Subjects

33- Keeping Track

Eva knows this place better than her own home. It has always been the one constant in her life. As they moved from neighborhood to neighborhood, from an apartment to a house, through all the years she always had her dad's office.

Now she is on the top floor, in the very decorated waiting area. She is waiting for her father to come out of his office when the building starts shaking.

Eva gets up.

The sofa that she sat on slides as the floor is shaking violently. Paintings fall off the walls, papers scattered on the floor. It is so loud.

Eva suddenly hears something coming from the storeroom to her right. The door creaks open and Eva can see something in there.

The chandelier falls from the ceiling and shatters, Eva jumps back. She hears a growl coming from the room. Two glowing eyes are looking at her. She has to get out of here.

Now.

Eva runs to the stairs. She can hear that something chasing her. The emergency door is so heavy and it takes her too long to open it. She can feel the thing breathing down her neck.

She bolts to the stairs. It almost feels like she is flying downstairs. Everything is shaking. They are going to get her. She has to run. Faster.

There are too many stairs. Eva runs to one of the doors that lead back to the main area of the office.

Everything is ruined. Tables and chairs are scattered around, shattered. People are running around terrified Ar ducking under a ruined doorway. The huge windows are broken and winds is rushing in as the earth shakes. The beautiful hall is now completely destroyed.

The something crashes through the door behind Eva. She runs to the grand staircase. It is coming, it is going to get her.

It is here.

Eva wakes up.

Her heart is still beating like crazy. She can barely breath. It's been five days since the creature broke loose but Eva still can't let it go. It haunts her.

She gets up and looks for Ben's watch to see what time is it. Four am. Eva quietly leaves the room and starts to wander around the ship's halls. It is so peaceful, but Eva is still not relaxed.

When she was young she used to wake up her dad and he would make her a warm cup of milk and stay with her until she fell asleep. Did he know that something was wrong with her? That something was... Tempered with?

Right now Eva wishes she had her dad here. There are so many things she has to tell him. About how scared she is and how much she misses him. About her new friends. About her doubts and how she never knew it was possible to feel so unsure. About how sorry she is.

Eva reaches the top of the stairs that go down to the cargo halls, down to where it is.

"It can't hurt me," she whispers. "I am safe. Everything is okay." Something moves in the shadows. Eva's heart speeds again and she bolts back to the room.

No way she can sleep now. Eva sits in her bed, wrapped in her blanket but still shaking until finally when the room is starting to light up in soft blue of the sun that is not quite out yet, she falls asleep.

When Eva wakes up it is already two o'clock, except she obviously doesn't know that because she doesn't have a watch. She can vaguely remember somebody trying to wake her up for lunch. Eva gets up and nearly steps right on the breakfast (does it count as breakfast if you eat it at noon?) that Emily left for her.

Eva picks up the paper bag that smells like cinnamon and reads the message on it, "we all went to finish up the ship, come when you wake up." Eva's throat is so dry she's not sure she can even swallow but the magic of the sticky baked goods never ceases to surprise and Eva finishes them more quickly than that bowl of porridge she fell in love with on their first day here.

After a short shower Eva puts on her trusty uniforms and heads to the cargo halls much sooner than she'd like. In the day time there are people walking around the hallways and, well, there's light, so some people may find it less scary to go down to the place where a monster came out of at this time.

Not Eva. She is just as terrified. The only thing that makes her finally get over herself and go down those steps is the knowledge that if a monster did break loose down there right now than she would be hearing people screaming. And since the only sound she hears right now is the regular chatter she is used to, Eva believes that it is safe to assume that she will not be torn apart by a blood-thirsty beast just yet.

She alternately passes between slowly dragging her legs down the corridors and running as if hell itself is behind her until she manages to find the hall where chief Moore let them store their spaceship. Of course, he gave them permission to store their "strange looking floating thing," but to be honest, at the time this description did suit it better than "spaceship".

"Eva!" Angie is the first one to see her. The girl jumps from where she sat under the spaceship and waves her screwdriver at Eva, hitting Roger in the stomach in the process.

Emily tries to hide her smirk as Roger lets out a painful "omf" but Ben does nothing to stop his laughter. Angie smiles innocently and hands Roger the screwdriver before running to give Eva a hug. Eva smiles a little, that kind of smile that you have when you feel like you should be smiling but you really are not in the mood, that type of smile.

"How is it going?" Eva asks them all but for some reason is looking at the one person who had the smallest part in the fixing of the ship, two screws and a slam of a hammer to be exact.

"I think that we are pretty much done," Emily says. "There is just one thing I wanted to have a look at. It looks like some sort of sensor but I'm still not sure what it does."

"Are you telling me you can actually get this thing to work?" Eva asks. "It is amazing, Em! You're a genius!"

"Well, it wasn't only me..."

"It was only her," Roger says. "I was here for morale."

"And you did a great job at it," Emily says. "Can you all just wait here for a minute? I need to check this one last thing."

So now the four of them are sitting there while Angie tells Eva how Ben almost got caught sneaking into the engine room to get a part that they needed and Roger does the best impression she ever saw of a suspicious technician, not that she has much to compare to but as it turns out Roger is one hell of an actor.

"Guys," Emily steps out of the ship holding an round beeping thingy with red and blue cables sticking out of it, she looks slightly less happy than she was before. "I think I know what this is. I never saw anything like it but... This has to be it."

"What is it?" Ben asks.

"A tracker," Emily says. "All this time, they knew exactly where we are."