LOGINShare
Chapter 18: Sitting Alone
Last Updated:
2020-08-16 09:36:14Jasper had been in the common room for an hour and desperately needed paper and a pen. He thought about breaking into Emmet's office, but the lock conundrum arose again. He had no idea what he was supposed to. There was nothing to do but think and panic.
There was nothing to do but look through the giant glass window towards the sea, sitting on a stool, keeping his back stiff. He couldn't sit on the beanbags as it would be bad for his back and Doctor Johnstone would correct him silently, doing her job and without comment, like a blank interface existing to mask the efficient, cold, unjudging code running on the machinery behind the back panel.
She was so much like Sýnnefa, only she actually spoke, and didn't hide her face behind technology. She was still following programming. Everybody followed programming. It was natural.
But what programming did he follow? A man who had followed Gryaz blindly then put sunglasses on to combat the harsh, grey glares of S
Related chapters
The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 19: Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall, Who is Bravest of them all?
The sand was dry and dusty, too slippery to grip by itself with his shrivelled, wet hands alone, but the grains had become more solid, and rough enough on his bruised, freezing skin to help him grip onto a large, gnarling, tree root. All he could miserably do was hold on, too weak to do more than keep his head above water and breathe. His arms burned and his stomach wailed. He wanted to cry but found that no tears were coming. He tried to make a sound, but nothing but a pathetic cracking noise emerged from his throat.Was it worth pulling himself to shore? Was it worth doing any of this? If he just let go, he would reunite everybody from Gryaz after he made the journey back in the afterlife, when his soul was severed from his useless, beaten body, strong, and ready to trek back to the gorge.And if he just let go, he wouldn't be in this river anymore, freezing cold and burning at the same time, the sensations mixing, overlapping and swirling in his chest, making him si
Last Updated : 2020-08-16The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 20: The Girl Called Nobody
Doctor Johnstone found Jasper and Emmet curled around each other, that morning. She looked down at them and stared, before quietly leaving.Emmet slowly opened his eyes at the clicking of the doors. He felt warm and surrounded by infinite softness. A warm breath tickled the hairs at the back of neck periodically, every now and then.He craned his head up and saw a tanned hand, loosely wrapped around his own pale one and held to a warm chest.It was Jasper.He was instantly awake, face flushing hot as the memories of the previous night flooded back to him. Doctor Johnstone had evicted him from Jasper's room to let him sleep in his own bed. He had woken up, when lightening flashed outside, and had immediately fled back to Jasper's room, coerced him into bed, and held his hand all night.He gulped and went to gently extract himself and get breakfast, planning explanations in his mind to excuse away his actions and pretend that it hadn't happened. A ha
Last Updated : 2020-08-17The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 21: The Beginning of the End
With all his work finally caught up on, Emmet was free to follow his regular schedule. Jasper, after his morning physiotherapy session joined him after lunch for his lab shift.Emmet wore his white lab coat, white goggles, white mask, and white gloves, all non-disposable to be washed and reused. Jasper didn't wear any of it, just simply perching on his seat in the corner of the room, back straight against the wall. His eyes were narrowed and honed in on the movements of Emmet's hands.The screen behind him lit up with the slides that Emmet placed under the electron microscope. The prepared samples from the day prior showed the buckminsterfullerenes with the antigens placed inside them. The poison had been picked, and the final review of the separate mechanisms and construction of each moving part was due by next week. After, the assembly and the assembly review, testing would formally begin.Emmet was not informed who, but he suspected any prisoners of war and p
Last Updated : 2020-08-17The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 22: Mistakes
Jasper knew that he was beyond repenting. His contributions to the Sýnnefa Empire were made under the treat of death, but it was undeniable that he had played his part well, acting meek, pathetic, twitchy, scared and antisocial. He had given Sýnnefa technology that they could use to quash many other countries, killing millions, if they so choose, repeating the destruction of his community thousands of times on any scale as they so pleased.He remembered.He remembered where the name Sýnnefa came from. In Emmet's arms, enveloped by that soothing golden light, he felt Emmet shiver, as if he was cold, dark, and lonely. Jasper finally remembered then and there where the name Sýnnefa came from, and he had no choice but to hold on tighter to Emmet.Sýnnefa, a tiny, nondescript island off the coast of a no-name country going to some war in some place and being destroyed as a warning. The people of the island, reportedly innocent civil
Last Updated : 2020-08-17The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 23: A Type
It was an otherwise innocuous room where the time machine was kept. It was a small, quiet storage room not too far away from the lab that Emmet and Jasper were previously in. The light inside hadn't been working for months, but Emmet hadn't cared enough to change it. The light from the corridor was more than enough, no matter what Doctor Johnstone liked to say to him. He could always reply that the roof wasn't leaking and that there were no rats. He sometimes wondered what her reaction to Minnie's garage would be, with all its tiny, metal pieces strewn out on the floor, with the only organisational system present was her scratching lines into the floor, creating separate zones for separate projects, with random rocks from outside.Aunt Minnie would either be bouncing off the walls with the opportunity he had been given or would have her hands clamped around Jasper's shoulders to make sure that he wouldn't run away before she had finished interrogating him. He remembered back
