she refused to give up. With a renewed sense of purpose, she pushed herself to her feet, the weight of her decisions heavy upon her shoulders.