Purple Sunrise

Twenty-Six

Rose woke up after a couple of hours, her stomach rumbling telling her she was starving, if she didn't feed it soon it would start eating itself. Getting up Rose dragged her aching body across to the kitchen. As she entered it, she saw a plate with a note placed near it. Rose strolled up to the where the note was.

I found you asleep in your room, it really looked like you could use the sleep. Knew you would be hungry when you awoke, so left you the plate of food. Hope you enjoy 😊

John.

Rose let a small smile onto her face, she was touched by the gesture. The thought of her entering his mind when he was cooking made her uncomfortably happy. Skipping out the kitchen to one of the tables with the food, Rose sat down tucking into the delicious looking chicken with potatoes and peas.

"Mmm." Rose couldn't help the sound that came out of her.

It was just so nice, the food only lasted five minutes on her plate before she had shovelled it in. Rose sat back full. She rubbed her fulfilled stomach in satisfaction.

"Glad you enjoyed the food." John was stood just behind the table, leaning up against the wall closest to him with his hands crossed; his mouth pursed as he did his best to hold back the laughter.

Rose blushed hiding her face embarrassed with how bad she must have looked when scoffing the food. He couldn't help himself any longer. He let out a deep vibrating laugh, finding it extremely funny how Rose was hiding after she had eaten. He had found it endearing how much she had liked his cooking. He entered the dining area not long after Rose; she looked as if she were enjoying it so much that he couldn't bring himself to disturb her.

"How did you sleep?" He asked changing the subject to spare her anymore embarrassment.

"Good." Rose replied, still feeling shy after realising he had been there the whole time. John uncrossed his feet and arms walking over to sit opposite Rose.

"Lily's in bed fast asleep now. She came up to the ground with me to check on the sunset situation before we came back down and played some cards. Just a heads up if you go out. Be back before 7:30pm. The weather gets unusually sweltering hot at that point. It does cool back down around 8:30 though. And sunset is somewhere in between. I managed to miss it." John was talking at her, the conversation getting serious, they needed to discuss their findings before doing anything else tonight. John left a pause before continuing. "At least its narrowed down between an hour."

"How did you find your task?" John asked as an afterthought.

Rose had listened all through his speech. She cleared her throat before starting her rant. "Well. I definitely think that there are no other life forms on this planet, not even spiders." She shivered at the thought of spiders, they were one of her worst fears.

"It seemed completely sparce when I was out there searching for anything that resembled soil. I had to walk quiet far to get to broken earth that will eventually turn to usable soil. I thought to speed up the process we could use it to turn all the food that doesn't get eaten or goes off into mulch. Give the planet a bit of a helping hand if you will. I wrote down the instructions to get there so we won't get lost until we get used to finding it."

John nodded his head. He was pleased to hear that there was some progress, it wasn't as much as they were both hoping for, but it was better than nothing.

"We can deal with that." John saw Rose playing mindlessly with the pack of cards. "Wanna deal me a hand?" He asked gently.

Rose smiled his way before shuffling the deck and giving him his 7 cards. She didn't need to ask him what he wanted to play. They always played the same thing. Rummy.