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The office sounded like the grumble of the ocean when it retreats during a storm that January morning. Everywhere I looked, my coworkers darted from each cubicle to the next, holding papers and hissing to each other incomprehensible words of rushing and agitation. We were like frantic bees in the hive being startled by smoke.
Sienna approached me, possibly expecting that I truly was clueless about what caused the great yet unsettlingly silent commotion. I was thrown off balance as I had just then left the bookstore, the place where everything seemed to be the epitome of peaceful quiet to me. Now back here in the gallows, the quiet was far removed from peace- like the steady gurgle of a volcano impending to explode.
My friend wore a distraught expression on her face. "Eden, hey…"
"Hi." I greeted back, the two of us walking to our workplace. "What's going on?"
"A terrible thing. I won't even try to sugarcoat it." Sienna replied. "It seems that the auditing department has to be dissolved."
A sharp shatter echoed painfully in my head, causing my brow to crumple up. She sat me down, trying to distract herself with organizing the tasks on our table. "Why? Whatever the reason?"
"It seems that a big corruption case had been going on all this while. And Premier Reagan thinks he ought to investigate." She explained. I looked around the bustling place, as coworkers talked over coffee, the gray looks of anxiety shadowing their faces. "I think that it's all part of his ruse about reforming government, and he's parading it around as a corruption case. He's withholding information from us little people."
"So he thinks we're all in on this corruption case? Us who have no clue what the hell is even going on?" I asked. A boiling dread grew in my stomach by the minute. This means I could lose my job. Lose the only thing I had to support me and keep me independent, at least by half, from my brother. "They can't do this to us."
"Frankly my darling, we can't do anything about it but wait it out," Sienna said in a hush. "For now I think it's safe to start job hunting. You know our Prime Minister. Whatever he puts his mind into, it happens. He wants to replace everyone, that's what the board thinks."
That was exactly what I was terrified of occurring- the need to find another job. A web of possibilities formulated in a snap inside my mind, the different events that could lead to various consequences. If I lost this job, I'd have to find a new one- and who in their right mind would take in an employee of a parliament ministry that was convicted of a crime, no matter if false? I'd have to wait until the issue boiled down before I could get a decently paying occupation. I didn't mind waiting, but the thing I worried about most was how to keep the bookstore alive, and how to help Mr. Pascal with his treatments… And worst of all, how to keep myself from being my older brother's helpless ward.
"Babe, don't spiral into deep thought right now." Sienna snapped me back to the present, putting a caring hand over my shoulder. "Let's see how far the lawyers can take us."
"Far enough to save money before the crisis, I'd guess." I sighed out. With all my mental power remaining, I tried to focus on the paperwork that were waiting on my desk, empty sheets of numbers that felt like a final sentence to me.
"I'd offer you any help I can when this is over and we don't win, E, but you know what my situation is…"
I gave my good friend a sympathetic look. "You're too kind, Sienna. We'll get by. It's what girls like you and me have always done."
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Right Where You Left Me | Reiner Braun
Fanfiction"We should have left it at that but we didn't. That was our gravest mistake, wasn't it? We crossed the line we ourselves drew." It wasn't in the cards for either of them. Not for him, who was a sworn soldier with a definite number of years to live...
