You're not safe here (Vi Arcane x Reader)/(Jinx Arcane x Reader)

Creating the machine

Fire.

That's all you can remember from that night.

The blinding light coming from the place you used to call home. The scorching heat of the flames rising up to the starless sky, hitting your face and sending you back away from your burning house. You didn't know what to do. You were frozen in the middle of all that fire.

You know, later, when witnesses would retell the story of that night, they would always point out that you weren't screaming. You weren't even crying. You were just standing there, in silence. To anyone who saw it it must've been almost beautiful. But to you, it was half of the fibres in your heart slowly burning and dying, one by one, along with your father, your beautiful mother, and your older siblings. All caught in the fire caused by the enforcers during the raid of the grey night.

They called it the raid of the grey night because the smoke from the fire seemed to turn the night sky a horrible shade of grey, blurring out all the stars and making the moon look like it wasn't shining.

Enforcers reeked havok through the small, quiet neighbourhood where you lived in the northern side of Piltover. Of course this is you telling the story, because you know if from a first-person perspective. If anyone were to read about it on the newspaper, they would indulge in a terrifying tale of vandals from the Undercity making an unprovoked hate crime against the Topside, where the brave enforcers risked their life to stop their savagery and save the day...by setting the neighbourhood on fire. All the blame is dropped atop Zaun's shoulders like a sealed sac of metal bars, but you saw who fired the first shot; you saw that damned blue uniform he was wearing; and you saw him give the order to activate the fire grenades.

You would've died. If only that stupid bird hadn't flown so close to your window. If only you hadn't had the stupid urge to follow it away from the houses. If only you weren't that fucking lucky. You would've died along with your family and you wouldn't have to go through the hell you're going through now.

You survived because of stupid things.

A stupid survival.

You were taken into custody of the state for "psychological observation". They locked all the survivors in a big house, with food and water and chemicals in the air vents.

...

No, that is not a joke.

The night you noticed you wanted to straight up die. You were going down a flight of stairs when you tripped on nothing, and the next thing you know you have a broken hand. You were taken to the supervisor's office for medical observation or whatever name they gave to him sticking a large stick of wood against your hand and wrapping it with duct tape.

Broken bones were nothing new to you, you had always been the scrawniest, clumsiest little kid in any situation you were in. This tended to make other people laugh, and it ended up being the ice breaker for most of your relationships. If anyone asked about you, people would mostly say that you made others laugh without trying (by accidentally falling on your face), and would always use the adjective "lucky". With the amount of times you fell, tripped, broke something or got sick, people would retort that the only thing preventing death for you so many times was your good luck.

Maybe if you had stayed thinking about that you wouldn't have overheard the conversation the supervising enforcer was having on the phone.

"No, the owner of the apartment didn't press charges. I think he was some mad scientist or something, either way he was dealing with illegal shit. Heimmerdinger wasn't happy. They need someone to blame for the explosions so go to the Undercity and find the little street rats that did it. If you can't, then Vander gets it. End of discussion."

There was silence for a moment.

"Have your men worry about that. These people aren't gonna say a word about the raid. Any day now these gases will start deleting those memories and they'll be good as gone."

Your heart skipped a beat.

Did he really just say that in front of you?

...

Fuck.

He said that in front of you.

He suddenly snapped back into it. He looked in your direction wide-eyed, almost scared having realized what you had just heard him say. You know, this particular enforcer always had his snoot up in the sky. Always looked at you dismissively. Always seemed to be in control of everything. His name started with an M, Marcus or something like that. You really didn't like him. However, looking at him now, in this state of fear, he almost looked...weak, like for once he didn't know what to do.

You knew you couldn't stay there. He wasn't just going to let you live knowing what you knew, it was too much of a risk. You had to run.

You mustered up all the courage you had in your body to get on your feet and bolt for the door. Needless to say you weren't able to give the first step before you fell face-first on the floor.

The enforcer let out a laugh. "Oh my god you're just a stupid little kid, what am I worrying about? Get back to playing kiddo."

He kept on giggling as he walked out of the office. In that moment you genuinely felt lucky.

You tried to warn the other people there with you. You tried to convince them to leave with you, that they weren't safe. But they all dismissed you and told you to grieve and let them grieve. It really was another loss. These were your neighbors, the parents of the people you went to school with, people that you loved, dismissing you like they didn't even know you.

You stayed silent the rest of the day, but you knew you couldn't stay and wait for them to come to their senses. So you made the decision. The decision that would haunt you for the rest of your miserable life.

You left.