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 Posted: Fri May 13, 2016 8:48 am
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Posted: Wed May 18, 2016 1:36 pm
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Posted: Wed May 18, 2016 3:19 pm
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Posted: Wed May 18, 2016 3:19 pm
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Posted: Thu May 19, 2016 9:02 pm
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Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 8:03 pm
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Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 10:05 pm
s o l o Going Places (571 words)
Jizabel, Jinxi's mother, was completely passed out on the couch; one arm draped across her stomach and the other hanging off the side and barely clutching at a bottle of vodka. Her snores shook the entirety of the apartment and, when Jinxi passed by with a blanket about her shoulders, she winced at their volume. She was prepared to go back to her own room after making a cup of tea, but when she noticed the liquor slowly slipping from her mother's grip, she made a mad dash and dive for it before it hit the ground.
Jinxi let out a quiet exhale as she held the bottle up and then, gently, she set it on the coffee table. She then frowned at her mother, shaking her head. Jizabel had been turning to a drink instead of help to take care of her anger problems. For the most part, their frequency did stop and Jinxi was spared the fate of a bruise or cut, but she had to contend with nights of no sleep because of her mother's incessant snoring. But for once, things had been a little better than what they used to be. Especially now that Jinxi found a new purpose in life.
Instead of returning to her room, she settled down in the space between the couch and coffee table and hugged her knees to her chest. A small smile crept on her lips as she said, "Y'know, ma, t-this is probably the happiest I've been in a while. You... wanna know why?" She paused for an answer and her reply was the thunder of her mother's snores. "It's 'cause I found something to do. They're called the Negaverse, ma, and they're, like, protectors of the Earth. From the terrorists... You heard of them, right? They're on the news a lot."
Jinxi watched her toes and wiggled them. "Some guy with blue-green hair recruited me. Said I had potential and stuff. T-to be frank, I'm not sure what he saw, but it must have been something..." A sigh. "Or m-maybe they were just desperate for members? I don't know... The work is tough, too. I gotta, like, fight people, meet quotas... I'm also magical? I don't know, but things heal faster now. Y'know that cut I got? When you chucked the remote at me? It's all healed now. No mark, nothing. It's like it doesn't even exist anymore, ma. I wonder what happened to me..."
Jinxi looked up into her mother's face. "I... I-I know you're always worried about me, ma. Even with your tantrums. Heck, I'd worry too if... I had a daughter that does nothing. Is nothing. B-but not anymore, ma. Right now, I'm actually doing something. I'm going places. Not, like, physically, but with myself, my life, my goals... I'm gonna make the most of the Negaverse, ma, and make them proud. And make you proud, too. I can't tell you what I'm doing now to your face, but eventually. Eventually you're gonna know about me and them and you'll be so proud." The smile she wore curved higher on her face. "I love you, ma. I just wanted you to know that."
Getting up, Jinxi took the blanket she wore off her shoulders and draped it over her mother's body. Smoothing her hair back, she pecked a small kiss to her forehead, and then returned to her room after making a cup of tea.
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Posted: Mon May 23, 2016 11:21 am
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Posted: Fri May 27, 2016 5:49 pm
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Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 5:44 am
s o l o Listless Evening (1044 words)
"Hey, hey, Dinah, listen to this: 'Serious and carefully detailed reports of the Basilosaurus, zeuglodon or ogopogo tend to agree that the creature is anything up to seventy feet long. The body is approximately two feet thick, and the head is described by many witnesses as like that of a horse, a cow, or sheep: with horse being the most frequent comparison.' Isn't that just interesting? A-and a horse, huh? Don't you think its description is sorta like a kelpie? I mean, it resembling a horse and all... but with the body of a serpent. And the ogopogo is said to hold its origins from Canadian aboriginals, while the kelpie is Scottish; two different cultures altogether and yet... fairly similar mythology! Ahhh, its really surprising when such parallels can be drawn from two different places thousands of miles apart! Don't you think so, Dinah?"
Jinxi beamed at the woman who sat adjacent to her. However, the woman didn't seem to share the white-haired girl's excitement. Instead, she thinned her lips dramatically and just stared on at Jinxi, letting her question hang in the air. Nevertheless, her smile didn't waver even when the woman spoke.
