Across the Universe | D. Djarin

Spiders

The lady was watching me silently from beside her eggs. I glanced over at her hesitantly, thinking of what to say to her.

"I'm going outside to help him." I said in an awkward tone before I stepped over all the fallen objects again and headed towards the hole in the hull.

"Stay here kid." I said to the child as I bent down and gently tapped his head. The child cooed up at me in response.

I pushed the blanket aside and stepped out into the freezing cold air. The wind had calmed down since last night, but it was still unbearably cold.

The frozen fortress that surrounded us was large. several caves surrounded us, heading off in different directions. Snow and ice covered the entire space, massive icicles stuck out from the ground and hung from the ceiling.

I turned on my heels and backed away from the crest to take a look at the damage. It wasn't good. It was sparking in several places and had far too many holes and tears.

My eyes trailed away from the broken ship and up towards the ceiling of the cave. I felt a sense of fear when I saw just how far we had fallen, it could have been a lot worse than it was. There was a massive crack in the ceiling from where we had broken through.

My breath stuttered in my throat as I exhaled heavily. I looked back down over to the ship in search of Din. Though I didn't see any sight of his familiar form.

"Din?" I called out hesitantly. My voice echoed slightly around the icy cave.

"Over here." I heard his camisole voice call to me from the other side of the ship.

A smile formed on my face at the sound of his voice. I walked around the broken razor crest towards him, the snow crunched under my boots in an almost satisfying way.

Once I was on the other side of the ship I saw his familiar form hunched down in the snow beside an open panel of the crest.

I walked over to stand behind him, placing my hand gently on his shoulder.

"Hey." I smiled gently

Din turned his head to me for a moment before he turned back to the ship. "Hey."

"Are you okay? I never got the chance to ask you." I said gently, realising that I didn't know if he got injured in the fall or not.

"Yeah, my head got rattled, but other than that I'm fine." He said.

Relief rushed through me at his admission. Feeling glad that he wasn't hurt. I don't think my heart could take it if he had been injured and I hadn't noticed. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I'm honest.

I crouched down at his side and looked over at the broken panel.

"Need any help?" I asked him

"Yeah, please. Can you work on the de-icing system?" Din asked me.

"Sure." I said with a small smile. I stood back up again and moved over to the correct section of the ship, setting to work. Hopefully we can get up and running before we freeze to death.

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My focus on the ship part that I was repairing was pulled away when the child suddenly appeared. He was talking gibberish to us as he waddled over. I lowered the tool in my hand and looked over to him.

The child then began to point to the left of us, he looked eager to let us know what was going on.

"How 'bout you come over here, give me a hand? Make yourself useful." Din said to the kid as he waved his little arm. I couldn't help but smile at how fatherly he sounded.