Emma

Chapter Six

A/N: There's a bit of action in this chapter along with a large infodump which you can kind of skip over if you want to. Regardless, if you enjoyed this chapter, make sure to vote and comment! :)

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Emma let out a quiet gasp as she found the real reason why it seemed to be daytime. Hovering above the house were two or three tiny lanterns. They did not seem to be controlled by anything – they were not even moving. The strangest thing about the lanterns was that although they were small they gave off such a bright glow that Emma could not stare directly at them. Therefore she was forced to turn her head and quickly rush back into her home.

“Scarlett! Look at this!” she ordered. “You need to!”

“What is it?” Scarlett questioned as she was led out of the house. Emma didn’t respond as she stood there in stunned silence, her mouth slightly open. A finger was outstretched towards the thin air where the glow used to be. “B-but-” she stuttered before her friend took her hand and dragged her back into their home.

“I’m telling you, that hunger problem is going to your head,” Scarlett remarked, sighing. “I think they’re serving breakfast right now though, Lorja and his villagers. Do you think we should go along?”

“Yeah,” Emma replied after a period of silence as she exited the building. Scarlett followed before quickly walking faster and crossing in front of her. The girl took one last glance at the roof of her house; she could have sworn that there was something. She needed to get some nourishment soon. Why was Scarlett in such a hurry to get to the fire? Food was more of a priority for Emma.

Shortly after sitting down the food was passed around, and this time she was the first to eat following Lorja. It was cooked scorpion this time and Emma tore about half of the flesh off before passing it along. As she munched, she wondered how they managed to get all of their supplies. She didn’t understand where they got the wood that fuelled the fire from. There were no trees in sight, only cacti circling the village. That led her to her next thought; where did they get the water from? Obviously they must have gotten it from the plants but surely that couldn’t be enough for the entire village?

After breakfast was over, Lorja walked over to Scarlett and Emma. “You’re not going to stay in this village forever, are you?” he asked, scratching his forehead. The travellers shook their heads in unison. “I thought not. Well, it’s been a pleasure to have you here, even though you’ve only stayed overnight. I noticed that you have little water with you at the moment so I’m going to give you this. Hold on a minute.” He disappeared inside of his house and returned with several plastic bags and rocks.

“What’s this for?” Scarlett said, sounding slightly confused.

“Well,” Lorja started, “you dig a hole in the sand when you are running short of water. You mustn’t have run out completely because this process takes a few hours. This is just to refill your water supply. When you’ve finished creating an indent in the ground, cut the bag so that it is just one sheet of plastic. Place the flask in the centre of the hole. Then hold the plastic completely over it and secure the sheet with two rocks. Place the final rock over the flask but on top of the sheet of plastic. Do this several times, and it will grant you a reasonable amount of water for each hole.

Also, a few other things you must do; seal the plastic sheet with sand so that there are no gaps at all otherwise it will not work. Secondly, you must dig deep enough so that it reaches the moist soil underground. Finally, you must leave space between your flask and the plastic sheet so that the moisture can actually drip into the flask.” He paused for a moment, allowing Emma and Scarlett to take in the information. “I’m afraid I don’t have any flasks or bottles with me. You will have to find those yourselves.”