×

I didn't know what to say at first. The yellow-eyed man knew we were going to Paradise. Should I deny it? Should I say yes? Would he help us? Why would he care? Before I could respond I heard heavy pounds of steps behind me. Maw was bounding toward the man with a scowl ready to destroy him. He hurled himself on top of him, pinning him on the ground, and pulled his head up by the sweater collar.

"WHO ARE YOU!? WHY WERE YOU CHASING HER!?" Maw demanded, spit flying out of his mouth in a heated rage.

Trine came up to me and wiped the dust off of my knees.

"Are you okay? We saw you running and then... h-him following you! Who is he?" 

"I-I-I don't know." I replied.

Maw was still pumping questions out and the man's expression was deadpan. He closed his eyes in disgust at the spit flicking onto his face.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING!? ANSWER ME!" Maw cursed.

"Calm yourself." The man wiped his face with one of his extra hands and prodded his lean finger into Maw's chest. "Get off."

Maw gave an offended look but his cheeks pinked for a moment. He turned his head back at us for an answer. 

"... Get... Get off him." I faltered. Trine helped me stand up on my jiggly legs.

Maw made a last death stare and let go of him, tramping back to us with his fists still clenched. The man stood up and straightened his collar.

"Why would you care about Paradise?" I asked, my stammering slowing down.

"Because I know where it is." He retracted his 2 sets of arms into his back and his neck jerked from the feeling. He looked less frightening now. "You are heading in the right direction, but you are losing time and your faith. You will need a guide, yes?"

My friends and I shared doubtful looks. 

"Please, what is your name?" Trine requested, examining his three-pointed head that reminded her of herself. The man was hesitant for a moment but then exhaled.

"Jinxaro. And you?"

"My name is Trine, this is Exe, and this is Maw." She replied, pointing to all of us. I wiped my eyelashes up and Maw made a low, quiet growl at Jinxaro. 

"Charmed." He blinked, his left eye trailing a millisecond behind his right eye. 

"Look, you don't just stalk someone and then pretend like it didn't happen. Why did you have to be secretive?.." I looked down, I still felt the fear I felt when I was running, the shivering... the chill.

"Really, who are you?"

The moonlight bounced off of Jinxaro's eyes for a moment. He stood still, gears in his head grinding. I wish I didn't see the fear in his eyes. Why was he scared?

"I do not know. I think I am just a jinx. That is what everyone tells me." His neck twitched again.

"Why does everyone call you a jinx? Why do you believe them?" Trine stepped forward, trying to get to the bottom of this uncanny encounter.

"When people are around me, bad things happen." He blinked again, the way his eyes moved reminded me of a bug. "I do not know why, but things disappear. I was scared that if I met you too soon, you would disappear as well." As he explained, his back twitched as well, and then I saw a slit on the top of his head open briefly. I couldn't tell what that was, so I dismissed it as a trick of the lamp light. He had an odd way of talking, slow and formal. It seemed he didn't speak to many people at all. 

Maw shuffled in front of me, the warmth of his body served as protection. We were unsure if we could trust Jinxaro. A jinx? Sometimes I've thought myself to be a jinx. Sometimes it felt like I couldn't escape the bad, or maybe I just thought too much about it. Is anyone really a jinx? Or is it the thought that makes them a jinx? Maybe he was like us... feeling like a jinx because of something they don't know. A feeling they can't describe, a feeling you wish you knew, but you only know death. Sometimes I wish death would be the opposite. You'd die and then wake up in a life you were in before, to relive that life in a different universe. How long will it take? How long until we get taken by the sun? I started to tear up, but then I was taken back into reality when Maw turned to me, his hot breath hitting my face. 

"You can't seriously be thinking about.."

I gave him a pleading look, he knew by now that my heart always led. Maw relaxed and moved back to the side. Now nothing was in the way of me and this new man.

"Wait. Jinxaro, sir. You don't remember who you are and you're trying to get to Paradise just like us. You know how to get there? How?"

Jinxaro, of course, didn't answer straight away, just like all of the answers to the other hard questions.

"I have been there before, I think." He said. "Well, I remember going there. Everything in it is blurred, I can only remember looking up at the stars. I want to visit there again so I can feel those emotions once more." 

I knew that I had to follow my heart and let him guide us. As I've said before, and I'll say over and over again until I die again: We stick together.

"Okay. Where do we go next?"

