The Machine stopped.

“Out. Now.” Tara spat.

Edel scrambled out of the Machine into the room, crumpling on the linoleum floor. The room looked the same as they had left it – the same woman, the same desk. But at the same time, the room looked off. The woman behind the desk; were those new earrings? That coffee mug; hadn’t it an expressed a disdain for Mondays, not Fridays?

“Everything alright?” Tara barked at the woman.

The woman looked up from the device in her hands, her blue brown eyes sparkling with excitement. “Great! Welcome back!”

Tara’s jaw remained tense. She began pacing back and forth, glancing periodically out the large city-side window. “Alright, Edel.” She stopped, still looking at the city outside instead of her traveling companion. “Out. Now. And don’t ever come back.”

Edel froze, confused, scared.

“I said get out,” Tara said again, her voice rising.

Edel’s legs shook as she attempted to stand, her hands twitching, the air not feeling quite right on her skin. It felt warmer, smelled sweeter. The sky above the city was tinted pink with sunset. She felt an unplaceable unease in the pit of her stomach, an anchor sat in her gut that rooted her to the spot. She looked again to the woman behind the desk. “What… what are you playing?” she said, almost whispering.

The woman grinned eagerly. “Lokémon Legends L-A, of course!”

Edel, halfway to standing, collapsed once more to the floor. Her fingers, numb and clumsy, grasped at the muck stuck to her boots. She held up a blot of mud, oozing slowly between her delicate fingers. “No, no no. It can’t be, not something so small!”

Exposed by the dripping soil, sparkling silver and cerulean, was a butterfly, its gorgeous wings crumpled by the weight of a mighty boot. Her shaking fingers lost their grip, and the paper-thin wings fluttered lazily to the floor.

“No,” Edel mumbled to herself. “No, not something so small. It couldn’t possibly, not a butterfly.” The anchor in her stomach weighed heavier, the depths it was descending toward becoming icy cold. She could barely muster the words: “Th-the election yesterday. Who won? Who’s president?”

The woman behind the desk reared back in confusion, as if holding back a laugh. “Are you kidding? Chyme, obviously. Everyone loves her! We’ve got the most beautiful politician on the entire world stage!” She paused, reading the fear across Edel’s face. “What’s wrong?”

Edel stumbled, crawled towards Tara, grasping the sparkling wings with all the might she could muster. “Please,” she begged, tear-filled eyes looking desperately at the muscular woman above her. “Please, we have to do something. We can’t- there has to be- Please…”

Her eyes blurred with tears. She saw the vague shape of the woman above her move, heard a heavy sigh and a latch being pulled. As her tears cleared, she saw Tara raise the black and white spiral before her eyes.

There was a sound of an anime girl saying “*~WOW~*.”