All Chapters of The Boy who Circled Time: Chapter 181 - Chapter 190

The man who had harassed her before, kept on going.Pressing closer and closer to her as she worked at her clerical desk job, making use of none of the skills that she had learned and developed during her studies, instead spending time budgeting, planning, handling requests to the department, creating templates, and other such tasks that the managers were supposed to do, and not her.The others were all assigned to their labs, doing the work that they had actually studied to do and weren't fumbling around like an idiot playing guesswork and barely managing to complete her tasks before their respective deadlines.She hadn't been expecting this when she had finally graduated and managed to get out of her university.Gretel hadn't expected there to be so much associated paperwork.And it certainly didn't help that her other colleagues sent her their results from the experiments, their personal notes for her to decipher, and the videos with their expec

"Didn't you here about the new hire being snubbed for the end of year bonus and pay rise?""I thought that it was all automatic. It was for us.""I heard that it was because she's from R2 and management didn't think that she was trained properly, so she wasn't allowed in the lab like she was supposed to be, so they didn't give her the pay rise.""Wait. If she's from R2, how's she even here?""It's through their employment programme. If the government wasn't supporting Border Schools, then she wouldn't even be here. Oh shit, she's right there." ... "Hey, aren't we supposed to have, like, another person in here with us?""Oh yeah. It's the girl that's been doing all our paperwork for us. I mean, she didn't even fight back or anything. Must be desperate for this job.""I need help with this set up. Liz's using the good screws so I'm gonna need you to hold this up for me. You're gonna be out of the way o

Gretel quietly put her letter of resignation of her supervisor's desk, turning away to open the door and walk down the corridor to the front entrance of the building.It was far too easy to get away with this.Nobody had particularly put in much effort to stop her and do anything in the slightest to make her stay.She guessed that they were all alright then with what would be soon upon them.Though she was a little pissed off that her supervisor had apparently signed off the paperwork that had been delivered to him to allow her to even move, without even reading what was on those sheets and without thinking through the consequences.Even more so considering that he had left his door locked and she had needed to go to the security office to ask for a key to get into the room to deliver her letter of resignation, stating it outwardly for all in the room to hear.These would be the only people that she would miss, their silent and solid presenc

Gretel had to pause at those words, her body unable to move or respond after hearing her supervisor scream at her like that.His voice echoed off from the walls of the building, bouncing around in her skull and and rattling about in her brain.The mild annoyance that she had felt before, back when she was with the security guard, returned with a fervour once more, heavier and darker to become anger instead, tinged with a cold sense of fear as well."You signed the paperwork, sir. I couldn't leave without your express permission and you signed the paperwork, I have digital copies of all the necessary documents with the date of their signage, if you want to dispute the allocation of my persons, though you will have to take that up with the Bureau of Internal Employee Affairs' Human Resources Department," Gretel intoned out to him, trying to keep her voice as level as she possibly could, internally wincing whenever she picked up on the inevitable tints of annoyance

There was a grate off to the side.Gretel never had to go back ever again.She had run out of there, and she never had to return.It would probably be for her benefit to at least speak to her supervisor to clear up the clerical error that he had made, but looking back at his demeanour, his shouting, and his screaming, she wasn't particularly inclined to go back.She had never heard him raise his voice like that before either.He had robbed her of her breath, her body of movement.It was as if her backbone had melted away and had left her body, fear taking its place as Gretel was left without the bravery and courage that she had so desperately needed.She hadn't done anything brave.She hadn't done anything courageous.She had run away.It was a miracle that she hadn't burst out into tears and had just collapsed onto the floor in tears.It was a miracle that she was even here, huddled under this grate, looki

Fire, Red_Two had to concede, was the only think that was keeping him alive.The red flush of fever, as he held his shivering and frozen hands on his face to warm them up, was the only sustenance that his body was receiving, the words of his mother, said in passing to someone he never knew and had never known, echoed in his brain."Your kid has that type of illness. He would live after just having water for two weeks and be completely fine."Red_Two hoped that he was suffering "that type of illness".He had no real other choice.Wandering around the forest, never stopping and always moving, following the river downwards as his only point of direction, his clothes had not dried.The shirt that he was wearing stuck uncomfortably onto his back, clinging onto his skin as if it wished to fuse and become one, the sweat that his back leaked outwards the perfect adhesive to keep them united and touching, refusing to be parted. No matter

The world was frozen around Lila. The walls were frozen, covered in ice.The floors were frozen, covered in ice.The bed was frozen, covered in ice.And the desk was frozen, covered in ice. She felt so, so cold sitting there, in front of her re appropriated fan heater that she definitely had not stolen due to its place within the recycling centre, and not something she found in somebody's home or on the school grounds left behind by some careless caretaker or some other member of staff.It wasn't her fault whether somebody, who had thrown it out first onto the large discarded pile of electronics next to the giant, heaving tubs, that were full to the brim and then some with old electronics - including but not limited to: old boxy televisions with their VHS slots on the bottom of them, which Lila knew, from experience, that only held a few working broadcast channels that were, even then, specifically timed to only r

Emmet's first crush was another boy.He had been in high school, the first time that he had seen the other.His hair was a deep, chestnut brown, slightly curly and in a different hairstyle every single day, the boy's hair long and flowing and something that he had never seen before on a man.It had awoken something within him, and as soon as he saw the other, he realised that he had wanted hair like his.He wanted hair like the boy's, and he wanted it to look just as good on him as it did with the other.Approaching him as easy enough, but broaching the conversation topic of his hair was something else.Emmet had been keeping his hair short, not allowing it to reach past tickling his shoulders, the heat of the summer usually being too much for the back of his neck to handle, itching and uncomfortably wet with sweat, so he had Aunt Minnie cut it for him every single year, waiting for it to grow back out and needing to be cut again soon enough

Lila had been an unwanted, lonely child.Her parents had gotten married because their grandparents had demanded it.Her parents had produced children because their grandparents had demanded it.Lila knew that she wasn't liked, that she was a burden, that she was unloved.It didn't matter to her at all at the time, the notion and reminders of it only rearing their ugly head whenever she messed up.Only when she wrote with her left hand, only when she walked with her feet pointing inwards, only when she opened her mouth when her mother didn't want to speak, and only when she liked the wrong colours, the wrong flowers, the wrong shapes, was she punished.It didn't matter. It didn't matter.It didn't matter.It didn't matter. It didn't matter.It didn't matter.It didn't matter. It didn't matter.It didn't matter.It didn't matter. It didn't matter.

A hand wrapped itself around Gretel's arm, and harshly pulled her upwards, each and every individual finger squeezing around the skin, flesh and bones there, the force of it all being a brand intent on searing the circular marks of the pain into her body forever.Her eyes brust open and her mouth automatically fell in pain, as she instinctively lashed out towards the offending limb, ready to get a decent jab in with her free arm, when that limb was also restricted.Panting from the exertion of keeping herself going, tied down and held back at both sides, Gretel forced herself to look around and see what was truly happening around her, ready to use her legs to exact her revenge and bring herself to freedom once more.First, her gaze settled on where she was receiving the most pain - the direction of the first constriction of her limbs, those fingers squeezing tighter and tighter, as if they were the type of snakes that would first suffocate and break the necks of