Wanderer

Chapter 5-1

5

Two days had passed since Kaira sneaked aboard the Glimmer, as far as she could guess. It might have been more, it might have been less. She had no real way to tell other than the rhythms of her hunger and thirst, and the number of times she had slept.

So possibly two out of the six days of the journey had passed… and she was bored out of her mind! She hadn't thought to bring anything to occupy her during the journey. All her focus had been on getting aboard the Glimmer. Avoiding detection. Surviving. Six days had sounded a relatively short time. She was learning that with nothing to do, nothing to distract her, six days was actually a very, very long time.

She’d already paced her way around the cargo hold dozens of times. She was pretty certain she'd memorised the labels on every single crate and container. There was absolutely nothing left to distract her… which was why she found herself standing by the door leading into the rest of the ship. And not for the first time!

As she had many times already, she stood staring at the door, fighting the crazy urge to go through it. This time it was stronger than ever before. She found herself edging closer, moving to a point where she could reach out and touch the control to open the door. Her hand started to move toward it, but she snatched it back, spun on her heel, and stomped away.

It was too dangerous! She was safe where she was. Or much safer at least. Leaving the cargo hold would be crazy. She only had to last another four days. She could do that. She just needed to pass the time.

Sleep! That would help. The longer she slept the sooner the journey would be done. So she made her way back to her hiding place, climbed in, wrapped herself in her makeshift blankets, turned off the torch, and settled down to sleep.