Chapter 24

Charity awoke to find her right arm bound tightly, smarting in pain. Charity groaned in annoyance. “Why am I always the one who gets injured?” She moaned.

          “Charity!” Aries exclaimed in delight. “I had begun to believe you would never wake up. How are you feeling?” Charity looked around the remains of the destroyed cockpit. Her eyes found Aries sat in the only chair left standing in the cockpit, the pilot’s seat.

          “Annoyed.” Charity relied through gritted teeth. “Why you using a torch?”

          “Power went out 10 minutes ago.” Aries explained.

          “So my arm.” Charity stated. Pretty tightly bound. How badly is it damaged?”

          “The damage is very bad. Shattered. Completely.” Aries answered plainly. “Don’t move it if you can help it. We need to reduce any further damage.”

          “I think I already knew that!” Charity barked. Aries paid no heed to it. Her sister must have been in a great deal of pain, and they had no pain killers. Charity slumped against the console Aries had no doubt lent her against. She looked around the cockpit again.

          It was full of fog. She could only just make out the form of her sister because of the torches Aries was holding. Plus the damage that was immediately in front of her. Other than that, just the swirling white mists that looked like the ones that once gathered along the shore lines on Earth.

          “Hay, what’s with all the fog?” Charity inquired confused.

          “Coming through micro cracks in the hull and the huge hole that was caused by the ship ripping itself apart. Oh, and the smashed view ports.” Aries answered. “That’s why we lost power. The power cells are in the back section of the ship.”

          “So the others are not with us?” Charity asked rhetorically.

          “They were in the back section of the ship.” Aries answered anyway.

 

          Faith lead the group to the rear hatch in silence. Zardac followed her, certain that she knew something but was afraid to ask. Loki and Hope brought up the rear of the group. Loki still bricking it, the anticipation making it all the worse. Hope fearing more for her mother than for herself.

          Faith opened the hatch very slowly. Fog slowly seeped through the ever growing gap. Loki whimpered. Zardac suppressed a smile. Old habits, he thought to himself.

          “Do we really have to go into that?” Hope asked, her sonar vision flickering. “We don’t know what’s out there. We could get hurt.”

          “That is why we must go.” Faith said. “Aries and Charity could be injured and need our  help.”

          “But Miss Moonstone,” Loki argued, leaping at a chance to speak his mind, “but we don’t know where their half of the ship crashed. We had to use life-sign detectors to find you and Hope.”

          “Firstly, Loki, my name is Faith please use it, and can you not do the same thing again?”

          “No, because our ship’s scanners went down the moment we found you.” Zardac explained placing a hand on Faith’s shoulder.

          “But I am not leaving without them Zardac.” Faith breathed, “We came together, so we must leave together.”

          “I understand, but the fog is very dense and there is something hiding within it.” Zardac replied. “If the danger becomes too much I am pulling us off of this planet.”

          “Fine just as long as we try to find them and do something.” Faith said solemnly. She took the first steps of them all into the fog. Into the grey unknown.