Children's Games: A Story of Modern Consequence

Chapter 20

~Joshua~

After Maria died, Joshua figured out that a sleeping watch was organised to make sure that no one was conspiring to betray the mission, like Maria had. Except it was never officially discussed with the whole group.

They all went to bed at 9pm, in order to get up at 5am. However, Anna would disappear to exercise Dmitri and Yelena stayed sitting up in bed. She would flick back and forth between watching everyone sleeping, and then to writing in her little black book. She would reflect on all her 'cultural' observations and analyse the person that had caused the most disturbances that day. Tonight, it was Dominik's empty bed as he was still away trying to get a hold of Konstantin.

Everyone had gotten a bit nervous as soon as Emilia had told them what had happened. Anna stayed behind and explained to her the political state of Russia and the instructions given to them from Konstantin, specifically that if a group this close to them had failed then they needed to make sure that any nearby missions hadn't been compromised in the aftermath.

At 11:30pm, Yelena would pack up her things and wake up Ivan. Ivan would creep downstairs for a few minutes and come back with some night vision goggles, to spend his shift reading a small book that he kept under the bed. It was a complete Australian history of the past fifty years, though it was published before the war started.

When he woke up Dominik for his shift at 2am, he would just sit there. Across the room, illuminated by only the moonlight, Dominik would sit up against the wall with his arms crossed, and observe everyone with a blank face. Though lately, it had been growing conflicted as most of his attention stayed on Emilia as she slept. His stare was eery, and Joshua found himself wondering how Emilia would feel about him if she knew what he had done.

Then at 4:30am, Dominik would nudge Anna before getting dressed and going for his stroll of the city to 'get a taste of the air before the day begins', or something like that. However, Anna would sit up until Dominik left, then fall back asleep until 5am when the alarm came on to start getting up.

Once he noticed their cycle, he noticed how some of the others would start twitching a few hours into their sleep. It reminded him of a conversation he had overheard from Anna, complaining about her disrupted sleep from Emilia's constant flinching to which Ivan, his sleeping partner, agreed that Joshua's sleeping movements were much the same. He didn't have any proper theories for this phenomenon yet.

Except tonight was different because Dominik was still gone, and Ivan was supposed to stay up for both shifts.

Right now, it was 12:32am, so Ivan had his goggles and his history book ready to go. Joshua, almost every night, found himself waking up at around this time, and unable to go to sleep for at least an hour. He pretended to stir in his sleep and roll over so that he could get a better look at Ivan's book, which he hadn't had the chance to snoop through yet. Though, much to his delight, Ivan's head had fallen back to lean on the wall... asleep? The goggles concealed his eyes, so Joshua wasn't certain of his consciousness, but it was enough to risk sitting up to look at the book.

The 'Australian History' part of the book was quite literally just a cover on the thick volume underneath. He only had to read the small print at the top of the page to realise what he had found. It scared him enough to risk making more noise to get up. It was too good of an opportunity not to try. It's soon not going to be my problem anymore!

Joshua couldn't explain why he needed to leave because somethings even to himself it sounded mad. But it was now or never.

With a rush of energy, he carefully pulled the covers off and slid his feet into the boots placed strategically beside the bed. He then grabbed his thick woollen jacket, then started creeping out of the dark room. He didn't have the guts to look back and ensure that Ivan stayed asleep, his heart was pounding in his chest, warning him of what happened to Maria. 'We've come to a dangerous place,' she had told him.