LOGINShare
September Chapter 130: Meaning Nothing
Last Updated:
2024-10-29 19:42:56Her mother had simply wanted some help in making lunch and supper, and so Lila had been sent off to fetch two cups of rice and prepare it all to be put in the rice cooker with a helping of salt and oil.
Lila remained quiet as she did so, keeping her ears wide open for any indication of noise or disturbance that would either her intervention with either her mother and sister.
The tap water was ice cold, rushing down and pulling up all the particles of dust and flower from the grains that she had fetched, her fingers feeling as if they were becoming more and more numb, the familiar swirling sensation of blood circulating through the pads of her fingertips returned with a fervour and, with the nail of her thumb, she pushed inwards to provide some sort of pain to be a distraction to it all.
It hurt and Lila suppressed a smile from erupting on her face, still listening and still watching the other two people from the corner of her eye.
Just as Lila had finishe
Related chapters
The Boy who Circled Time October Chapter 131: Frozen Fingers
Lila, at some point when more of the freezer draw's contents were strewn about on the floor in a pile rather than in the actual freezer, she knew that she had to stop.The tips of her fingertips were a pale, almost blue, hue, and her frozen stiff and firm, completely impermeable to the jabs that her fingernails made to test whether they were still usable.She listened to all the noise behind her, focussing on the chopping noise of the knife slicing through herbs, meat, or whatever else was on the chopping the board - something that Lila could no longer remember anyway.She didn't even remember whether she had even looked in the first place, her head spinning and her legs aching and locked into place.She hissed silently through her teeth, and began to undo all the work that she had just done.Her sister, watching her complete her sequence of her actions, immediately got bored, leaving quickly, the ripping sound that Lila's skin made when peeling aw
The Boy who Circled Time October Chapter 132: The darkness
Lila felt sick to her stomache.The rain was too loud.one two three four fiveShe couldn't say anything in reply. She felt as if her voice had been robbed. She felt as if she had been cursed into silence and into nothingness.one two three four fiveThis was good.She had been left alone. No violence had been inflicted upon her.one two three four fiveShe was fine.one two three four fiveShe was fine.one two three four fiveSHE WAS FINE!one t
The Boy who Circled Time October Chapter 133: The Abyss
Everyone was so happy without her.Everyone was laughing, playing games, sharing stories, and eating cake without her.Everyone was better off if she disappeared.one two three four fiveone two three four fiveone two three four fiveLila knew, to an extent, that this was not true.She knew that she had a future self somewhere that had gone through the exact same experiences that she was now going through, and had written this letter probably in response to those feelings.Lila also knew that objectively, her emotions were just a response to the years of abuse and torture that she had faced at the hands of her parents, and that whatever she was feeling now was just a mechanism that would keep her under their thumb, and would preven
The Boy who Circled Time October Chapter 134: No Cigar
In the end, Lila had not been able to find what she had needed.She could not remember whether the demand given to her were of chicken cubes, chicken strips, chicken breast, chicken legs, chicken mince, or an entirely whole frozen chicken.She could not remember.She could not remember anything.Her mother's words swirled around in her head, repeating themselves on loop, over and over again, until those words had forced out everything else of use to Lila to get herself out of this situation.She needed to focus.She needed to.It was the only way that would guarantee her safety, and right now, she wasn't doing it.She wasn't focussing.The chopping sound of the knife sounded like the steady and regular beat of the drum that was her heart, pounding loudly throughout her entire body, a blooming and blossoming pain in her head erupting with each and every heavy and forceful sound.The noise was hypnotising, drawing h
The Boy who Circled Time October Chapter 135: The dread
Lying down, weak and helpess on her carpet, Lila let herself drift off into a land of darkness where she was left only semi aware of the world around her.She was in the dark, with one arm thrown out away from her body, hanging over the edge of the boat that she was on, her fingers just barely grazing the water below her. She heard everything that was happening around her, from the rain storm outside her bedroom window, the laughter and banging of pots and pans downstairs, and the highly irritable, scary, and distressing fact that Lila had forgotten to barricade her bedroom door away from her mother.However, at the same time, the world that Lila was in came with it's own environment, from the gentle rocking which sometimes occasionally blew up into tumultuous and temptestuous waves of the storm inside her chest whenever she lost focus and her mind wandered to the outside, but, no matter what, somehow through the moments of rollercoaster action, fundementally calm.
The Boy who Circled Time October Chapter 136: Again and Again and Again
Lila kept her head down, her focus singular on the pen in her left hand which wrote down her essay plan for the history homework that she had been doing now for a few minutes.The question of 'How did the Crusades Effect the Architectural Design of Durham Cathedral?' seemed easy enough for her.She would first talk about the extra supports that had been used in the building, the concept taken from Muslim Masjids and their uses of Mimbars that required extra supports, considering that they were so tall and inherently emerged from the main structure, rather than being some sort of tower a little off to the side.The flying buttresses would be next, citing their use in the Cathedral as one of the first in the country, similar to their use in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which was one of the first to use the feature in Europe.And then she would go on to discuss the-"Lila, you ungrateful brat! Get down here and explain yourself!"Lila fli
The Boy who Circled Time October Chapter 137: Nothing Else to do
Lila, as soon as she opened the door for the kitchen, ducked by instinct.The sound of shattering porcelain behind her told her all that she needed to know.She did not need to glance over her shoulder to see behind her anymore. She already knew that she would see the broken and scattered remains of some porcelain plate or bowl that had apparently been unlucky enough to either be within her mother's unfortunate reach, or had been the source of whatever childish and juvenile temper tantrum this time.It was honestly getting tiring.Lila, from her crouched and kneeling position on the floor, one hand on the door handle just in case she needed to slam it shut, looked up at the looming beast that stood tall and proud and angry above her, ready to enact some sort of nonsensical justice and judgement that Lila would probably never understand and frankly, did not want to.She had already tortured herself enough with trying to understand her mother's twist
The Boy who Circled Time October Chapter 138: Violence and the Blade
"Do you see this plate? Do you see it!?"Lila's mother thrust a flat piece of porcelain into Lila's face, the flat and cold surface hitting her squarely in the nose, forcing her eyes shut and her world to go completely dark.Just like before, she desperately wanted to stay in the murky blackness somewhere outside of the world, but she knew that she had to open her eyes, that she had to stay alive for the future.And just as soon as she let herself see the world again, the grip on her head was released, her buckling and shaking knees almost collapsing in relief, almost sending her hurtling down onto the cold and hard floor, dooming her to whatever painful end that she would end up with.Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the countertops digging into her back and side, barely keeping herself from joining the land of unconsciousness from all the pressure that was being exerted on her.It felt as if she were being repeatedly punched in the chest,
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
