Chapter 8
Haley
A moment of heavy silence hangs over us before Rose takes a deep breath and says, “Right, so, I guess we have that to look forward to. Maybe we should have lookouts or something? Just to keep an eye out for anything that could happen.” Dark circles of fatigue line her green eyes, and I’m suddenly reminded that she’s pregnant. The stress of abduction and then surviving a crash landing probably isn’t good for her condition.
“I’ll take the first watch,” Mara volunteers, nodding her head decisively.
We work out the watch schedule – I’m second in the lineup – and then we go our separate ways. Most of the women decide to do a more thorough search in the hopes of finding anything we might have missed the first time. I make my way over to where Rose is speaking to Jayden. As I approach, she sends the teenager off to dish up two bowls of the gray porridge for her and Zoe.
“Hey, Rose, how are you doing?”
She turns to look at me, and the lines of fatigue around her eyes are deeper than I thought. I need to convince her to rest, but so far, Rose has been a tower of strength in our ragtag group. She has rallied us all and been absolutely devoted to caring for Zoe. She won’t be happy with just resting.
“I’m fine.” Rose gives me a polite answer, then at my pointed look, she chuckles and shakes her head. “I hate complaining, but I’m exhausted and worried about . . .” She gestures with her hands at our surroundings. “Everything.”
A misting of unshed tears makes her eyes watery, and she takes a shuddering breath before continuing in a rush. “I’m really worried about the baby. What if. . .” Her voice trails off and her face crumples as the tears she was holding back overflow. “I keep thinking maybe it would be for the best.”
I reach out and pull Rose in for a hug, and for a few moments we cling to each other. I assure her that everything will be okay, but I don’t know if she believes my words. When I let go, I don’t know who needed the comforting embrace more – me or her - but I feel a little better than before.
We may have crashed landed into the unknown, but at least we aren’t alone. We have each other, and for right now, at least, we are free from the Zyfeliks. And that’s a huge win.
Who knows how long that will last, though, and I know we have to prepare for the future.
Jayden’s voice holds a thread of fear as she comes racing back over. “I can’t find Zoe.”
“What do you mean? She was just right. . .” Rose trails off as she points across the room to the empty spot next to where Maddie is resting with her eyes closed.
“Isabella said she went to use one of the bathrooms, but I looked and she’s not there.” The words tumble out in a rush from Jayden and she wrings her hands in worry.
Rose places an arm around the teen’s shoulders and squeezes trying to get the girl to calm down. “It’s okay. I’ll find her.”
My resolve to make sure she rests is strengthened, and I shake my head. “No, I’ll find her. You need to rest, Rose. Zoe’s probably just hiding somewhere.”
I pat her on the back and urge Jayden to go with her and make sure she rests. For a moment, Rose looks like she wants to balk and insist on searching for Zoe herself, but at my insistence, she agrees to compromise. She’ll stay in the medic bay and keep an eye on Emily and Maddie.
I quickly search through the entire ship without any luck. There’s no sign of the little blond-haired girl anywhere in either room. Not even under the metal cabinets or in any of the cells or the little alcoves that serve as bathrooms.
I don’t wish to alarm anyone or distract from their efforts to search through the spaceship for anything else that might be valuable to us, but I have to ask. So I inquire discreetly and ask the others, and none of them have seen Zoe. I ask them to keep an eye out for her. She has to be here somewhere.
As I walk slowly down the line of cells looking through each one again, my eyes land on the cell Isabella occupied, and I spot a detail that I hadn’t paid much attention to before. The back wall where the bed was originally is now a crumple of jagged metal. I step further into the cell and notice that there’s an opening there. It’s narrow and allows little more than a thin beam of sunlight to trickle in, but it is certainly large enough for a child to slip through. Surely, Zoe wouldn’t have ventured outside – she’s only six, she would’ve been too scared. Wouldn’t she?
“Zoe! Where are you? Zoe?” I call out softly. Please don’t let her have wandered off on this planet. This whole ordeal has been one clusterfuck after another. Something has to go right for once.
I suck in a deep breath and hold it as I squeeze sideways through the narrow opening barely managing to avoid scraping myself on the jagged metal, and I emerge into a world that astonishes me with its wild beauty.
Our ship is situated in the middle of a clearing and from the churned-up ground and debris, I assume the crash created it. A riotous mixture of towering trees and foliage in a kaleidoscope of greens, blues, purples, and pinks surrounds us. The large yellow sun in the sky beams down lending a golden light to everything. A turquoise sky stretches far and wide above me with fluffy clouds in various shades of white, pink, and purple.
It’s stunning and almost reminds me of Earth, but the colors are so bright and vibrant that it almost hurts my eyes at first. It’s as if someone adjusted the saturation settings to the maximum level on a photo. I long to just enjoy the beautiful scenery around me, but a shiver of apprehension runs down my spine and reminds me that this is not a vacation or a day out at the park.
