“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
I'm ill. Expect shorter, later chapters.
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
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
“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 white lights, lingering above, glared through dirty glass of their bulbs, flooding the grey single tables, the grey food, and the grey floor below awash, seemingly revealing all. The spoons were grey, the plates were grey, and the chairs were grey. Everything was grey.The engineer's eyes were grey, his standard issue shirt and trousers were grey, and a few grey hairs sat in the overgrown ,bushy ginger cloud which lay atop his head. His sallow skin, once tanned and always flushing red, now held a grey hue. The bags under his eyes, however, were a staunch black.His head hung downwards, single-mindedly scooping the grey mush of his lunch into his mouth, swallowing without tasting and without thinking. He watched all the blobs of different shades of grey, from the strained corners of his eyes, ignoring the burn, documenting them in his mind to analyse later.The central food hall of one of the North Western Sýnnefa military research facility was near si
The engineer was sat on a grey chair, hunched over a grey desk with drawers, at the side of the grey workshop. He was flocked by the now, lone mechanic, looking over his shoulder at the fire-damaged blueprints, as the engineer traced them with a pencil on tracing paper. All of the four tables and chairs, that weren't bolted to the floor in four rows, which faced the door, were shoved to the right side of the room, clearing the left side to simply house the empty carcass of what was the containment of the Type III Prototype Time Machine. Born from a theoretical, throwaway design concept of one, long gone Gryaz physicist, whose budget and time was re-allocated towards war.The engineer claimed, during his compulsory project interview, that he did not understand the use for a time machine at all. The past was the past, and Sýnnefa was his future.Yet, Sýnnefa was obsessed, halting most other on-going projects, to create the time m
Every night at 20:00, the same two guards waited at the west block dorms to scan the same ID cards to allow the same individual prisoners into their identical rooms for the night. They would then patrol the area until midnight, taking the first shift.The engineer looked at his shoes as he walked, right hand in his pocket, before widening his eyes, freezing. He used his left hand to check his other pocket and found nothing, swallowing back nothing, throat dry. He checked the pockets of his trousers and found nothing again, shaking and sweating. The guard, hand stretched out, ready to take his ID card, stood, impassively, shoulders relaxed.The other guard was sharp, extremely angular, and had a long, stretched neck, bulging with nerves, and veins. He towered over the engineer, forcing him to gaze into the abyss of the black visor, stark against the vision of greys which made up the walls, floors, and uniforms of all the people."Could you confirm your identity?"
The sky was an awesome blue, from this view.It was a giant canvas of solid, crystal azure, the grand beginning for the masterpiece, made by God's hand. All for Red_Two to gaze upon at, and weep.The clouds above were rolling. They were a pure, angelic white, with the smallest of grey shadows, reaching down towards him, bordered by, and held together by, a shining silver. They bloomed high up, and so far away, crafted into dragons, into trumpets, into turtles, and into halos. They carried so much free water, ready to burst like one of those fabled grapes, and allow those crystal droplets to fall to earth like diamonds.Heaven was up there, as a garden of riches, glistening gold, and so, so bright. And so, so warm. The clouds framed it, like a spiral staircase, of which mortals like him could use to pull themselves up there, or maybe fly themselves up on that burning dragon. It could breathe fire, and warm him up in those cold, cold clouds. Would the water taste
When he awoke, Red_Two found himself shivering, laying down on his stomach, on a soft, albeit cold, bed. He didn't feel a blanket over him, and he could feel a cold breeze on his feet, but not his legs. Without opening his eyes, he slowly inched his right hand towards his torso. He felt the intersection of two lines of bandages. An engulfing warmth surrounded his hand, and moved it back to his side.He was alive. Red_Two blinked his eyes open slowly, looking down at his pillow."I know you're awake," an unknown voice rang, slightly high pitched, light and cheery, definitively male, and speaking in English."I'm awake," Red_Two replied, voice slightly raspy, turning his head towards the right, in direction of the voice. He was on a bed with white pillows and sheets, with a bedside cabinet and chair next to him.On that chair was a man with an average build, matching his own, in a lilac shirt and dark blue trousers - part of a matching suit with the shiny,