Last Updated : 2020-08-17The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 24: Checking Communications
When their little lesson was done, Emmet delivered Jasper back to the common room for supper, citing the need to finish his work to go back to his office.There had been no sent messages from the facility apart from his own. He wouldn't be able to check the security cameras without citing a very good reason. He was trying to keep Jasper's existence a secret, and it wouldn't do for him to draw any unnecessary attention.There was no way for him to smooth over his relations with Lisa, especially when she had Alice. He could certainly rely on her for more than a few things, but he wouldn't truly know when she would stop doing supporting him.She had to know his reasoning for taking this position, and sparing her. He wouldn't expect Alice to understand the situation and circumstances, but Lisa had to understand. She had been with him for so long, heard all his secrets and insecurities. She had to understand why he couldn't say no, especially when the offer came from
Last Updated : 2020-08-18The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 25: The Probability of Being Born
"Hey Red_Two, how was your day?" Alice asked, bounding over to sit next to him, with Doctor Johnstone taking his other side.Richard was stood at the oven this time, crouched down staring into the black filtered gold light as multiple rectangle trays spun around inside. Jasper could see why the man wasn't moving his eyes away from the seen, the spinning food inside did look beautiful, and it was quite easy to get lost in the motions of their dance."It was alright," Jasper mumbled out, not wanting to look away from the entrancing food.This was actually quite enjoyable. A mealtime with colourful beanbags behind him, a glowing gold oven, all sorts of technicolour mugs in the most bizarre of patterns. Alice had chosen another neon coloured mug for herself, decorated with birthday balloons with neon coloured smiles plastered all over it, even though Jasper knew that it wasn't her birthday. He may not be sure how birthdays were celebrated in the past, but he was sur
Last Updated : 2020-08-18The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 26: Taking Leave
"You don't need to keep hanging back, holding yourself to fit a certain mould, you know,"It was Doctor Johnstone. She had kept her seat next to him, as all the others had begun migrating back to the common room. She sat idly next to him, her eyes tracing Alice's movements, as she fluttered from person to person, eager and welcome in every conversation, bouncing off the walls and having fun, laughing, giggling and sending beaming smiles over in their direction, Doctor Johnstone waving back to her, giving her own smiles, over the rim of her mug."It's not that. It's just hard to relate to this experience. All my meals before here were silent," Jasper explained, knowing he had to be careful."Are you happy here?" she asked back, taking another swig of her mug, leaning back on the table, relaxed, with slow blinks."Yeah…"It was all Jasper could say. He was happy here. But to make sure that these people would live, he needed to leave and spare
Last Updated : 2020-08-18
Latest chapter
The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 371: Schematics
“Why’re you sleeping on the floor like that? Come on, get up. You’ll hurt your back doing that,” Doctor Marigold chided, dragging all her bits of heavy machinery around the office space to prepare for her demonstration.Behind her, Lila remained still.“I know that you’re not dead. Come, get up already,” she called out, stepping over a few sheets of paper that she had laid out to grab Lila by the shoulder and heave her up into sitting.The stubborn girl just flopped down again, not opening her eyes.“If you get the fuck up, we can move the flight a week forward so you can stop worrying about it,” Lucy Marigold shouted across the room.Like a rubber band, Lila snapped back up and finally opened her eyes.It had been harder to see the bags below them when they had been closed and Doctor Marigold wondered if she should buy the girl some sleep tablets.“I’m awake,” Li
The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 370: EXTRA GRETEL
Yolanda seemed to understand that she needed to back off and stop teasing Gretel, when the other woman's eyes suddenly misted over, and it was if she was no longer a part of this world.She kept the bubbling annoyance within her away from her face, putting on instead a mask of concern as she reached out and poked Gretel's arms, trying to maybe prod her out of her stupor and bring her back from the recesses of her mind.Yolanda had never actually seen somebody collapse inwards to a catatonic state over her own actions.It was interesting to see it all happen and fold out in front of her.She poked Gretel again, touching her in the face lightly to see if that would possibly work to pull the other woman out of her mind and back into the world where she was needed proper.It wouldn't reflect well on her if Gretel didn't wake up within the hour.It didn't feel as
The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 369: Thanatos
When she awoke, she was sat ready to eat and was dressed just like her mother, in a pastel blouse and a lungi down to the floor.Lila looked down at herself and jumped when she heard rattling, noticing the ten, or so, bangles on each arm and the lines of mehndi that ran down all the way to the hems of her sleeves, resting halfway between her shoulders and elbows. A pin held her blouse shut at the top and a quick once over of her hair, with one of her hands, revealed that it had been styled in a simple bun and adorned with flowers.“This is weirdly romantic,” Lila commented, staring at the lit candles nestled in the variously sized candelabrums set around the circular room.There was no door, but a giant window which led to a balcony outside. There was no ceiling but the walls reaching upwards, all the way up, until they formed a dome in the same shade of dull brown that coated the floor and the giant, round table in the centre.The only dishes
