I headed right along the corridor, peeking behind curtains as I went. My younger cousins were next, some of them sleeping two to one bed, then Jessie’s family, Rosalie, and Robert further along. Thank the stars he was safe. I wondered how many people he had managed to save, if any. I hoped we hadn’t lost anyone.
After I finished checking out that side of the aisle and determined that my parents were not there, I walked back the way I had come and checked all the others. Almost everybody was asleep.
There was still no sign of my parents.
I gripped the handle of the door at this end of the corridor and pushed. There was the sound of pressurized gas as it swung open, and I was hit with a slightly cooler atmosphere. I stepped into a large, round, dimly lit room, bordered with sofas. My eyes widened as I took in how many sleeping figures were packed in here—almost fifty, lined up like sardines on the floor. There weren’t enough bunks on this aircraft and, apparently, that green gas had drained the lot of us.
My eyes passed over a clock above some kind of canteen in one corner of the room. It read five-thirty. I blinked.Five-thirty… in the morning? It had to be. Which meant that a whole night had passed.
I quickened my pace as I picked my way across the room, trying not to step on anybody. I headed straight for the door at the opposite end and gripped the handle. It opened with a soft hiss, revealing another large, round room, packed with more of our sleeping people.
Again, none of them were my parents.
Trying not to panic—after all, I hadn’t finished exploring the hover ship—I quickly crossed this room, too. The next room brought me to the area I was hoping to find.
A medical bay, stocked with wheeled trays that were piled with bottles, bandages, and other medical equipment. This area was a little like the one I had woken up in, with a narrow corridor behind the bay, holding bunks on either side. But it was smaller, with perhaps only twelve beds in total.
I moved past the bay, which was currently empty, and looked behind the first curtain on the right. Mr. Sturridge lay there, some kind of transparent mask attached to his mouth and nose, which I guessed was meant to assist his breathing. My heart ached. His chest heaved slowly up and down, and his face looked ever so pale. At eighty-seven, he was one of the most elderly members of our community, and I suspected he had managed to breathe in more green gas than his body could handle. I closed the curtain, not wanting to disturb him, and tentatively moved on to the next bunk, fearing whom I might see.
It was an infant, a baby girl, also attached to a transparent mask. Peter’s daughter. She, too, looked pale, though her breathing was steady, and when I reached out to check her pulse, it was strong.
The next eight bunks contained more infants and elders, all hooked up to masks, which left me with thefinal two bunks at the end of the hallway. I held my breath, my fingers reaching for the curtains. I pulled them aside and exhaled in relief.
My parents lay dozing. Neither had masks, which I took as a good sign, but I could only imagine what pain they had been through. Portions of their arms and legs were wrapped in white casts. My mother also had a support around her neck, and a bandage had been wrapped around her thigh, where she had been shot.
They were in a terrible way but they were breathing and, in this moment, I could only be thankful for that. It would take time to heal, but they were survivors. They would get through this. I was tempted to lean over and plant kisses on both of their foreheads but refrained, not wanting to wake them. With bones to heal, they, more than anyone, needed to sleep.
I closed both curtains and turned to face the direction I had come from. I considered returning to Bea’s and my bunk, but I was wide-awake now, and incredibly curious to see more of the ship.
Most importantly, I wanted to know more about the people who had saved us.
I swiveled on my heels and headed in the opposite direction. I passed through another door and emerged in some kind of storage area, whose walls were covered with metal cupboards. In one corner was a little table. Two uniformed crewmembers sat on either side of it: a young man and a woman, hunched over tins of food and talking quietly. They looked familiar, and I realized they were probably the two people who had emerged on the ramp with Anna yesterday.
They had obviously heard me enter, but didn’t bother to look up in my direction, so I decided to keep moving and look for someone less preoccupied to talk to.
Through the next door was a chamber lined with sinks and toilet cubicles. Beyond that was another one of those large,round rooms. Uniformed crewmembers sat relaxing on the sofas, talking softly.
My eyes were drawn to the walls on either side of me. There were windows in this room and the softest pale light trickled through them. I moved over to the closest one to me, kneeled on the sofa that was positioned in front of it, and pressed my face against the thick glass.
I gasped. My eyes drank in an endless expanse of water. We flew over an ocean, with not even the smallest speck of land in sight.
I forgot to breathe for several heartbeats. I had seen a map of the world before, of course, and taken geography classes—at least, geography as it had pertained to the old world—so I knew such incredible masses of water existed. But seeing it for the first time was another thing entirely. I blinked, struggling to take it all in. It was beautiful and terrifying all at once.
A spike of anxiety stabbed my insides.
We were putting so much faith in this metal contraption, to carry the lives of hundreds of people. What if the engines failed? What if the humans who built this thing got it wrong?
A hand closed over my shoulder and I jumped.
I turned to see Anna standing behind me. She had a faint smile on her face.
“Enjoying the view?” she asked.
I nodded tensely and moved off the sofa to stand next to her.
This was the first time I properly saw the woman up close. Her skin was shades paler than mine, as if she didn’t let it touch the sun much. Her eyes were dark brown, but flecked through with an unusual pale green, catching the light in a way that made them seem almost iridescent. There was a fresh, rosy tint to her cheeks, which along with her thick eyebrows and bouncy hair-do, added youth to her appearance. She also had a goldpiercing in her right nostril, and on her neck, just beneath her ear, was a small tattoo of a unicorn… which struck me as kind of weird. I’d only read about those in kids’ fairytales.
“Yes,” I replied, trying to shove the thoughts away. I still felt disconcerted from the view.
