The Sixth | Ekko

Chapter Six

Ekko remembered what part of the city the house was in, but he couldn't quite picture its exact location. He'd been in a haze when he left it last time, drowsy from blood loss and attention broken by pain spurts.

He'd left the Firelight hideout early the next morning, eager to return to the house with the symbol. He spent the night tossing and turning in his bed, his sheets getting tangled in his limbs from his restlessness.

Now he found himself standing at the end of a bridge—the same bridge that he'd been shot on by Jinx. It was a passage that connected one part of the city to the next, the walkways they attached to narrow and holding a width that allowed for only two people to walk side by side, but no more.

He remembered the door of the house being painted a deep red-purple colour, like the colour of merlot. He scouted the area, searching for a door of that colour. It took him a while, but he'd eventually spot it at the end of one of the narrowest alleyways he'd ever seen in the undercity.

The door held resistance when he tried to push it open, as if it'd been swollen by humidity or had melted into the frame.

He walked around, seeing thick layers of dust layered on everything like frosting on a cake. The inside smelt of dampness due to its disuse. He walked up to the table, wanting to see if the Firelight symbol he'd shaped out of scrap metal was still there. It wasn't. Someone must've come back after he'd left and taken it.

He stepped into the kitchen, seeing the yellow symbol still plastered across the wall. He reached two fingers and pressed them against the paint, a small trace of yellow collecting on the tips. It seemed like it was made using spray paint. He rubbed his fingers against his overalls, wiping the paint residue from them. He shrugged off his jacket and looked at the word 'six', seeing it was the exact same shade of yellow, and given the faded edges, he concluded that it was made using spray paint as well.

He put his coat back on and started searching the small house for details he might've missed last time. He started by pulling open the cabinet doors in the kitchen. Inside there were a few stray plates and a cup, but nothing out of the ordinary for a kitchen.

He moved on to the bathroom. He tested the taps, seeing that the water wasn't running—the pipes probably severely corroded considering the house was built in the old part of Zaun. He pried open the medicine cabinet, which doubled as a mirror. Inside was bare. He shut it again and headed upstairs.

The second floor was just one singular room—the same one he'd woken up in years ago. He saw that the bed was still unmade, and he remembered how he hadn't made it before leaving. He wondered why the person who came back after he'd left hadn't bothered with it.

He kneeled down to take a look under the bed, finding the space to be baren.

He stood with a huff, realizing he probably wouldn't be finding anything of use. He kind of expected as much beforehand, but there was still the chance that the person who saved him had returned and left some things behind.

He turned to head back downstairs but accidentally kicked the chair next to the bed. Two pieces of metal fell from and rolled on the floor next to his feet, and when he bent to collect them he noticed they were bullets. He held them up to get a better look and discovered there were monkey heads carved into them. They were Jinx's bullets. The bullets she'd shot him with. He squeezed his hand into a fist around them, his jaw clenching as he swallowed down a mirage of emotions.

He pocketed the bullets and decided to leave. There was nothing here for him to find. He descended the stairs and made for the door but came to a stop when he heard a squeak sound coming from a floorboard he'd stepped on. He lifted his foot and pressed down on it again, listening as it cried out under his weight. He knew that the house was old and that was probably the reason for the noise, but he had to be sure. He bent down, noticing that unlike the other boards, this one was without nails keeping it in place. Interest multiplying, he pulled it upwards until a small hole was revealed, in which something was hiding inside. He set the plank aside and pulled out a one-way radio, having an audio output but not an input. Whoever owned it had painted it a bright red colour. He turned it over and found that they'd also painted a pink middle finger on it. On the front, he spotted a dial underneath the speaker with the numbers '153.119' written next to it in the same pink used for the middle finger. He recognized it as a radio frequency. He noticed that the radio wasn't tuned to that frequency, which encouraged him to do it himself.