Tevin's Avenging Fire

It was a lovely morning, the sun shone brightly with early dew glistening in the grass. The birds chirped happily as I walked along towards the forest.

“Hello Mr. Franklin!” A friendly voice greeted me.

I turned to see my neighbor, Mrs. Mayfield, on her porch. She waved at me enthusiastically as she had done every day for the past five years. I smiled and waved back before returning my gaze to the path ahead of me.

The road was still wet from the night’s rain, but it wasn’t muddy this time around, making it easier to walk on. I continued on my way towards work, greeting others along the way and receiving pleasant morning greetings in return.

It took me a while to get there, but after a couple hours of walking in the sun I made it to my workplace. It was a modestly sized building surrounded by trees full of rich green leaves; their branches swayed gently in the wind as I made my way to the front door. With a tired sigh I opened the door and walked inside.

Inside I was greeted by Rianne, one of my co-workers. She had short light brown hair and sharp green eyes that were hidden behind glasses today. “Morning Tevin! How are you doing? Nice weather we're having today isn't it?” She chirped at me energetically as she tossed her own backpack into a locker and made her way over to her desk where she sat down and started working without even bothering to look up at me once during her entire spiel, not that anyone would expect anything less from Rianne who tended to talk really fast when she got excited about something like this weather or whatever other random topic seemed interesting today…

I sat down at my desk heavily, barely able to keep my head up else it might just roll onto the floor right now. As much as I wanted to keep going with this job I knew that if I didn't get some sleep soon then I'd collapse right here while working... Hopefully no one would notice until long after I had passed out onto my keyboard...

I think Rianne noticed because she immediately stopped talking and looked at me with concern written all over her face. "Are you alright Tevin?" She asked worriedly, standing up quickly so she could come over to check if I was okay… or dead maybe?

"I'm fine." I grumbled under my breath so quietly that only dogs could hear me if they were paying attention, but Rianne heard me regardless… which is what happened as she gasped and grabbed me by my shoulders so hard that it almost hurt despite how soft her hands were from all those hours spent typing away into a computer all day long… That's not saying much though since most people have soft hands nowadays thanks to genetic modifications that helped prevent people from having calluses build up on their palms like people used to hundreds of years ago… It was one of those little things that many people took for granted these days because they never experienced what it was like before the era of genetic modification began so long ago… Funny how things changed so quickly when we developed technology faster than our bodies could adapt to it…

There were two other people sitting across from us: Manon who was busy chatting quietly with Victor who seemed more interested in staring intently into his computer screen than anything else going on around him today, although he did give me a slight nod when he noticed Rianne fawning over me rather than working at her own station like usual… Maybe he didn't want Rianne interrupting his important work or perhaps he just didn't feel like talking today? Hard to say really since Victor tended to be very quiet most days unless he felt like talking about his new girlfriend, Jessie… Which happened more often than not these days thanks to their relationship strengthening quite a bit lately since they decided to move in together recently… Although that was probably due more towards Jessie's wanting them both to live together instead of being pressured into moving in by Victor alone... As far as relationships went Victor's relationship with Jessie was fairly normal despite him being a bit older than her; they genuinely seemed happy together which was nice because otherwise I probably wouldn't have been able to stand listening too closely when they started bickering loudly in the office when things weren't going well between them... Nowadays things were different between them besides how annoying they could get sometimes with all their blabbering about each other; those little moments didn't last long anymore thanks to their stronger bond now… Well unless Victor got jealous for some reason which happened every once in awhile but only lasted for an hour or so before he calmed down again... *sigh* How do people manage relationships without getting weird feelings for each other every now and then? At least Victor managed his jealousy better than any other man ever had before him so there wasn't really any point questioning whether his relationship with Jessie would last longer than any other relationship ever has because chances are they'd probably end up living together forever if they lived even past a hundred years old thanks to genetic modifications keeping everyone alive longer these days... At least that's what the scientists claimed anyway; who knows if anybody actually believed them or not? People believed everything nowadays and very little of it turned out true either.. But hey, what can you do except try your best each day and hope things turn out okay... That's all any of us can do anyway so just deal with it already!

I let out an annoyed grunt at myself for getting distracted by such thoughts again today especially since thinking about relationships tended to make me uncomfortable before lunchtime most days; luckily lunchtime came early today thanks to Rianne annoying me out of this state early enough for me not freak out too badly until noon rolled around again tomorrow… Hopefully no one will decide to talk about relationships during lunch today otherwise this afternoon won't be pretty considering how much trouble Victor's jealousy put him through last week after Jessie decided she wanted more space from him for whatever reason… He had gotten pretty clingy for several days afterwards which ended up driving Jessie away from him until he finally decided he needed some space himself… Then things got worse until they both realized they cared about each other too much to let things go that far again; after that everything returned back to normal on its own until Victor started talking about moving in together again last week which brought back bad memories for poor Jessie whose face cringed after hearing such news… Fortunately they only talked it over while they were deciding whether or not moving in together early would be worth ignoring all their rules against rushing into such decisions so quickly or not (a rule which Jessie created herself) thus avoiding any unnecessary drama between them altogether this time around… Only time would tell if they'd actually follow through with such plans though or if they'd change their minds later on when things got boring between them again like always happens sooner or later no matter how close two people are nowadays with genetic modifications keeping everyone alive longer these days! *sigh* Sometimes life is hard!

"You look tired!" Rianne said suddenly pushing away from me and returning back over to her station where she sat down heavily without looking at me again as if nothing had happened earlier (which meant she didn't notice how embarrassed I got after hearing how terrible this morning supposedly looked for some reason…) "How late did you stay up last night studying?"