What the hell is happening

The Sky's the Limit

Actual stars. I take a deep breath, taking in my first whiffs of fresh air in weeks. . I start giggling like a child. 

"Is this a dream?" Haniel whispers. I couldn't see him, but I heard the shock in his tone.

I punch his arm "nope." He winces then starts laughing with me. I let my arm fall near his "I mean we can't see anything in front of us, but it's a start." It was pitch dark but I could make out the the mountainous walls blocking our view. The only place we could look was up.

"Why would they do this?" I couldn't see him but I felt his eyes on me. I sigh "I don't know, but the others need to see this."  He says nothing but his fingers gently brush mine, and I'm glad it's too dark to see its effect on me. I inch my fingers slowly to his, and once our fingers are touching, he pulls away.

He clears his throat "We should go." 

"I- Yeah we should." 

»»——⍟——««

I first take Julie and Dani up with me. Julie starts crying while Dani points out made-up constellations.

"I believe that one is called Melvin and the Chipmunks" she says profoundly.

"Shut up " I chuckle.

"Oh look! Orion's Pole" she continues.

They spend about twenty minutes up there with me then head down to bring Noah and Ribera. I wish we could all be here together. There's a reason behind this, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it. With help of the rest of course- teamwork and all of that I guess.

Noah was quiet for five minutes till he starts sniffling. "I'm not crying. I'm just allergic to that thing."

"The stars?" Ribera questions.

"Just the big ones."

"It's okay to cry Noah." I blindly attempt to pat his shoulder. 

"I'm a big boy. I'm not ashamed of my feelings." He defends.

I stifle a laugh "exactly."

"Thank you" Ribera sounds serious. "For what?" I raise an eyebrow. I have proved to be very bad at this leader thing, and yet people keep thinking I'm the reason they're still alive. "If you hadn't solved that hint, we wouldn't have gotten to see this." 

"But at what cost?" I give a humorless laugh "Dani almost-"

"Dani is fine. You had to make a difficult choice. All good leaders do." 

"I hope you're right." I sigh.

"When have I ever been wrong?" He retorts.

"Remember when you said Loki would never di-" Noah argues. 

"That was different!" Ribera interrupts him. I laugh at both of them and let them spend a few more minutes. I didn't want to go over the time limit. I needed to be here tomorrow. 

»»——⍟——««

We head downstairs, and I say goodnight to everyone. Haniel was obviously not there. I walk into our bedroom and find him sitting on the bed. 

"Talk" he stares at me. Boy this is not going to be easy. I take a deep breath and stand in front of him. "So basically the tablet has this group chat with other house leaders but since I got it after solving a hint- I mean after we solved that hint." I correct myself. He looks completely serious but his lip twitches. "Anyways, there are other 'icons' in the group chat but they're pending, so I'm guessing they still haven't gotten through that hint. When I joined the only other person there was Tony." Any traces of a smile are far gone now. "I spoke to him and, we agreed to talk three times a week to help each other out."