Once upon a time, there is a world where emotions live as living organisms. A place where one being emotional is a perilous threat, a catalyst that can lead to war between one another, a past that has brought trepidation and terror to every emotizen (citizen). It is a history that never bound to happen again.

Love and peace once again shine through every crevice of the world.

But the atmosphere alters.... It begins with a duo, a pair of opposite emotizens. 

Under the shades of emerald leaves, there reviews a girl languidly lying against the round oak tree, cheeks with rosy hues, loose hazel braid down her back, sky blue eyes concentrating on the book that she read. Sudden footsteps on the burden of dried leaves towards her elicits her attention. Seeing a figure with shimmering fiery hair under the golden-lemon rays of sunlight, she smiles cheerfully.

Eyes filled with curiosity, the redhead sits on the ground in front of her, bending forward, trying to get a view of the cover. ‘Euphoria, what are you reading?’ she asked while poking at her peach-pink cheeks playfully.

Euphoria sets her book aside and catches her finger. She tugs Maddie by the arm until she relents and lies supline, placing her head on her laps, looking up at luminating apple-green and lime-yellow thin flat lightbulbs hanging from the branches. 

‘It was my mother’s journal.’ With that, she strokes Maddie’s hair, taming her wild curls.

‘What’s it about?’ Mady murmurs and gazes for her attention. 

‘It was about her first date with dad and it’s really funny. She...’ she is silenced by a sudden appearance of Mady’s finger on her cherry-pink lips.

‘Nu-uh, I don’t want to know the deets,’ With that, Phoria laughs while Mady shakes her head in disgust. Soft, glorious echoes of laughters blooms across remote enchanting forest.

‘Beaut bonza! I thought since I couldn’t get gummyberries at grannies’ garden today, I came to school early. And now, I prefer to be tardy instead.′ This sends her into even more dramatic hysterics and she tries to halt, elegantly cupping her mouth with her right hand, but to no avail.

‘That’s it, I’m leaving,’ Mady endeavours to rise up but Phoria refuses to let her go, hugging her friend from behind, leaving a dead weight on Mady.

Mady peers at the watch on Phoria’s wrist, and urgently pats her arms, ‘There’s 7 minutes more before class starts!’ At high speeds, she gets out of her warm embrace and aids Phoria to pack up her silver backpack. 

‘Don’t open my bag!’ shrieks Phoria, seizing her arms from grabbing her bag quickly and instantly requests Mady to close her eyes.

‘Are you serious?’ demands Mady and sighs ′ Fine,′ when she is welcomed with the sight of puppy-like pleading eyes. 

‘Open your eyes!’ Phoria says with excitement. The moment when Mady does it, a small plastic bag of  gummies dangles in front of her at a close proximity. Annoyance on her face melts and wonder seeps in. She takes them and cuddles her bestie tight, ‘¡Gracias, mi amiga!’ she shrills, litting up in delight.

As the day became late afternoon, the sky was a mixture of azure and aquamarine. The wind ran across the city with enthusiasm. Phoria’s hair flowed along as the breeze tugged her hair gently. Sitting on a silver-bronze bench at the grassy field, she waited patiently for Mady’s arrival. 

Taking her sketchbook from her bag, she drew the scenery ahead of her, a irregular-shaped pond near an enormous oak overwhelmed with emerald-green leaves. The oak’s casted a faint shadow over the pond as the sunset-orange began to glow. 

A few minutes later, Mady’s sudden voice entered her ears among the silent symphony. Startled, she turned back and saw her best friend smirking then Mady questioned ′ What are you doing?′

′ Capturing the view of my surroundings.′ This was quite different from what Phoria used to be. Nature was her passion, touching their inherent creatures and knowing them were her joy more but never staying far away from them. Something’s wrong...

Approaching her with a different subject, she smiled and asked,′ Guess what did I bring today? ′ 

‘Gummyberries?,’ Without any hestitation, Phoria answered with a small grin.

′ That’s one of them but I’ve brought something else... Come on, think!′ she said as she shook Phoria’s shoulder. Putting her sketchbook and pencil away, she tried her best to figure it out. 

′ Book ?′ Mady grimaced at the sound of it and shook her head no.

‘Waterberries?’

‘Lollipop?’

‘Pumpkin sugar?’

Phoria snapped her fingers. ‘Ah... I think I know it now.’ Mady gave her a skeptical look.

′ Chocolate!′ Phoria exclaimed.

‘You make me sound like a candy shop,’ Mady let out a puff of frustration. She shushed Phoria from tossing any other fruitless answers by placing a finger at her lips. ′ Close your eyes,′ she requested.

′ Open...′ Before Mady could continue her sentence, Phoria blinked open her baby-blue eyes. A small bag of fish food daggled in front of her.

