Bethany glanced at the cameraman filming her, her posture immaculate and her face poised to perfection. He nodded at her, signaling a completion of the current segment.

Bethany instantly slumped back into the chair she was sitting in. The pant suit she wore suddenly felt suffocating as she mulled over her most recent report.

“Was that real?” she quietly questioned the broadcaster next to her.

When silence greeted her question, she glanced up at him through her lashes. Her co-worker’s face was buried in his hands, his fingers wound deep into the tendrils of his hair.

She sat up and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Jim, you okay?”

“No, Beth, I’m not,” he sighed. “How can any of us pretend to be okay? Our country is being invaded and here we are. Sat in a fucking room just talking about it.”

“What would you rather be doing? It’s not like we can do much more than this.” She queried, confused by his response.

“I want to take my family and get the hell out of here before the threat becomes that much more dangerous,” Jim spat harshly.

He finally raised his eyes to look at Bethany. She was stunned to silence for a moment, the usually bright and cheerful eyes she knew Jim for were replaced by a somber pair of pupils.

“Then go,” she said with clarity.

“What?” he asked, surprised.

“You have a family, Jim. I don’t. I can run the update on this report alone. I’ll cover for you when the higher ups ask. Get out of here and keep your family safe.”

Jim gawked at her for a moment, studying her face for any regret or hesitation though he found none.

He stood from the news desk slowly.

“You’re sure?” he checked.

Bethany simply nodded once.

Not needing to be told again, Jim stumbled over the leg of his wheely chair as he took off towards their changing rooms.

Bethany watched him race through the studio and out the door in record time. For the first time since her career blossomed, she felt a pang of regret. Not for telling Jim to go, but for having no one she could flee to and no reason to run.

She had focused so much on becoming a newscaster, she never made time for love or a family. While every other day, she felt fulfilled, something about the current situation made her long for a person to comfort her.

She was utterly alone.

Bethany muttered a curse under her breath suddenly remembering a conversation with a friend the previous week. She realized her friend’s words had some truth to them after all. What if you wake up one day and realize you have one week left to live? Will your job matter then?

At the time, Bethany had just laughed off the comment as being overly dramatic. But, sitting in a room having just told the nation they were actively being invaded, she wondered if her friend was a psychic.

She took a deep breath and said a silent prayer that this whole situation would be over before she had time to properly fear for her life. Surely, the Caledornian army would intercept the Remdian soldiers before there was any death or injury. Bethany hoped so.

“Beth!”

She looked towards the sound of her name only to see the studio boss marching her way, a flustered pink hue coloring his face.

“Yes, Mr. Hugh?” she asked innocently, though she imagined he was about to ask about Jim’s disappearance.

“Where is Jim?” he demanded. “You’re live again in ten minutes!”

“Oh? So soon?” Bethany asked, ignoring the previous inquiry about Jim. She partially hoped to steer the conversation away from her co-worker, but mostly she hadn’t expected to go back on film for another hour. Knowing she’d be doing another report so soon filled her with dread as she imagined the situation had already escalated.

“Yes. Ten minutes. We’ve got someone on scene filming the invasion,” her boss casually responded.

There was almost a hint of excitement in his tone which made Bethany wince.

“Is that safe?”

Mr. Hugh scoffed, “Of course it is, this whole invasion is just a scare tactic.”

Bethany didn’t respond, she clenched her jaw instead, choosing not to pick a fight with her ignorant boss. Inwardly though, she screamed at his lack of compassion in such a trying time.

“Anyways, where the hell is Jim?” her boss asked.

She cleared her throat and looked him dead in the eye. “He left,” the words were said with a sense of pride she hadn’t realized she felt until that moment.

“W-What? Wh—” Mr. Hugh began pacing in two step increments, agitation seeping in. He glanced back at Bethany. “Why would he leave?”

She raised a brow at him, disliking the tone he had taken with her. She took a deep breath to regain her composure before she responded, “He was feeling ill and wanted to be with his family in the wake of everything developing. I can cover the story.”

Bethany felt the heat coming off her boss as he glared at her, “I don’t care if you can cover the story, he has a damn responsibility.”

Breaking tradition, Bethany was fed up enough to finally speak her mind to her boss. With a voice loud enough for the whole studio to hear she said, “Does he not have a responsibility to his family as well? Come to think of it, why are you here? Shouldn’t your family be a priority?”

Mr. Hugh stared at her, stunned by her interrogation and tone. The anger on his face only increased, metaphorical steam billowing from between his gritted teeth.

“Fine,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “Just cover the story.”

“I was going to anyway,” Bethany spoke, holding back a roll of her eyes.

Her boss’s knuckles turned white as his fingers curled in on themselves. Bethany might have feared him lashing out and hitting her, but a figure walking towards them quelled that thought. He wouldn’t do anything to taint his public image, she knew that.

“Beth, you’re on in five,” her manager announced, completely ignoring their boss. “We’ve got a team live on the scene. So far, it’s been soldiers invading, armed but not hostile as of yet. We’re hoping it stays that way but be prepared for things to potentially turn sour.”

Bethany watched her boss walk away in a huff before turning back to her manager. “Thanks for breaking that up.”

Her manager nodded and laid a script on the table for her to use, then walked off towards the camera crew.

Bethany scanned through the script. The first segment was an update, she speedily read through it searching for one data point. Her heartbeat settled down a bit when she saw the death toll was still zero. Feeling calmer, she read through the rest of the script.

All too soon, she was given a five second countdown.

The cameraman pointed to her, indicating she was on air. She greeted the population with her usual introduction and rattled off the updates she had received.

“Now, over to Gregory Brine who is live on the scene with more updates,” Bethany spoke with ease.

The camera panned over to a news reporter she knew well and dozens of enemy soldiers marching in the distance behind him.