Emmet ducked down as quickly as he could, as soon as he whispered out his final apology, the bullet just grazing his shoulder as he fell and moved to hit the big, red button on the time machine.All around him, the world shifted and changed. He saw himself disintegrate, molecule by molecule - his body, clothes, and the time machine itself turning into dust - until his vision also dissipated, leaving Emmer unable to see.And soon, he was left unable to think, all his thoughts scattering into oblivion and nothingness. He saw nothing. He felt nothing. He was nothing. For a brief moment, it was as if Emmet didn't even exist. That he was dead. There was nothing. Nothing. Void. Suddenly Emmet found that, once more, he existed.That he was alive.It felt like he had been abruptly been woken up fro

"Why the fuck wouldn't you lead with that?!" Emmet exploded at Lila, shaken all at once with worry, guilt, relief and pain.There was a turbulent storm of emotions running through his body, waves of anger rising up above and out of himself, lashing out into the world, threatening to crash and break everything around him.He wanted those thunderous waves to break everything around him. He wanted lightning to crash down around him and set everything ablaze. He wanted Lila to be dragged underwater and be dragged around, against her will, through the gigantic whirlpool of hate and uncertainty, struggling to keep going and keeping her head above water.In that moment, he hated Lila for playing with his emotions. He hated her for stringing him along and making him worry, for forcing even more worry on him. He hated her lack of emotions, her callousness towards Jasper and his life. He hated her for keeping Jasper from him, and he also hated Jasper, just a little bit.

"I know your Jasper, because one day he threw himself off a cliff, into a valley, near my house.I was playing with insects down there, near the bottom, and I saw him fall out of the sky. He had a leg cast full of technology which included syringes to inject painkillers, medicine, and increased healing factors into him, all monitoring his nerve stimulations remotely to inject those chemicals where needed and for what amount.He claimed, to me and me alone, that he was a time traveller, and he had come here in a time machine, from the future where he had unwittingly created a monster, and had unleashed it upon the world. He cried a lot about what he had done, and he regretted his actions so much that sometimes it felt as if he was drowning the entire room with them.One day, when he thought that he was ready, Jasper left in his time machine, to somewhere back in the future. He wanted to be punished for his actions, and because nobody was going to give that to him

"Nighty, Nighty," Emmet's mother used to call out to him, stroking his hair as he laid his head down on her lap, finding comfort in her warmth, finding solace in the quiet."Pyjama, Pyjama," Aunt Minnie called back from where she slept at the side, all three of them laid down on Emmet's mother's double bed.Emmet never understood how Aunt Minnie managed to sleep on her back with her arms crossed, her body completely still save for her shallow, repetitive breaths, forming the beat which his mother's hands followed as she continued to run her fingers through his hair.He had been attempting to grow his hair out, wanting long locks, just like his mother and aunt.He wanted to fit in with them more. He wanted to look more like them, and less like his father. He wanted to show his mother more support. He wanted to show his mother how similar they looked.Emmet had fallen asleep in his mother's lap that night, the sun sinking down against the clear sky t

Emmet sat there alone in the room for hours, waiting for Lila to return back for more food.He had sat alone in the silence, after she had left, doing nothing for a while.Without his constant work and then his scheming to keep Jasper safe, Emmet had dimly realised that his time with Lila had to be the first long stretch of a part of his life, in a long, long while, that he had been free to allow his mind to go blank.The thought had been pondered on briefly, celebrated for even less, before being summarily dismissed.Lila had taken advantage of it as well.Emmet had asked her a question and she had successfully managed to evade it and leave.Worse still, he was completely at her mercy here.If he ever wanted to find Jasper, then Emmet would need to plan out everything that he needed to do.He needed to keep his head above water and remain calm and steady, throughout everything that was going to happen.He couldn't let L