THE CHILL HIT HER IN FULL FORCE when she reached open air and her body shivered involuntarily. Looking around, she couldn't see any sign of Bellamy anywhere and took a few steps forward. She stopped and cocked her head to the side when there was a wisp of luminescence floating in the distance over the water. Frowning in confusion, she watched the ghost light quickly move away towards dry land on her left.
"What..." she stared in growing bewilderment as it stopped at the edge of the tree line and pulsed, as if beckoning for her to follow. Somehow feeling inexplicably drawn to the spectre, she found herself quickly heading in its direction. She stumbled in her haste, chasing the light deeper through the woods. Everything started to blur in front of her like oily shadows of a dissonant song.
"We are infinite." The soft voice of a young child whispered in the wind, and she could hear the pitter patter of feet running in the distance. Her body felt weightless, bouncing across the ground as if gravity and time had suddenly discontinued. All around her, she could see dark silhouettes twisting between slim tree trunks as if lying in wait. The child's laughter continued to echo through the encroaching darkness of night.
Jinny stopped in her tracks as she watched the child fall over the edge of a cliff. "No!" she cried out even though it was already too late. Then a bright blaze erupted in the sky overhead, hundreds of falling stars shooting out from its core like burning debris. She had to hold a hand up to her eyes to block out its blinding intensity.
"We are infinite." Jinny spun around just in time to see a figure step out from behind a tree trunk and her eyes widened in surprise. It was a woman with dark brown hair and bright hazel eyes. A jubilant grin spread across Jinny's face as she ran towards her. She reached out and enveloped the woman in a tight embrace, pressing her face into the clean cotton scent of her white blouse. It was the last memory she ever had of home and she choked out a dry sob before letting go to look up.
"Mom, what are you doing here?" she asked. "Did I... die?"
"No," her mother said with a soft smile. "You're not dead. I'm so proud of you, Jinny. You did it, you finished what I couldn't accomplish."
"Only because they floated you," Jinny shook her head. "It took me years, even with the key you developed. The algorithms were so abstract, too many variables that couldn't be accounted for. There was so much garbage but oh, my God, you wouldn't believe what I found."
"What did you find?"
"Everything we ever hoped for and more," she cried breathlessly. Her veins were flooded with epinephrine, causing her hands to tremble with exhilaration. "Neural networks, heuristics- mimicking cognitive functions, ability to learn and solve problems. It's amazing, Mom, I wish you could see it all."
"But I can't," she whispered, her tone suddenly turning to ice.
Jinny stopped and stared at her, a chill shooting down her spine as the hairs on her body stood erect.
"I can't because you killed me."
"N-No, I-I didn't-"
Something suddenly grabbed hold of her ankle and she stumbled away in fright, tripping backwards onto the ground. A hand clawed out of the dirt in front of her, digging through the dense earth to make way for the rest of its body. Jinny scrambled back to her feet just as a broken and scorched face emerged from the hole.
"You killed us," her mother said. "It's your fault."
"No, I never-" Jinny shook her head feverishly. She felt her eyes were pricked with emotion that she quickly swallowed back down.
"You killed us." The woman's face was no longer welcoming and gentle- but masked with a cold fury that twisted her once beautiful features.
Jinny's breath hitched in her chest as a dozen more arms erupted from the ground. They groaned in agony, cadaverous hands stretching out towards her. Without a second thought, Jinny turned around and ran.
The forest flashed painfully in front of her eyes and she was barely aware of the rain drops that was now dotting her skin. She continued to run away, like the coward that she was, refusing to meet her own wretched demise. The ghosts of her mistakes continued to chase her relentlessly, screaming and moaning, like a chorus of unquenchable malevolence seeking retribution.
She collapsed to her knees on the wet ground- wet with crimson blood that ran like the River Styx beneath her. They were right; it was all her fault. Her mother's death, the lives of the people in the culling, and the hundreds more that would no doubt soon follow. She was the reason that they were sent to the earth, to suffer its uncharted dangers. They would be right to execute her when they came down, she was the catalyst for their destruction. She was chaos and strife, harbinger of death. Jinny's chest heaved with laboured breaths as she raised her gun, pointing the barrel at herself.
"I only ever did what you told me to," she whispered shakily.
"And now there's only one more thing left for you to do."
Jinny looked up at the now clear sky, twilight already having descended over the earth and wrapping it in a desolate shroud. The stars twinkled brightly above her, millions of other galaxies locked away in their distant splendour. She closed her eyes, wondering if she could return to them. Her home. They were all made of stardust anyway, streaming through their blood and forging their very bones, remnants of a cosmic supernova. There would always be a part of her that would be alive, in the trees or the foundations of the earth, seeping into the open seas and dissipating back into space. She took a deep raspy breath, inhaling a rush of cold air.
"We are infinite." Her fingers curled around the trigger, and there was a loud bang.