′ You want to feed the fish?′ she enquired while cocking her eyebrow, gazing at Mady questioningly. ′ Ok! Let’s do it!′ she grabbed the bag and they sat near the pond.

As soon a biscuit was thrown, a lemon-streaked guppy caught it and munched enjoyably. Phoria laughed, ′ You did that everytime I fed you gummyberry. So adorable!′ and then she mimicked the action. 

Mady gave her an expressionless face and muttered, ‘Funny,’. As much as she disliked the metaphor, she couldn’t help but smile on the inside, seeing Phoria’s true self again.

Grabbing a handful, she threw them up, making them scatter across the water surface. A colourful school of koi weaved through the crowd and snatched the food, then waved their tails in triumph as they glided away. 

A small pair of black beady eyes peered from the shadowed edge of the pond. As it moved out from hidding place, it revealed a baby turtoise with a thorny umber shell. Phoria threw some near it and grinned as it managed to eat most of it before his friends took them. 

Maddy once again sent the tiny round biscuits showering. Drops echoed faintly. Ripples of waves ebbed away as the fish swam around to devour them. The pond was like a watercolour painting, filled with different shades of scintillating scales under the glimmer of sunset.

The baby tortoise crawled out of the side of the pond and moved towards Phoria’s knee. Struggling to reach the height, Phoria held it up and placed it on her lap. The unexpected aid made me it shrunk back into its shell. ‘Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you,’ she whispered. After a few moments, it slowly came out and glanced at her curiously. Using her index finder, she patted its head softly. At first, it was rigid with shock but as seconds ticked by, it got used to it accepted her affection by rubbing its head against her finger like a cat. 

‘I won’t go to college,’ Phoria sighed. 

Mady’s eyes gaped open wide and screamed, ‘What? It was your dream!’ 

′ Papa was barely hanging on with the shop. I once heard that he’s lack of fund and borrowing money from the bank during a discreet phone call at the backyard. I don’t want to burden him further,′

′ We will find a way like we always do, alright?′ Mady held Phoria’s hand, trying to comfort her. 

′ Maybe this is not my destiny,′ Phoria told her with a melancholic grin. 

′ We’ve been through thick and thin together. I’m not going to let you give up like this. You healed me, now it’s my time to do the same,′ Phoria was touched and amazed with Mady’s rare emotional words. Lying her head against her shoulder, she looked up in the beautiful sky that was now shimmering with a cluster of stars and mumbled, ′ I don’t know what to do without you,′ 

 ′ You will never need to wonder that possibility. We’ll always be together as one.′ With that, she put her head on Phoria’s and indulged the starry night.

' We will find a way like we always do, alright?' Mady held Phoria's hand, trying to comfort her.

' Maybe this is not my destiny,' Phoria told her with a melancholic grin.

' We've been through thick and thin together. I'm not going to let you give up like this. You healed me, now it's my time to do the same,' Phoria was touched and amazed with Mady's rare emotional words. Lying her head against her shoulder, she looked up in the beautiful sky that was now shimmering with a cluster of stars and mumbled, ' I don't know what to do without you,'

' You will never need to wonder that possibility. We'll always be together as one.' With that, she put her head on Phoria's and indulged the starry night.

Kate Blabber stood inches away from the new girl, comtemplating to introduce herself. Impatient, Maddie snapped at Kate, ′ What the heck are you doing?′

‘I’m testing the water, I might scare her away, ’ she whisperred back while bitting her nails nervously.

′ Why don’t you test me instead?′ Cocking an eyebrow, she looked at her with a smirk then munched on a indigo plump gummy.

′ Why would I want to test the lava?′ Kate answered. A soft chuckle elicited from Phoria, who tried to halt her giggles by biting her rosy lips.

Gazing at Kate with pure hostility as the listeners around them struggled hard not to laugh, Kate cowered away like a guilty dog before Maddie could utter another word. ‘Umm... I probably should go,’ she left quickly, avoiding invisible daggers shot at her back.

Busy scribbling workings for her maths homework, Phoria feigned a calm facade. ‘Anything that ticks you today, my dear friend?’ Maddie questioned with wiggling eyebrows.

′ Oh...Nothing at all, my adorable tiger’ she exaggerated the last words with a smile that threatened to turn into peals of laughter.

′ I’ll make it possible then,′ In a flash, index fingers poked Phoria’s hips. Drilling them in, a surprise cry resonated across the canteen. Falling out, she whimpered for mercy as she tried to get away but to no avail.

A sudden deafeningly loud ring saved her from further abuse. Wiping her tears, she squealed at Maddie, ′ It hurts!′ then blushed into shades of tomato as she realised that everyone was staring at her.