The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 368: Sleep
“So, is she finally asleep?” Emmet asked the boy stood behind the counter. He was exceedingly slim for someone surrounded by sugar all day and Emmet could make out the outlines of his spindly elbows through his shirt. His face held a no nonsense, blunt, and almost bored expression. “Yeah, she is. She’s been knocked out on the sofa since I sent her back there,” Kai answered the long haired man in front of him, his hair pulled back by a ribbon matching his eyes before being pulled over his shoulder once more. He looked vain. “Oh good. Don’t tell her that I was involved,” the man asked, putting both his palms up to face Kai. “I’m telling her that you’re a fucking weirdo for that,” was the scowled answer. “No. Seriously, don’t tell her. She doesn’t like me and I don’t like her. She’s known my partner for longer that I’ve known him. She doesn’t trust me with him. Why’re you making that face?” Emmet tried to justify himself before giving up
The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 367: Tired
“Are you sure that you’re getting enough sleep?” Kai asked Lila, watching her sway on her feet and clutching the front counter.“Yes,” she gasped, dropping her head into her hands, elbows on the table.“Go and lie down on the sofa. Go to sleep for a bit. I’ll wake you up when I have to leave for college,” Kai instructed her, tapping her on the shoulders and shepherding her towards the office.“… fine,” she conceded, letting Kai move her along towards the back.“You know that this just proves my point,” Kai pointed out, pushing her through the boundary of the door and closing it behind her.“Fine,” she whispered back to him, talking into the silence of the office.She let herself fall over the sofa, draping her upper body over the arm rest and letting her head be cushioned by the pillows. Shuffling a bit over to put her body entirely on the sofa, Lila f
The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 366: Punching Bag
“One! Two! Three! Four! Five!Now again!One! Two! Three! Four! Five!Now keep on going!”Lila landed each punch, timing her breaths to the count as she moved her fists, dodging underneath the swing that came towards her head, before blocking the second hit that came to her and moving along with the force of the fist that hit her arm.The swinging punching bag forced distance between Lila and Tweedle Dum, and she stepped back to where she was stood before, within the path of the moving bad, to put more distance between him and her.“One! Two! Three! Four! Five!One! Two! Three! Four! Five!”Lila punched the bag once more, landing all of her hits.“Okay, time for a break,” Tweedle Dum announced, grabbing the punching bag and pulling it back to him as Lila moved away from the centre of the room, sitting down on one of the rickety plastic chairs at the side of the room.She took of
The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 365: Much Older Nephew
“Bitch! Why’d you run off and abandon me like that!?” Lila shouted from behind the counter when Kai finally walked back into the store.She was waving her hands about and wore an apron covered in flour as the single customer in the store, an old man precariously balancing on his cane, slept whilst leaning on the radiator.“I thought that you wanted some bonding time with your family so I left you to do that it private!” Kai answered her, tiptoeing past their unconscious patron, in a combination of whispering and shouting.“They’re hardly my family and you left us in the middle of a public café!” Lila cried, not modulating her voice at all.In the background, the old man began to snore.“But you still talk to them a lot like you do to me, so I let you, and besides, I got about fifty more pages of Good Omens done in Waterstones,” Kai appealed, finally at the counter and opening up the
The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 364 EXTRA GRETEL
Gretel and Silver had their fun as he continued to teach her how the interface worked and how he had managed to figure out that the system was an older model from the lack of integration between the screen and the touch pad, and explaining how easily it would potentially be to do so once the technology, as displayed in this device, had been demonstrated and established to work in a functional product."We were working on something like this as well, back in the workshops back home for the company that I was in the research and development department for. We were trying to get our motion sensors to be as small as possible for more commercial and personal use of technology that we could sell to the public and those who couldn't afford the contact computers.We had no idea on how their tech worked, because of trade and company secrets and all, but we managed to piece together a few things by looking at the patents and when we bought a few and m
The Boy who Circled Time Chapter 363: Alcohol and Sleep
“Alright, the shop’s free. Why are you actually here?” Lila questioned, crossing her arms and staring down at the tablecloth of Jasper and Emmet’s table.“I’ve got lesson now. I’ll be back in a few hours,” the teenage boy behind Lila announced, picking up a bag that had been hidden behind the counter the entire time and rushing outside.Lila continued to stand there, waiting for a reply.Jasper couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t meeting either his or Emmet’s eyes.“Are you planning to leave us?” he asked her back.Lila’s fingers dug into the creases of her shirt,” I’m going to be leaving for a trip soon, and I’ll be back as soon as I can. Kai’ll be running the shop and will be looking after things, broadly. He lives here now and I scheduled my leave for when his school term ends so he can take care of things.”“On thi