While the surrounding woods are beautiful, they’re also thick and full of shadows that could conceal any number of things lurking in them. Anything could be out there and we wouldn’t know it. As I stare into the dense foliage, I can practically feel the eyes observing me, watching my every move.
I wrench my gaze away and that’s when I spot Zoe kneeling on the ground near a flock of birds. They have feathers in a kaleidoscope of colors like a mishmash of every parrot on Earth, but their necks and legs are thin like flamingos only slightly shorter. Their beaks are wide and orange and they use them along with their feet to sift through the dirt. Zoe watches the birds in fascination, quietly giggling at a smaller one’s antics as it chases after a bug. The birds look harmless, but I still eye them with caution and ease my way over to her so as not to startle them. Who knows what alien birds might be capable of?
“Zoe, I’ve been searching for you everywhere.” I really should scold her. This world is too much of an unknown for her to be outside by herself. That roar we heard still lingers at the back of my mind. We may have all agreed it was the wind, but it did not sound like any wind I’ve ever heard. It sounded like something big and menacing.
“Look at the birds! They’re so silly. I’m gonna name this one Peter cause he’s hopping around like a bunny.” She turns points out the smaller creature who has finally managed to catch the large blue bug it was pursuing and is now gobbling up its meal with gusto. Her mouth is stretched wide in such a sweet, happy smile as she watches the birds, and the scolding that was on my tongue disappears at the sight of her happiness.
“Peter? That’s a good name for him.” My mouth stretches into a gentle smile. “Zoe, we really need to go back inside so the birds can eat their lunch in peace.” At the little girl’s crestfallen face, I find myself adding, “We can come back and look for them tomorrow.” She is so young and as hard as this all has been on us, it’s probably doubly harder on her. If I can make her smile just a little by looking for the birds tomorrow, then I’m willing to do that.
“Promise?” Zoe looks up at me from where she’s crouched near the birds, her big blue eyes hopeful.
“I promise. Cross my heart.” I make an ‘x’ over my chest and return her smile, then hold out my hand for her to take.
Isabella steps through the opening and calls out to us, “There you guys are.” A beaming smile is plastered across her face as she excitedly waves us over. “Emily just woke up.”
“Really?!? That’s great.” I look down at the little girl. “Let’s go see Emily, okay? We’ll come back tomorrow to see the birds.”
Zoe bounces up from her position and grabs my hand. She skips alongside me as we walk the few yards back towards the vessel, humming a song under her breath.
I usher Zoe through the narrow opening with a sense of relief, but it’s tempered with a frisson of unease. There is still that niggling sense of being watched that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I pause and take one last look at the dense foliage and tall trees surrounding the clearing.
Something is definitely out there. I can practically feel its eyes on me, caressing me, leaving behind an odd trail of heat. My heart races and a shiver runs through me before I turn back towards the ship. Hopefully whatever is watching us is just curious and not dangerous. But knowing how shitty my luck has been lately, it’s probably some weird alien with a taste for dining on humans.
When we enter the medic bay, Emily is still lying in the scanner, but there’s a huge improvement from earlier. Her gray eyes are open and clear as she focuses on Mara.
“How are you feeling?” Mara asks her, as she leans over to check on Emily.
“Like shit.” Her voice is a soft whisper that is barely audible, but at least she’s finally awake and responding.
“Can you tell me your name? And where you are?” Mara asks.
“Emily Adams, and I guess I’m still on the spaceship.” She looks around at us.
I notice the deathly pale color of Emily’s skin has faded and her cheeks even have a slight pink hue to them. Wow, that med scanner works like magic.
Mara shoots her an apologetic look and responds, “Yeah, unfortunately you are. Wish you were home, right?”
“What happened to me?” Emily questions.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I remember waking up to lots of loud explosions and being tossed around, and that’s it. That wasn’t a dream, was it?” She asks, her eyes wide and questioning.
We fill her in on everything that’s happened. The crash, searching the ship for anything that could aid us, and the medic scanner.
None of us mention the loud roar or anything about returning to Earth. For the first few days, finding a way back home was all I thought about, but as each day passed and we travelled further and further away from our own galaxy, it became apparent that returning home was hopeless. And now that we’ve crashed, we’re probably stuck on this planet.
After a few minutes, Emily begins to tire and her eyelids droop low over her eyes. She releases a large yawn, then apologizes with a wobbly smile for interrupting Maddie’s recitation of how I ‘mopped the floor with that gray freak’.
I take charge and usher everyone away so Emily can get some rest, while Rose promises to sit nearby and keep an eye on her.
I walk over to the other side of the medic bay where the other girls have dragged the thin pads that served as mattresses on our cots. They’ve laid them out side by side along one wall. Since the medic bay is less damaged than the other room, we decided we would all sleep in here together.
I think we all feel a little safer staying close together, and safety is something that has been in short supply lately.