@malediictus // "are you a ghost? are you a zombie? am i a zombie?" — spiderverse.
“no, you’re—” she cuts off, a laugh escaping as jinx barrels on with the phrase. it’s familiar, in a way it shouldn’t be after all these years. it is as though powder is still here, a sensitive, optimistic kid. a part of vi wants to do the show, sticking her arms out to mime the zombie shamble, patting powder’s cheeks with clipped nails, moaning about brains. but that is a kids’ pantomime, and the look in jinx’s eyes warns vi against it—canny and cunning despite its vulnerability. and there is a great deal of vulnerability there, in the wide eyes, the whispered voice. it doesn’t get any easier to jinx to believe. each time they cross paths, vi is a specter. not just a dead girl, but something deeper.
the laugh dies. will vi ever not be invisible, dead, reanimated? “you’re not a zombie.” it is the part she knows how to address.
she takes a moment, thinks, considers wrapping her arms around powder—jinx—powder. it doesn’t get easier.
“you want a code word or something? to show that it’s really me?” speaking to her like a kid: cut it, cut it. there is so much of jinx that vi doesn’t know, so much that, because of the lost years, she will never be able to know. when you lose growing up next to someone, no matter what you learn, it will never come back.
“it’s me. i’m not a ghost, or a zombie, or back from the grave in any way. i’m just me.”