"Are you serious?" the woman said. "Okay, first and foremost, I can't believe you're still calling me that. It's Geraldine, not Dinah. God, Jinxi, you aren't eight anymore. And second, don't you have something better to do than sit there and read that book for, like, the millionth time? To me? It's a Saturday night, you should out clubbing or whatever. That's what I was doing when I was your age!"
Jinxi puffed out her outer lip in a pout and clapped the book shut, sliding it onto the dinner table. "I'm... I'm not interested in stuff like that," Jinxi said. "I'd rather stay home and read on a Saturday night. I-it's much more... fun."
"Oh, really?" Geraldine said, smoothing a wavy cerise lock behind her ear. "Then I guess I can let it slide today, considering you seem to be busy every other night."
Jinxi stiffened and flushed. "W-w-w-what are you talking about?" she stammered. "I don't—!"
"Oh, don't give me that, Jinxi. I hear your traipsing down the hallway and into your apartment all hours on the nights your mom works late. At first, I thought you doubled up on those days you go on your weird cryptid hunts, but this was different. You came in so quietly, like you wanted to keep them a secret. What's up, Jinxi? Are you seeing someone or something?"
Jinxi stiffened, but felt a tremble run up her left hand. Trying to steady it with her right by clutching tightly onto it, the white-haired girl bowed her head, and tried to come up with a reason. To meet her quota, Jinxi was going on the nights most convenient—when her mother wasn't home—to do so. She tried to be as quiet as possible when she came home to not alert the neighbors, but it seems Geraldine in the apartment across of theirs heard her loud and clear. She wanted to be truthful to her old friend. In fact, Jinxi couldn't even think of a time she lied to her, and while she did have intentions of telling her mother about her second life soon enough and maybe even Geraldine, then wasn't the right time.
So she tried to twist her thoughts into something that wasn't technically lying, but at the same time, didn't convey the whole truth. So she would agree—yes, she was "dating" someone, but who? There wasn't anyone from the Negaverse she knew personally enough to use their name. Well, there was one: Queen Metallia herself. While she hadn't even spoken to the source of Chaos before, Jinxi felt their relationship was intimate; after all, part of her influence, Chaos itself, filled her starseed and gave her power. So, they were special to each other, even if they hadn't shared a single word.
Looking up to Geraldine, Jinxi slowly nodded her head and tickled a lock by her ear. A white lie. It didn't count against how truthful she'd been to her.
The cerise-haired woman's jaw dropped and she had to look about the room and back to Jinxi twice to believe her. "You aren't kidding me, aren't you?" she asked, to which Jinxi shook her head. "Holy crap, girl! I didn't think you'd have it in you! So, so, what are they like?"
Jinxi tried to think for a moment, but the word "powerful" slipped out before she had a chance to convey something normal. Geraldine's smile faded as she went silent, giving the girl a quizzical glance.
"Whoa, that's, uh, I don't know what you're getting at, girl, but—"
Realizing her mistake, Jinxi hurriedly waved her hands before her and then grabbed the end of the dinner table. "Nn-no! No, no, no, I didn't mean it like that. I meant, like, t-they, um, come on strong? They're, uh"—her eyes searched the cupboards to the left of her as if they would somehow provide an answer—"nice. That's the best way I can put it. We're n-not like super close yet since we just met, but that's the opinion I get from them. So d-don't think it's weird, please... I really... care about them."
This seemed to, for the moment, appease Geraldine. Her cocked her head slightly to the left and smiled, nodding her head. "Okay, yea, I can get that," she said. "I was on love too, y'know. So tell me, what's it like for you? Are you happy?"
Jinxi bowed her head and smiled, cupping a hand over her chest—her starseed—and the powers that opened up a new path in life for her. "V-very," she said, nodding. "They make my chest feel warm. They've helped me out so much and, I think, through them... I've learned to open up more. Is that good?"
"Girl, that's great!" Geraldine said with a laugh. Leaning forward, she cupped her chin in her hand and urged the girl on. "Go on, tell me more. I feel like this is a good way to spend this listless evening."
