The Act of Interim #Wattys2018

Chapter 1: The Articles

"Desperation can make a person do surprising things."

- Tobias "Four" Eaton, Allegiant by Veronica Roth

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"Who gave that book to you?" Emily asked her best friend, Nathalia, as she pointed her forefinger to the crimson book that she was holding. It was a classic book that had surely cost a fortune.

Nathalia smiled at her before she answered, "My dad brought this when he went to the bookstore at the mall nearby."

Emily's expression became doleful as she heard the word dad. Big deal? Not exactly to others but for her, that word became a world to her. It's one of the primary reason why she was still breathing and at the same time, the primary suspect of the sadness that was continuously engulfing her whole system. Well, she couldn't help it. Everyone couldn't help it if they were all wearing the same shoes as her. She didn't have a father since the beginning of her life in this goddamn universe, and to make it worst on her part, she didn't have a single idea what it felt like to have a father. Did it really feel good like what everyone says? Was it bad? Good enough? Or just meh?

Out of curiosity, she stared at her friend's face, trying to figure out something that she eagerly wanted to know. At least, by observing her friend's expressions, she can get some ideas, either it's a big one or just a fig.

She just stopped her observation when she saw the abrupt changes on her friend's face. From a happy expression to a sympathetic one. God knows how she hated the latter one.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to offend you," Nathalia said softly, looking so anxious at her.

"No, it's fine," she assured her, trying not to get affected on what she was seeing right now in front of her. She didn't need her sympathy or anyone. It only made her feel more miserable and weak for not having a father on her side.

She held her breath first before she looked away for her friend to not notice her expression that no one could ever understand.

Yes she grew up without him or born without him, but still, it didn't change the fact that she always longs for him especially to his presence. That was the main reason she felt so jealous to anyone who has a father on their side, a father who always trying to protect them unlike her. She and her mother were the only one who were constituting that part. But she was still not satisfied.

She would never be satisfied.

If she would just get an opportunity to experience having his father being alive, she would give every possession that she had just to feel and see him, right in front of her.

"So how's our invention?" Nathalia asked all of a sudden, trying to change the atmosphere around them. "Is there any progress?"

Emily stopped abruptly when she heard her question. She opened her mouth and closed them again when she remembered the time machine that she was working on for how many years by then. But it had no progress or any improvement --- she didn't know when it would. It almost cost her a fortune just to make it work but alas, there was always some complications existing. To make it worst, she didn't know which part of it has a problem or what she'd missed.

"It's still the same but I'm still trying to improve it," she assured her but her best friend knew that she was lying.

Nathalia was always against on her friend's idea of inventing a time machine that might bring her best friend's life in danger, or worst, it might be the reason of her early death. The way how Emily was working on it, putting all her remaining strength just to make it work, losing her appetite and a galleon of her sleeping hours, it was possible to happen. That thought alone dreading her, big time.