Amaranthine

Chapter 1 - An Incomprehensible Horror

There was only silence.

All they could do was stare in horror as the bomb ever so gracefully glided amongst the stars, almost as if it were a shooting star itself. Vi gazed at it with conflicting emotions. She was amazed at her sister's acute intelligence. She assumed the large metal weapon had to be difficult to wield let alone construct, if she had, in fact, constructed such a powerful destructive object.

She shifted her gaze from the sky to the shark-shaped rocket propped on Jinx's shoulder. All of its lines, its panels, bolts, the way it glowed in the night, was captivating in a way. The alluring blue glow lit up her sister's face and Vi began to process things about her sister she hadn't had time to before. There were new purple veins that seemed to crawl from her eyes, making her look exhausted and drained. She had newly formed scars littered on her arms breaking up the continuity of her tattoos. But the thing that Vi had thought the most strange about her sister's appearance was her eyes. They had somehow changed in color from a brilliant blue to a fiery fuchsia.

She was so concerned with her sister's safety and well-being. She longed to speak to her in that moment, to have a long conversation, to make things right, but she couldn't find the words. A painful scream broke Vi's wishful thinking and her attention instead turned towards Caitlyn.

"No!" Caitlyn cried; a blood-curdling scream, the most haunting sound that Vi had ever heard. Caitlyn immediately stepped toward Jinx and lunged at her with the force of her entire body, tears staining her cheeks, still screaming with the remaining breath she could give. She desperately wished she could give it all to her mother.

"Caitlyn, no!" Vi shouted as her eyes widened.

She immediately grabbed hold of Caitlyn's shoulders and pulled her back into her arms. Caitlyn's wailing and sorrow sounded all too familiar to Vi. She silently begged for it to go away, to suppress it, but the memory carried Vi's mind to that very moment, coloring her thoughts with hues of burning orange, yellow, and red. She had cried tears of grief in the same way Caitlyn was and had mourned the loss of the two people who loved her most. Her little sister hummed in the background amidst the crackling and burning flesh.

What grounded her back to reality was the same melody of that familiar song, sung by the same familiar voice. She opened her eyes to see her sister staring straight ahead, singing. She questioned how she'd remembered it after all of those years, wondering if the same memory had visited her in the same way it did Vi.

Suddenly, what sounded like the clank of metal startled her and she stared at the hefty steel shark lying on the ground next to Jinx. Vi stared at her, trying to piece together her sister's thoughts and how she must have felt. Jinx turned to Vi, her magenta eyes, though threatened with tears, had never been so dark, so full of intent. 

By the time Vi could form her own thoughts, what sounded like a sonic boom echoed, pulsated through the veins of Piltover. Everyone flinched at the sound. Jinx momentarily threw her arms into the air as if trying to shield herself from the blow. The familiar colors of burnt orange and yellow reflected off of their skin and shone in Caitlyn's streaming tears.

The sound of the explosion triggered another memory within Vi; one that had devastatingly altered the course of both Vi and Jinx's lives. Vi tried her hardest to forget, but how could she? She hesitatingly glanced behind her at what was left of the cannery and tried to suppress the darkest most troubling of her emotions. The very ground she was standing on, the room in which she had come very close to death, haunted her and gave her a feeling of unwelcoming familiarity. The bridge in which she had fought for not only her own life but also Vander's brought her an overwhelming feeling of pain and heartache.

That night had ended up becoming nothing but a heated blur of orange, yellow, and red; from the explosion and unexplainable rage. But amidst every warm color and conflicted emotion, there was also blue.