Jinxi's smile widened and she complied, going on to spin small lies of the great influence in her life.
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Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 11:50 am
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Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2016 3:41 pm
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Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2016 4:47 pm
s o l o The Sound of Clouds (548 words)
What sound do clouds make?
Do they even make a sound?
Jinxi shut her eyes and cocooned herself in her blanket, trying to occupy her mind with such thoughts as things clattered and smashed against the walls outside her room. There was no window on her side of the apartment, considering it was a smack dab in the middle of the floor, so she sat in complete darkness; the only illumination coming from the flickering light of her laptop in sleep mode. Once or twice, she twitched when something ricocheted hard, but otherwise, Jinxi dedicated all of her mental power to clouds.
Of course they're just water vapor, but I feel like anything is possible now, considering I can now jump multiple stories when I'm Sarabauite. If magic is real, so is the possibility of clouds making sounds.
Her eyes snapped open at a realization for a moment before being squeezed shut again.
Well, I guess they kinda make sounds? They rumble when it's going to rain, but those are grey clouds. I'm talking about white, fluffy clouds. Cumulonimbus clouds. They're—
Before Jinxi could continue, there was a hard pounding on her door. For a second, she thought her mother was chucking things at it, but then the knocks followed with a bellow of, "Jinxi, get your a** out here!"
Jinxi let out a long, doleful sigh and rolled out of her blanket and to standing. Tugging her door open, she marched outside, and stood before the coffee table as per the norm of her mother's need to question. Jizabel, her mother, dug through her purse as if to emphasize something and then slid it beside her thigh.
Regarding her daughter with a scowl, she said in a tone between a yell and an admonishment, "Jinxi, I'm missing twenty dollars from my purse. Did you take it?"
Jinxi looked at her with a blank face, only blinking.
"Did you take the money or not?"
Again, the eighteen year old didn't answer her mother.
"Listen here, you good-for-nothing. What did I tell you about going through my purse, huh? What'd I tell you? And now you're giving me this silent treatment bullshit?" Jizabel picked up her purse and shook it at Jinxi. "I know you took it. I know. So just fess up and say you did."
Jinxi's bottom lip trembled, but again, she didn't say a word. If she were her old self, she would've spewed that, no, she hadn't taken the twenty dollars. While her mother was drunk yesterday, she bought some Chinese food, and that's where the money went. Of course, Jizabel wouldn't have believed her, but it was worth the attempt.
Now, she had strength, She had courage. She didn't need to give in to the whims of her mother and her accusations. There was more to her than that.
Realizing she wouldn't get an answer out of her daughter, Jizabel pointed to her room door and broke eye contact. "If you're going to be a little s**t about this, then just go. Go back to your room, I don't want to see your face."
Turning on her heel, Jinxi did as she was told. Before she entered, her hands balled into fists as she realized what sound clouds made.
Silence.
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Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2016 6:37 am
s o l o Hairbrained (1017 words)
Jinxi chagrined, fingers kneading at the book she clutched to her chest. She twitched every so little while as Geraldine worked fingers into her white locks. Raising her head to look up, she tried to see what her neighbor was doing, but the cerise-haired woman grabbed Jinxi's head from the back and under her jowl and insisted it back straight.
"Hey, what did I tell you about moving?" Geraldine said, fussing. "You'll mess me up."
"W-what are you doing, Dinah?" Jinxi asked, frowning slightly. "This feels weird..."
Geraldine huffed. "How many times do I have to explain it to you?" she said, jabbing the end of the curling iron into Jinxi's face. The bespectacled girl didn't take her eyes off it as it moved with her neighbor's explanation. "I need to practice curling short hair for hairdressing school. You're the closet person I have for this, so just sit there and let me do my thing."
"Ah, but..." Jinxi shifted uncomfortably. "I-I'm not used to people touching the top of my head... It feels weird..."
"Then distract yourself. Think about something."
"...I can only think about you touching the top of my head..."
Geraldine let out a long, frustrated sigh. "Okay, okay, fine. Uh, tell me about the Allamas."
"The... what?"
"Allamas."
