Far From Home

Chapter Eleven

The doors were open to the big food hall and inside was a hub of movement, everybody seemed to be in the food hall and not one person was sitting or standing still. Then I had to go and walk in, it seemed like everyone had stopped and all eyes were on me. I stopped and stared at everyone, my head searching around the room. I had decided on the walk down to the mess hall that whoever I saw first, I would fix my issues with them, though I didn't get the chance to see any face that I could talk to because professor Goswami engulfed me in a hug. "Oh my lords, I am so glad you are okay. We were all so worried! Imagine if you had died, we wouldn't of been able to of ever complete the mission in the time we wanted. We'd have to start all over next year with a new candidate." I immediately stepped out of her embrace and had to physically stop myself from bursting out. I instead smiled demurely "I've got to go let Mochrie know I'm okay, I'll see you later professor." I hoped that I had said that without letting any of my anger slip out into my tone. I walked off into the crowd to find Mochrie.

Of course Mochrie would be the only person to contradict his surroundings, while everyone else was rushing around he was the only person sitting down, his head in his hands. Reassuring him and looking around at all the chaos were Mia and Dmitry, both patting him on the back. I couldn't see Mochrie's face from where I was, but I saw from his posture that at least he wasn't crying. It didn't make me any less hesitant to go up to him though. I remember when we were ten and he'd been called out of a class to be told that his mother had died at work. He had come back to class quietly with his head down; he sat back down next to me and didn't talk to me for the rest of the day. He returned to how he acted normally the next day and I didn't find out about his mother's death until 7 days later. I started walking towards Mochrie slowly and had one more hesitant thought of turning away when Dmitry shouted my name. Mochrie looked up with relief blatantly displayed on his face. I moved closer and stood on the other side of the table. "I-I'm sorry Mochrie, I didn't think I'd cause this much trouble." His small smile turned into a huge grin and he laughed, "You thought you wouldn't cause trouble? You know I would be surprised if you didn't cause any trouble at all."

Mochrie, Dmitry, Mia and I all sat around a table, things had slowly settled down around us as word got out that the girl who had supposedly died, was sitting comfortably in the middle of the hall eating pancakes. We all just sat and talked over our pancakes about what everyone had been doing; Dmitry had been caught smoking pot after officials came to check in on him, Mochrie got out of his room straight away and just walked around until something happened, and Mia slept right through the alarms until Professor Goswami entered her room and shook her awake. As Mia was finishing the final details of her story, Professor Goswami walked up to our table looking sleep-deprived and yet somewhat cheery, Zachariah in tow. "Hi guys I just wanted to get you all together to let you know that I've rescheduled today's meeting on training for later in the day and everything else that we were going to do today for tomorrow. I thought you all might want to get some sleep before our meeting, so what do you say?" Professor Goswami asked with a smile. Everyone at the table mumbled in agreement. "Alright then, I'll see you all at two o'clock." The Professor turned from the table and disappeared into a group of scientists. Everyone else started making their move from the table and I got up to join them. I then saw Zachariah walking away from the table at a determined pace and I resolved to catch up with him. I started skirting around people and running towards Zachariah, "hey Zachariah, hey wait up! I want to talk to you Zachariah." I kept running, oblivious to the people around me and when I hit something solid, it was obvious that I was also oblivious to Zachariah turning around and stopping sharply. "You don't seem to be doing too much right today do you?" Zachariah said looking down at me, I blushed sheepishly having slammed right into his body. "It's still early you know? Zachariah I wanted to catch you and say that I'm sorry for how I spoke earlier, I was irksome I know." Zachariah looked at me and then looked down and shook his head. "You were irksome, you're still being irksome. Frankly I'd like to keep all social contact between us to a minimum and I'm counting the months till we shoot you right into space." He stared me directly in the eye as he said that last part and he left me staring into space as he walked away.

I'm not a bad person, I never did anything to spite anyone while still in school and I was generally liked by everyone. I had never had anybody who hated me without a good reason. So I didn't understand what I had done to Zachariah to make him dislike me, apart from the conversation we had had earlier in the day. But that's why I was apologising so he could accept that I was genuinely sorry, not everyone will accept your apology Adira, and some are just far too hurt my mother's words echoed in my head. I wasn't looking for him to accept it, but I wasn't looking for him to act so nastily towards me. I kept thinking all these thoughts over and over again, lying in bed. I pulled my pillow from underneath my head and pushed it over my head and I screamed into it. I just screamed until the monitor turned on telling me that it was time for the meeting.