She opened her eyes with a neural jolt, everything suddenly coming back with crisp clarity. There were no more shadows, no more sour notes of bygone songs. Another shot in the distance made her turn her head in its direction. The first thought that came to her mind was Bellamy and she pushed herself back onto her feet. Her body felt weighed down with lead as she made her way towards a nearby clearing. Bellamy was lying disoriented on the ground, a boy that she wasn't familiar with stood over him with a gun in his hands as he faced off with Clarke on the opposite fringe.
"Jinny," Bellamy called to her hoarsely.
"Good, it's you," the boy said. "You can help me finish this."
"Finish this?" Jinny questioned thickly, her head still spinning from her previous episode. "What are you talking about?"
"Dax, put down the gun!" Clarke ordered.
"You should have stayed down there, Clarke," Dax told her. "I tried not to kill you but here you are... and Shumway said no witnesses."
"Shumway?" the girl questioned, blue eyes flickering towards Jinny. "What is he talking about?"
Bellamy looked over to her with a guilty expression. "I couldn't make you choose between your father and me."
"My father," she scoffed with a tone of heavy disappointment. "He gave you the gun, and now he's cleaning house."
"He said he'd get my mother on the first dropship," Dax said. "And that I'll get a choice assignment when he gets to the ground."
"Don't be stupid," Jinny shook her head. "This isn't worth risking your life for."
"I was convicted for murder," he said. "You don't know what I'm capable of."
There was an empty click as Clarke tried to fire. She looked at her gun in dismay before throwing herself behind a tree as Dax tried to shoot her again. Bellamy took the opportunity to get up and charge forwards with a yell, knocking the boy down to the ground. Jinny wasn't sure whether it was because Bellamy had been as out of it as she was, but Dax had managed to get a good kick in. He knocked the man backwards and started to punch him into the ground. They scuffled for the gun, but Dax had the upper hand as he grabbed it and pressed the side against Bellamy's throat.
"Get the hell off him!" Clarke cried as she ran back out, only to fall back with a grunt when Dax rammed the butt of the rifle into her gut.
Jinny fumbled with her gun, feeling like her limbs were all misaligned. She finally raised the gun to take aim and fire, only to have another dud. "Screw this," she threw the rifle down angrily and pulled out her knife. She swung her arm back over her shoulder before letting the blade fly across the air, striking its mark into Dax's eye. He fell backwards onto the ground, his body lying limp on the dirt.
She immediately slumped down against the tree next to her, breathing in heavily as her head throbbed with the ache of a thousand ruptured vessels. Clarke and Bellamy pulled themselves towards her, the both of them in equal states of exhaustion.
"You're okay," the blonde girl said through gasps. "We're okay."
"No, I'm not," Bellamy said gruffly. "M-my mother... if she knew what I had done... who I am. She raised me to be better, to be good. And all I do is hurt people." He sniffed as tears started to leak down his face. "I'm a monster."
Jinny took his hand in hers. "If you're a monster, then what does that make me?" she looked at him firmly despite the swirling depths in her eyes. "A monster doesn't care about other people, or even think about making things right. Your mother had to do things that she didn't like to look after the both of you. If she saw you right now, she would know that you did your best and she would have been proud of that. Because you did what she told you to do."
He squeezed her hand and took a shaky breath. "If you had been there," he whispered. "If I hadn't gotten you arrested. None of it would have happened, your father would have let us walk away."
"I know," she frowned. "I'm sorry."
"I need you," Clarke blurted out. "The both of you. We all do. None of us would have survived this place if it weren't for the two of you. If you guys want forgiveness, fine, I'll give it to you; you're forgiven, okay? But you can't run. You have to come back with me. You have to fix it."
"Like how you faced your mom?" Bellamy asked.
She looked away with a scoff, shaking her head slightly. "You're right... I don't want to face my mom. I don't want to face any of it. All I think about every day is how to keep everyone alive. But we don't have a choice."
"Jaha will kill us when he comes down," he insisted.
"No, he won't," Jinny sighed as she rested her head against his shoulder. "I still have one more card up my sleeve. Like you said, Clarke, we ain't got a choice."
"Jin?" he looked at her curiously.
"Will you please tell me what you did?" Clarke begged. "I swear I won't tell anyone else."
"You'll find out soon enough," Jinny told her. "But first... I need to make a deal with the devil."
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[ author's note ]
omg this chapter was so hard to write- i had so many revisions to it like her father popping up from the ground and jinny screaming "i knew you were the devil, but that's not funny!" as a nod to a future reference where someone eventually calls her the devil's spawn and jinny agreeing with them lol. charlotte and the cliff was a recent addition that i liked and kept. but threw away the ghosts telling her to kill herself, which just sounds horrible, and kinda similar to bellamy's murderer hallucination. and also we have the reason behind what jinny did!! if it's not clear now, it will be soon haha. there were so many references from mass effect too i cry.