"Allamas...?"
"Yea."
Jinxi's brow furrowed. She'd never heard of that cryptid before. Had she even mentioned anything about it? One by one, her mind filtered out each name that began with A to find a match. She searched her memory long enough to the point she settled quiet, and when she finally put two and two together, she looked up to Geraldine and erected a finger at her.
"Oh, you mean the Almas!" she said.
Geraldine groaned for the umpteenth time. "Jinxi, what did I tell you?" she admonished. "Stop moving!"
Jinxi settled straight again and frowned. "S-sorry," she said. She went quiet again as she tried to put her thoughts together on the subject at hand. "Where should I start?" she asked.
Geraldine shrugged a shoulder. "Doesn't really matter, I've heard about it a million times from you." This drew a harrumph from Jinxi. "Just tell me whatever."
That wasn't satisfying at all, to be expected to explain "whatever" to her neighbor. When Jinxi fell into her cryptid tangents, she embellished only the most interesting and/or weird facts about the creatures, as she knew those were the only things Geraldine would remotely care about. When she was expected to speak, though, she felt like she should begin at the top and list out every minute detail about it.
"Oh, well, uh, t-they're, like, an ape-like cryptid. From Central Asia," she said. "Around mountain regions and stuff... Like in Pamir and Mongolia. Um, they're kinda like the yeti, in that they're covered in fur and walk upright. Except, they seemed to be compared more to caveman. That seems befitting, considering "Almas" means "wild man" in Mongolian."
The touch and slid of fingers on the top of her head seemed to dissipate as Jinxi concentrated on her explanation. In her mind's eye, she could see the hulking, upright bipedal walk with an exaggerated sway along an unnamed mountain pass; a tool like a knife or spearhead clutched in their wide left hand. She didn't know where it was going or if it even had a destination.
"They're said to be nomadic and that's one of the leading reasons for their sightings. People supposedly saw them as they moved place to place. They probably have large families if you think about it."
In Jinxi's mind, the Almas she imagined looked on ahead. Nestled into a cove of the mountain pass, another Almas and a trio of smaller ones looked on at them. They seemed to smile at each other, but she wasn't certain with their sharp features and protruding brow making it hard to read expressions.
No... she thought. No, it isn't going to meet family...
Her mind changed the situation. The supposed smile the Almas wore was now one of adroit concentration, a feral hunger. It moved silently against the grain of the mountain pass, following something, the knife or spearhead in its hand tightly held. Jinxi followed its line of sight, and noticed it was stalking a deer.
"Supposedly, their diet consists of small mammals, plants, and fruits. They're omnivores, like most apes. But sometimes..." In her mind, the Almas charged forward. The deer, stalling momentarily at the sight of the large creature, prepared to run, but their start was too late. With the knife or spearhead clutched in both their hands, the Almas prepared to attack the deer. "Sometimes... It is said they eat large prey."
A shiver jolted up Jinxi's form when the mental image of the Almas stabbing the deer happened in tandem with the small shake Geraldine gave her shoulder.
"There we go, all done!" she said. "Here, take a look, take a look."
Jinxi blinked up at her neighbor as she was presented a mirror. Her blinks continued at her reflection; her hair was done up in a spiraling array of curls, her bangs windswept to the side. It was so unlike her; too flashy. People would pay more attention to her, stare more, if she left the house with that kind of hairstyle.
"So, how's it look?" Geraldine asked.
"Err, i-it's good?" she said. This caused her neighbor to frown. "Sorry, I don't know much about hair."
Geraldine, again, sighed. "No, no, don't worry about it," she said, tugging the curling iron's plug out of the socket. "I really shouldn't have asked."
Coiling the wire around the still hot iron, Geraldine left the Carmen household and headed to her own. Jinxi awkwardly followed her and, from the doorway of the apartment, watched Geraldine enter her own and not exit. Sheepishly, Jinxi clicked her apartment's door shut, and leaned against it.
Did I say something wrong? she thought, fingering one of the curls by her ear. I probably did, didn't I? Or is it because I didn't say something nice? Aghh, I don't know! Why are people so confusing?!
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Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2016 7:39 am
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