C.R.A.N.E (Strange Editing WiP)

Chapter Twenty Four: Stars

"You mean, we're under a whole heap of water right now that could easily break any fucking second?" Aatu exclaimed, full of terror.

He did not completely recover from the calamity that happened back at the cottage. He was still quite traumatized about it, and if things got worse now, we would be in a lot of trouble.

"Aatu, you need to calm down, it's not going to break..." I said calmly, trying to make sure he wouldn't crack.

"Sure, just like the last fricken time you said it was going to break."

"Aatu, that layer of ice on the river was very thin. It's colder here in the north, it's most likely that the ice is much more thicker here." Trevor explained, while he stamped his foot onto the ground to prove his point. "We need to keep moving."

Aatu tried to argue back, but found it difficult to do so. Trevor's reasoning was quite logical and he even took a further step to prove it. Aatu stared back at the ground and took another step slowly with a little hesitation.

"Fine. We'll keep going." He uttered, still with a disagreeable tone.

So from then on, we continued. And once again the journey was awfully quiet.

However, there was one person who I was quite unsure about and had a lot of questions about him.

I think Blair was his name.

He would always seem to be on Joe's side, like a lost puppy in a big city that doesn't know where he is, so he just follows the first thing he sees moving. He was always quiet, and when he did want to say something, Joe would always drown him out. I thought this would be a good opportunity to ask him some questions while Joe kept his mouth shut from the little incident before.

"So...uhh...Blair. What's going on with you? Did anything interesting in your lifetime?"

Blair lifted his head up, surprised that someone had finally acknowledged him. But he put his head back down.

"Is everything alright?" I asked while a turned my head when I didn't get a reply.

"Yes." Blair said quietly and fast.

Something just didn't feel right. He felt like he was afraid of something...but what would he be afraid of?

"Speak up now! What did you do before all this nonsense?" Apollo cheerfully said.

"Well..umm...nothing special really?"

"Who cares if it's special or not? It doesn't even matter anymore." Apollo said, still cheerful.

Blair mumbled something, however it was too quite to hear and understand.

"I'm sorry?" I uttered.

"...engineer at NASA."

"Are you kidding me?" Aatu exclaimed unexpectedly, causing everyone to jump. "You don't call that a special job? Man, you have really high standards..."

"Y- you really think it's special?" Blair asked, with a little more character in his voice.

"Of course, why did you decide to work for NASA?" I asked.

"Well, I've always liked to study the cosmos, and I thought it would be interesting to do a career based on astronomy. I remember when I got my acceptance letter from NASA, I was so excited. It was a dream come true." He said with even more character. It was great seeing him more alive.

Astronomy, huh. That was something I haven't heard about for quite some time. It brought me back to some moments, back to when I was a scrawny, devil's child. Or am I confusing myself with Aatu?