The Air Out Of [Wattys2018 shortlist]

01

ASPYN VICHE WAS STANDING NEXT TO THE PORTAL, patiently awaiting the fate of her home. After all, it wasn't every day that her mother would specially request for her to stand next to a lawn with a circle drawn somewhere in it for three hours straight for no reason whatsoever.

Unreasonable, she may call it, but unnecessary was a more fitting word to describe the peculiar reason to why one of the smartest girls in the entire world and galaxy had to pause a session of gruesome deliberation to decide the absolute deadbeat fate and future of her home to wait for a group of people that would only prove useless in a matter of time. She wasn't sure if they would even accept the burden once they finally got there.

But they would come, eventually.

This was the most obnoxious thing she had ever had to endure in her entire life, and in all honesty, this might've sounded far fetched but true.

Wow, she thought. These group of teenagers was certainly taking their time to stroll around. She had been promised that they would come. They would, they had to.

She was not sure what to expect of the people her mother had asked her to wait for. Whether or not they were going to be as rude as possible, filling her with a billion questions and unreasonable demands. But nevertheless, she was to follow her mother, a woman after her own heart.

Gazing at the cytoplasm-like substance which shot up from the red circle was anything but her definition of fun. This was the sight she'd have to feast her eyes on for the next three or so hours. In fact, it was beyond boring and a complete waste of time. Apparently, looking at a nearly-transparent substance hanging atop a red circle painted neatly on a patch of grass was somehow supposed to entertain her. Overanalyzing the situation once more, She realized that she'd very much rather be looking at the statistics in the control room with scientists at least ten years older, but not as brilliant as her having a debate on their next move, or even inducing in one of her pranks to shake the living daylights out of her younger brother, who himself was currently tangled in his own mess.

"Hey." Her six-year-old brother, Mason greeted her as he passed her by in a crisp suit to his fifth meeting today. "Are the lavine's not here yet."

There were two things that would never come together, and that is a six-year-old boy, and said boy wearing a crisp suit to his fifth - not first - meeting that day. Aspyn let her gaze flicker back to the clock on her watch. Half-past noon.

"Where are you off to?" Aspyn had been exempted of all her training sessions, meetings, and etiquette adjustment classes that day because her mother had practically demanded her to sit by a circle to wait for strangers she couldn't even begin to describe, so expectedly, she was left out of the loop and city buzz for today.

Oh, how she missed her tight schedules and the overloaded amount of work she had to deal with.

A Goddess-looking group of people that act anything but, and wear next to nothing, she thought quietly to herself before changing it to something sounding more her generation, Snarky teenagers.

"Meeting." Her younger brother whispers quietly in a British accent that matched hers, motioning towards his formal attire. "Sometimes I just get sick of it."

"Normally," Aspyn says instantly standing up from her bored sitting position, hoping for some entertainment, after all, she'd be here the whole day. "I would ask for a trade, but given the circumstances, I'm actually better off dying in boredom."

"Than dying in political pain?" Her brother grins, activating the only six-year-old resemblance in his body.

Aspyn feels a smile crawling up to her face before a man in a suit as crisp as her brother's taps him lightly on the shoulder as if to politely motion him to move it. "Go." She says, and he does, but not before shooting her a help me gaze.

She glances at her watch, it reads one hundred and seventy-six minutes, also known as, two hours and fifty-six minutes left of waiting.

It adds: Oh Aspen, good luck.

Daintily rubbing her tired, bloodshot eyes with her perfectly manicured fingers, all Aspyn can really think about is what she'll be doing in her next meeting. Perhaps discussing their next move to engage society in political affairs, or maybe, they'll finally acknowledge the real problem arising faster than ever.

A problem that everyone, including her mother - one of the calmest personas - would choose to delay until the very last moment they need to.

She wasn't looking forward to it, though. The last time her mother had even remotely mentioned about the problems arising from their seventy-year-anniversary graves, she had gotten roped into becoming the personal waitress to anyone entering the portal.

Two hours and fifty-seven minutes in the future, Aspyn is beyond dehydrated, as she likes to exaggerate. She thinks quietly to herself like she does with anything as she continues to heavily thump her way against the grand staircase heading towards her mother, who, diagnosed with an unknown variant of poison, is stuck in bedrest.

Really, she doesn't know what to think, or who to blame. All her mother's advisors are beyond loyal to the point they'd jump before a gun if it had meant saving her life. But for some reason, she can't help the unwithering sensation that it could've been one of them continually poisoning her mother.

Mason stood next to her, his arms folded against his chest, hoping for an update, any update regarding her health. But every doctor says the same. It's unknown, and therefore, incurable. But, they'll do their best.

However, the biggest problem, in Aspyn's very own knowledgeable opinion is the uncertainty. The fact that there is a possibility of it, and maybe, tells Aspen that she will lose her mother, and it's only a matter of time. She's tried her best, but all efforts are hopeless, and no matter how much she wishes to save her mother, she knows she can't.

She knows they can't.

And this comes from Aspyn, a regular eighteen-year-old girl, who went through the same as her six-year-old brother when she was five. A girl, capable of entering college by age ten, and earning a Ph.D. by fifteen, and now eighteen.

But she has to stay strong. After all, within a matter of time, she's got a country to rule.

And another to fight. 

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CHAPTER ONE!

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Soph