”...Matt?” “Matt?” I felt my back get slapped, although it didn’t hurt. “Huh? What? What is it, Crystal?” Widening my eyes, I looked at her. I see we’ve escalated to physical assault… Ugh. “Yooo Matt, never realized how small you are… [Hic]... But duuude,  my phone has been making a lot of noise over the last few hours… I ain’t got any frickin’ idea what’s going ooon!! [Hic]”. “Huh? That’s weird.” I reached into my pocket and took a look at my phone, but when I tried to turn it on, it turned out the battery was dead. “Ugh, I probably forgot to charge my phone last night.” [Sigh…]

“Yoo bro no worries haha! You can check my phone, just don’t look at the gallery! BAHAHAHA!” Crystal slammed her fist on the table as she laughed loudly, it shook a bit. Oof. If she does any damage, I’m gonna pretend I’ve never seen this woman in my entire life. “Alright, then…” I reached towards it, grabbed her phone and took a look at the messages. “Oh… oh no…” Dennis sent us a bunch of messages regarding the meeting a while ago, but now it was just concern over us missing it. He did explain it at least. This was a bad idea… “Hey Michael, do you mind taking me to Silver T. Big?”

Michael replied, “Yeah sure chum-friend-buddy-o-pal, anything for you.” I didn’t know how to respond, but we got in his tiny ship, which was hard with Crystal, yet somehow, it worked. Soon enough, we were there. My embarrassment is killing me… Crystal and I stepped out of the ship. “Thanks Michael, I’ll see you soon. I have really important business to take care of, and it’s confidential.” “Yeah that’s fine, I’ll go enjoy the scenery a bit, if you want another ride call me!” He left… It’s gonna be hard to call him without battery, but whatever.

“Uh, Crystal, you think you’re in good shape to be at work?”

“What do you mean? I’m doing fine.”

“Wait, what?” I looked at Crystal awkwardly, she was standing normally, not having hiccups, and looked fine. Did she get sober that fast? Well I’m not gonna question it. “Nevermind, let’s just get in.” Crystal and I walked into the building, lots of people were already leaving, and there I saw Natalie, Arthur and Dennis. I’m prepared for the worst. “Oh, there you are, you two. What were you up to?” Natalie was visibly upset. I showed my phone to her. “I may have been dumb and forgotten to charge my phone…” “Ugh.” Natalie sighed. “Well, it doesn’t matter that much. You already know.” She took a small pause and clenched her fist. “I have no idea what to do, but with Arthur’s suggestion, it seems like the only thing we can do is wait.” “Yeah…” I looked down, feeling guilty and embarrassed. “Only wait.” Everyone just remained silent for a bit…

Arthur coughed, intentionally worsening the quality of his speakers to catch our attention. “Maybe we should hang out tomorrow? To put our minds somewhere else? Frankly, I’m tired, but I think tomorrow we could try to do something while we wait.”, “Oh, sure, we can do that.” Dennis smiled a bit. Natalie pondered. “If we finish our job activities quickly enough, we could spend a bit of time in the lunchroom.”. “Then it’s decided, tomorrow we will try to do something together.” I replied.

Yet again, here we are, we all smiled together. I don’t know how, but I’m not gonna question it, we’re able to hold a smile even after we fear for the unknown. We just went home after that. I didn’t want to bother Michael, so I just took a taxi home. Even if it meant yet another awkward encounter, but whatever. Walking to my room, I left my phone charging, and lied down on the bed. Not that I feel sleepy, though. But I don’t know what else to do.

I aimed my hand at the TV’s remote button and pulled it towards me with telekinesis, managing to successfully catch it with no problems. “Huh, that went surprisingly well.” I looked at it a bit, then just turned on the TV. Knowing my luck, the TV would just blow up, but luckily, the gods had smiled at me this day. Or maybe realistically I am finally getting the hang of magic. I just navigated to news broadcasts, and watched from the comfiness of my bed.

“With that said, here is the news about Emptiness. The anomaly hasn’t moved closer yet, but multiple Shielder departments are trying to discuss what to do regarding the situation.” Huh? I thought these meetings were gonna be fully private, why do the media know about it? Uhh… “But it’s alright, we don’t have to worry! After all, there’s a lot we owe to Shielders, so we can all say for certainty that everything will be okay. They’ll deal with it.”

Yeah, I think we’ll be able to deal with it, but that reporter says it so casually, I still have my doubts but I’m still trying to be optimistic. I’m just… Not completely sure if we’ll be able to deal with Emptiness, but I’m at least mostly sure, if that makes sense. Oh well… “And now, the weather. Looks lik-” I turned off the TV. And groaned into my palms in frustration. GOD! I don’t want to think of anything anymore, so I’ll just… Go to sleep already. I closed my eyes and stood still, off to sleep…