Journey

Lorelei: Darkness

I'm still shocked about the whole floating business. I know about floating from history class. It's when the captain sends the dead or the traitors out into space. Or apparently just when they feel like it.

From what I can tell our ship has only floated one live person. Robert Sanderson. He was apparently diagnosed mentally ill and went around cause accidents that caused the deaths of forty people. The Commander at the time thought it best to return him to the stars. I figured the person who would know the most about the situation would be America. America is our historian even though she is only twenty eight. I walk through the halls to her study. It's usually pretty empty.

"Little Lorelei Jameson! Is that you?" America exclaims.

"Yes America it's me," I tell her.

"Aww I haven't seen you for weeks. What do you need love?"

"Umm, well have you noticed someone acting a little strange lately?" I ask.

"Hmm well there was this one lady," America ponders.

"What was she doing?"

"Well she showed up in my library one day out of the blue. She looked panicked. She was desperately searching through the star charts," America said.

"Do you know who she was?"

"I can't say I do."

"What did she look like?"

"Lorelei, Why do you need to know all this?"

"Please America just trust me,"

America sighs but obliges.

"Umm, she was covered in grease and was wearing a toolbelt so I'm guessing she works on the fifth floor. Her hair was Red or maybe

Auburn I'm not really sure. Umm, oh right her eyes were really bright Green." America said.

"Thanks America you are wonderful," I hug her.

"Sure. Uhh, anytime."

As I'm exiting the study I run into Alivia.

"I think I have a lead on where our lady is," I tell her.

"Where?"

"The fifth floor," I tell Alivia.

We rush down to the fifth floor. It is so dirty down there. It's where they work with the machinery. We split up and go asking for her. A few minutes later I have found out what her name is. Piper.

"Excuse me? Has Anyone here seen Piper?" I ask. Finally one person looked up to me and said.

"Piper died,".

My heart plummeted.

"She died?" I say in disbelief.

The old man nods.

"What happened?" I gasp.

"They say she OD'd."

I know exactly what happened and It all my dad's fault.

"Alivia!" I yell.

After yelling her name for thirty minutes I finally find her. I break the bad news to her.

Attention all passengers of Darkness. There has been a crack reported in one of our windows. To insure the safety of all of our passengers we will be closing all windows until the crack has been repaired. We are sorry and we hope to be opening the windows again shortly. Thank you.

I slump down on the wall.

"No trespassing,"Alivia murmurs.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just reading the sign."

"I wonder what's in there?"

I try the door. To my surprise the door knob falls off. I look at it in my hand. Rusted. It must have been part of the ship's original design. I shrug at Alivia and walk in. The room is dimly lit inside. I look around and see what they ship needed to hide. Guns. Ammo. Bombs. What are they expecting to find on Cambaar.

"I thought the readers said that Cambaar was uninhabited." Alivia said.

"Apparently they weren't so sure," I say back.

We still stand gaping at the armory that no one knew was here.

"Well we know one thing for sure, this ship just got a whole lot darker," Alivia says.

We rush back to our houses. I run through the front door to see my mom and dad standing in the living room.

"What are you still doing here? Mom's back," I say.

"Lorelei, I need to talk to you about something. Lara can you leave us?" He asks.

My mom gets up and starts walking out of the house.

"Hurry up so we can get this over with," I groan.

"Lorelei, this ship is changing and I need to do some things that I really don't want to do," He says.

My heart stops. Does he know? He can't.

"Yeah I noticed."

"Okay, you know. I'm just warning you that I'm not going to be Commander of the ship forever. You are going to have to do stuff that won't want to do but your mindset must always be in what's best for the ship's people."

"What about the ship itself?"

"The ship men will take care of the ship itself."

"But taking care of the ship is taking care of the ship's people,"

"That won't be your job," He says roughly.

"Than I'll make it part of my job."

"I understand that you love mechanics but you must be a peoples person," He explains.

"Like you were?" I ask.

He sighs.

"You do realize that not everybody hates me like you do," He says.

"They should."