Cosmic Collisions (Novel)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four:

The next morning, John and Mason, who had both had a troubled sleep, left their bedroom and walked down the stairs to The Headquarters. Mason checked his watch and sighed; it was 5:23 am and neither of them got much in the way of sleep. They both watched the jellyfish and the Whale-dragons gliding passed the circular windows.

"Do you think they notice the change? Is it harder for them to breathe?" John whispered.

"I don't know. If so, I would like to help them somehow," Mason replied as he walked over and turned on the lights. John nodded as he sat down on one of the sofas.

"Do you remember how we used to play hide and seek in the pilots room of our childhood Space Pod?" John asked, smiling over at the other young man.

"Of course! I can still remember how frantic our parents were when they couldn't find us. We did the washing up for a week afterwards," Mason said, laughing at the memory.

"Oh yeah, that's right! I forgot about the washing up," John answered, earning himself a look from Mason as he continued, "I can't believe that! You did enough complaining for the both of us, if I remember correctly,"

"Fuck off," John replied lightly, laughing. Just as Mason was about to respond, Isla and Freya walked towards them. He walked over to them.

"Hey,"

"Hi, how did you sleep?" Mason asked, looking over at Freya, who had just spoken.

"Badly and you?" was her response.

"I didn't," Isla commented, going over to sit next to John who was still sitting.

"Same here," he muttered, "how are your bruises by the way? I still haven't had a chance to treat them,"

"I'm fine honestly. How are Estelle and Finley the rest of the passengers?" Isla asked, talking Freya's outstretched hand as she came to sit next to her.

"I think they're okay," John answered. It was then that Elliot came through the open doors.

"Who's okay," he asked, coming to hug Isla who had her arms outstretched.

"Just asking how Finley and Estelle are," she replied. Elliot was quiet and Mason looked at him in concern.

"Is something wrong?" he asked him.

"Don't worry about it," he replied quickly, trying to smile. Mason glanced over at John, who raised his eyebrows at him. They knew he wasn't telling the truth and Freya knew that something was wrong; Elliot was never particularly good at lying.

"Where is Finley, by the way?" John spoke up.

"He finally managed to go to sleep about two hours ago. I didn't want to wake him up so I came down here," he responded, not wanting to tell them about the wings; that seemed private somehow. Looking at Isla, Elliot wondered if she had had the same thing happened to her.

"I'll tell you more later," he whispered to Isla discreetly. She nodded slightly. They looked up as they saw Charlotte, followed by Rosiee, who was carrying her laptop.

They chatted for a while, each one avoiding the real questions they all had.

"I'm hungry. I guess you all are too? Shall we go to the cafeteria? Then we can show you the article we found about the father of the journalist that died getting arrested," Charlotte suggested.

"We found something else as well," Rosiee added and smiled when everyone started asking her questions, "let's eat something first, shall we? By the way, did you hear anything from Taylor?"