An Inch Of Infinity (Short Version)

CHAPTER 24~Dreams and Nightmares

     I was permitted to visit Emma's ship. She doesn't have a lab anymore, but she only shared her room with one other girl, so she is allowed to grow small and simple plants. She has basil, tomatoes,baby carrots and mint growing in their large window. She still has her box but it's on her dresser with an environment adapter. It does almost everything her plants need, like sunlight and temperature, but it doesn't water them.She was watering her plants when I came in. She saw me and started to cry.

"I'm so sorry! It's all my fault! I am the reason you got hurt. I'M SO SO SORRY "she blubbered and wailed. I opened to a hug, and we embraced.

"You know, you're like the sister I never had, you are an incredible kid. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it! You have nothing to be ashamed of. Do you remember what I told you"I say "Tomorrow is a mystery, yesterday is history, today is a gift, that's why they call it the present. Alright ? That's all behind us. I chose to cover you, and if given the chance I would do it again."She looks at me with her round big green eyes. They were moist with tears.

She understands, I can just tell. We go to the kitchen for the stew creating competition.I think the cooks are running out of food ideas. We joined as a team 22, and make a stew. We write down the ingredients. After an hour and a half of pinching and pouring a picking and tasting, the time was up. We made a yummy, thick stew. We called it Emma's Stew. It was a big hit, and we wrote our recipe down.

We won second place for our stew, and we got to keep a bowl each. We gave the cooks our recipe, like everyone else. It really is an awesome stew. I gave my bowl to Lilly. She ate it with haste and with a loaf of bread.

Emma has been sorta cautious as of late. She is especially nervous of crossing the bridge to come see me, so I usually come over there. She has a map of shark territories, and we are apparently going through a shark hotspot. She will not even look over the edge of the railing out of fear! I think her fear is rubbing off on me. Every time the cooks dump fish guts over the side, I stay away from the edge.

I've been sneaking my extra bowls of stew,soup, and/or rice to Lilly and Tyler. Lilly has been almost kind, so I suspect something's up. She does seem to appreciate food though, so maybe she's in her own way asking for more, or saying thank you. I think it's the first option, because I can't imagine Lilly saying thank you, unless it's sarcastic.

Faith and I thought by getting Lilly to leave we wouldn't have such a cramped room, but a new girl moved in. Her name is Zoey and she is a navigator. She likes to tell us lots and LOTS where we are, how far we've come, and how much she misses her little brother who is on another boat.

Knowing how far we've come is interesting. We have gone somewhere around 200 miles until we're halfway there. Half way in five months, not bad.

We still haven't seen the royals again. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Do they think we're dead? Are they preparing for another attack? We might know soon enough. I hope not.

We are almost to an island that shows up on Emma's shark map. We are in 18 different shark species territory. We are where a country called Indonisia once was. The royals were going to use it as a resort, but it's vegetation life was flattened when the bombs were dropped on Australia, or so we are told. We will not see each other until tomorrow.

I go to my room, and get ready for bed. That night I had a very strange dream. In my dream I was running down the hall of another boat and got lost. Then I heard Emma starting to scream. I raced toward the sound, but it started coming from another direction. Eventually I found Emma, and she was staring at me, calm. Then she turned into Coral and jumped through a window that appeared randomly. The world spun, and I was in Australia. The land was covered in about two feet of water, and crocodiles and sharks were swimming in it. The dream ended with a shark the size of a boat jumping out of the water, mouth open. Aiming straight at me.