Since Trine has been driving and trailing Jinxaro, I had time to relax. Well, it was hard to relax right now. Jinxaro still made me nervous for some reason, but when I looked into his eyes he didn't look predatorial anymore. I hate that I thought that before. Then again, it felt like everyone I met had that predatorial look. 

Trine, with her elegant blood-red eye, but what has she seen with them? Has she seen death? Why can't she just have the sweet, candy-filled life everyone thinks she has? She looks like she has been treated with soft hugs by life. But she hasn't, and I'm scared that life has treated her even worse than a punch in the face. Please, give her love, even if you don't know the hardships she has faced.

Maw, his teeth stained with blood when he joined us in this car the first time. His fangs were alluring in a way, and I wondered if they were meant to make you feel like you wanted to be eaten by them. Maybe it was like the glowing globe of those fish deep in the ocean, luring their prey in, but I didn't feel scared or in the dark or hunted. Sometimes I imagined that if he bit me I'd be okay, like love bites from a kitten. I blushed as I thought about it. I don't like blushing because it makes me feel vulnerable. It was something people could see, and it helped me see too when I was denying things. 

Jinxaro, a mysterious entity. It seems like his mind is turning every waking moment, thinking. But of what? It looks as if he doesn't know what he's thinking of sometimes. Maybe he just does it to do it, like how you talk to talk. He takes out his extra arms to do multiple tasks often, I figure that he likes to multitask a lot so he can stop thinking. He was very skinny too, the point of his chin helped shape his sharp figure. He almost looked sickly, if it wasn't for his lively and brightly colored flesh. Am I still scared? Not as much now, as I think about him more. We're on our way to Paradise faster than we were before. 

Again, nothing out of the ordinary happened for a few days. Jinxaro was still leading us, and we learned more about him. He said he liked cats. I don't know why he told us that but Maw said that's pretty cool. He also doesn't like eating and drinking like me, he says it's messy and confusing and disgusting, how we just suck food into our necks. Honestly, I get a migraine trying to figure out how it works as well. He also said he has the same dream over and over again, one about how he climbed the sky and then fell into an ocean. Each time he wakes up he can still feel the lustrous water filling his lungs. He also said he used to work at multiple jobs, his arms being seen as an asset for over stimulating positions and grocery stocking. When he talked about it his neck twitched more than before. Maw, even though he was cross at first about Jinxaro, said he understood that much. The feeling of being an asset. When Jinxaro thinks or speaks of things that make him unhappy, I keep seeing a glimpse of something pearly white through a slit on his forehead. I don't know what it is, but it's best not to ask things like that.

It's a burden being curious.

I decided to glance through my writing, Captain Amora and The Leviathan, again. Trine and I made some progress. We were getting to the part where Amora finds out that her father is the monster, sometimes it feels like real life is like that. Like you know someone so well and then one day they change. That happened with someone I used to love once. Well, I don't even know if I loved them. I think I just wanted to love them because I was lonely. They were my partner, I met them a few months after I showed up in Nexternity. She was so friendly and helped me feel safe and... again... helped me feel what felt like being loved. She said I was pretty, over and over again. And that made me feel pretty. I looked in the mirror a lot and for once... I felt pretty. One day she said that she wanted to be my girlfriend. I was the happiest I have ever been for a few weeks, until one day she said she didn't love me anymore. Well, she didn't say it out loud but I knew she meant it because she didn't kiss me as much or talk to me as much. I don't know what happened, but then after a few more days, they left me for someone else. Sometimes I feel like it's my fault, like I was too overbearing or weird. Or maybe because I was new? I didn't even tell her I don't remember who I was... but maybe she figured it out because I never talked about it or felt uncomfortable when she explained her past life. Then one day I confronted her about it, asked her what I did wrong, then... she was so angry at me that she screamed. Like a Leviathan of fury. Everyone in the room looked at me. Why can eyes hurt so much? Do I hurt people when I look at them for too long? That was the last time I saw her, and I was furious with myself. I couldn't see what upset her, and that's what I thought I was the best at. Seeing people's emotions. Now, I don't cry about her anymore, I just accept that sometimes things happen. I have new people who accept me, and I am grateful. Trine, I hope you don't see my trauma melt into the story. Or if you do see it, think of it as moving on. Maw, have you ever been in love? I know that's a stupid question, I'm sorry. I just want to stop thinking. You say that a lot, so let's do it together. 

...

It's pretty hard.