by AquaCat » Tue Aug 02, 2022 2:22 pm
Cieran finds, at the heart of every wasted second, a mirthful giddiness.
The solar system looks oddly quaint from a bird's eye view. It's bizarre to be so close to the most potent heat source in the galaxy and feel cold, yet she finds solace in the icy chill that creeps up her legs. For what felt like all of her life she'd spent studying, falling asleep in twenty-four-hour coffee shops and waking up with quad-shot mochas dripping down her chin. For this very moment of solitude, it was worth it. All of the time she spent counting the years, and then months, and then days, and then hours until the world would end--it was nice to waste the seconds.
Scratch that. It was a lot more than nice. It was downright blissful.
After her dad, renowned climate crisis eco-technologist and researcher Antoni Padilla, passed away, the world felt like it was plummeting into motion. Cieran found she had no time to mourn; her father had left the blueprints of the Cryon in her unwilling hands. With only half the genius he had, she fumbled to gain footing in the overwhelmingly established world of science. Even at seventeen, it was a topic she was poignantly avoiding; watching him work like a machine was just one of the many reasons she used to despise anything and everything eco-tech-related. She witnessed him lose his mind, and eventually, his life, to the Cryon.
But the world was relying on him. With promises of safety, security, a life after the end of the world, a continuation of the human race post-apocalypse, his passing marked a crucial moment in history. When he fell ill and snuck the Cryon research into her ownership and her ownership only, suddenly, all eyes were on Cieran Padilla. And she had no choice. After all, Antoni cared more about the Cryon than he did himself--and perhaps more than his only daughter. He had given up his youth for this project, and in a last-minute effort to somehow regain her father's tepid love for her and eke out any last remaining drops of human empathy from his cold, hard, and very dead corpse, she solemnly agreed that she would continue his legacy. She would learn, and she would test, and she would finish what he started. Maybe then, he would finally pat her on the back like he used to all those years ago, tell her she's his soul.
In the end, the painstaking research was worth it for this moment. She let the grandfather clock tick away with reckless abandon, a tinnitus that had once perpetually rang within her mind. There was no more time wasted; now, there was only time seized.
