Chapter 11 - Reasons

POV: Jesse

It had been almost four hours since we had set sail. It was nighttime and everyone was asleep, except me. I was just lying on my bed in one of the cabins, reading A Midsummer Night's Dream. I normally went to sleep at around midnight and I thought I'd read for the last twenty minutes.

There was a single white wooden bed at the left side of the cabin I was in, along with a chest of drawers on the right. There was also a wooden bedside cabinet with a yellow lava lamp on top of it. I thought it was odd to have a lava lamp for a light source instead of a regular lamp, but it was also quite unique. I liked that, and I had always liked the way lava lamps worked, just as much as reading.

Theother cabins had the same inner layout, except for Grace's, which had two wardrobes - one at each side of the cabin - and king-sized bed in the middle instead of a single one. Lena's and Zenet's cabin was different, too. It had double-decker bed with a set of stairs at the foot end of the beds, and Lena and Zenith had to share the bedside cabinet and the chest of drawers.

Reading had always been a hobby of mine, ever since I had been a child. My parents had written some stories and had read them to me at bedtime. I'd wanted to write stories of my own, and also become an actor. So I was sent to a secret theatre camp on Gundalia for a year. I'd enjoyed it there and I'd learned different stories and poems, even the ones from new world's. I'd even been in plays a few times. That had been where my love for Shakespeare's writing came from. So I had been enjoying theatre so much that I never stopped being poetic. Funny how the world worked, but right?

Even as I had my nose in a book, I couldn't get rid of the dread that I felt for my teammates. I'd gotten used to my misty power a little bit and I was okay with it. But that wasn't what was scaring me. It was the thought of all of us getting captured and then whatever would happen next. Kazarina would had worked out a cure for the poison Lena had touched her with by now. If what Stoica had said was true, then we had a lot more things to worry about than getting taken away. Who knew what else Kazarina was capable of doing, besides using the power of hypnosis and her knack for science?

It was nearly midnight when I decided to stop reading and get a glass of water. I got up out of bed, walked towards my cabin door and slowly opened it, not wanting to wake up the others. Once I closed the door behind me, I snuck past Ren's cabin which was just on the side of the spiral staircase and across from mine. I noticed that the door to his cabin was left ajar.

I figured that I should check on Ren - see if he was alright. I knew that Sid did that already, but I also knew that I needed to take part in helping Ren with his recovery. We all needed to. Ren was one of us, after all.

I gently opened his door to see Ren lying in his bed on his side, shivering. I didn't want him to freeze all night, especially not with a thin layer of a cover. So I walked back to my cabin and came back with my long green jacket. If Ren had worn my jacket, it would've had gone almost all the way down to his feet as he was roughly a head shorter than me. It was a good thing I stopped by, I thought to myself as I covered Ren up with my jacket.

I waited for a couple of minutes and Ren stopped shivering. Realizing that he was warm now, I exited the cabin and ascended up the staircase. When I reached the top, I saw Sid standing by the railing outside on the deck, staring at the crashing waves, his red jacket noticeable in the dark night.

As I went towards the en-suite kitchen sink at the far end of the living-room, Sid turned around and saw me. He must've had very good hearing if he heard my footsteps over the waves. Sid turned away to look back at the waves. I took a glass from one of the cupboards, filled it up with water from the tap, and joined Sid on the deck. "So, what are you doing up?" I asked.

"Just looking at the sea," he replied. "A little something to do. What 'bout you?"

"Just getting some water before I go to sleep. It's after midnight and I thought you were sleeping."

"I don't sleep much," he said briefly.

"How come?" I asked.

"Well, let's just say that growing up was hard for me and I needed to be aware of things going on around me. So, I only slept for around five or six hours and it kinda became a habit. Besides, we have to stay alert at this point with the Twelve Orders after us. And with Ren being the way he is now."

"True," I said. "You know, you've changed."

Sid turned to face me, and asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Well, I thought you hated Ren," I replied.

"I did."

"What changed your opinion of him?"

"Three things," he said. "One; when Ren begged for his life, I thought he was weak and pathetic. Now I know why he was scared. Two; he survived this long without being punished, even though he was a teacher's pet."

"And three?" I asked.

"When Ren risked his life to save me from Dharak's blast back on Neathia, I realized that he wasn't as selfish as he appeared."

"Yeah, I realized that, too," I said. "Back when he prevented Gill and Stoica from taking us back to Gundalia."

" Another good example," Sid commented, turning to face the sea. "Ren did a lot to protect us. So, I the least we can do is return the favor."

"Exactly. Anyway, it's getting late, so -"

"Alright," Sid cut in as I turned to leave. "See ya in the morning."

"See ya," I said, opening the door to the living room. The minute I began to take a step through the doorway, I hit something solid with my foot. I looked down and I saw that it was a thick black book. I bent down and picked it up, then took it with me into the living room. With the lights on, I had a good look at the book. It was plain black on the front and there weren't any words on the spine. I turned it over, and a name printed in bright red caught my eye.

SID ARKALE.

I then remembered that this was the book that Sid had put in his backpack back at the beach house. I wasn't sure what it was.

But I guessed there was no harm in having a small look. I would only read one or two pages of it.

I took the book downstairs and headed towards my cabin. Once I got in, I laid down on my bed and opened it to the first page. In scribbled handwriting, it said:

'November 7th

I can't believe it. This feels like a nightmare. I know that what happened actually happened, but I don't want to admit. A nightmare or not, I know this is real. My dad is gone, and it was my fault. I didn't know I could create a fire by just touching a candle. Rubanoid saved me, but he should've saved my dad instead. Fire probably couldn't burn me, judging by what I did. So both me and my dad would've been alive, instead of just me.

It was my fault. I didn't know.'

Once the entry was finished, I was taking in what I just read. The words looked like they were written by someone who was feeling scared and guilty. That didn't sound like Sid at all, but what kind of person would write in a book that had someone else's name on it?

The picture of Sid and his three "old friends" suddenly popped up in my mind. All four of them were thin and dressed in rags. I began thinking that Sid must've had been like that ever since his father had died. I wasn't entirely sure, and I was just guessing.

And I knew that I wasn't meant to read something this personal, especially now that I knew that this was Sid's journal. But I wanted to know everything about him. Like what had happened after his father had died; who his friends in the photo were; how Sid had become the person he was now. Everything.

I was a bookworm, I admitted it. But I didn't want to read Sid's journal because of that. I wanted to read it because of concern. Sid never told us much about his past, and, from what I saw in the photo and from what I just read, I didn't want him to go back to what life had been like for him. I wanted to help. And in order to do that, I needed to know more about him.

I looked back at the journal, and turned over to the next page.