Finding (The Way) Home

Life Aboard The Princess Conta: Chapter 5

I had what you could only call nightmares all night long. I dream of being locked in a cell and being beaten. Of bright red flames and searing pain. Of a pungent smell that makes me feel nauseated and wants to throw up. Terror clouds my mind and I toss and turn.

What wakes me up is the harsh pain of hitting the floor and smacking my thigh on the stepper to get up into the bed. I let out a long string of curses and shove the step stool away. I reach up and grip the bed, struggling to my feet.

There are pounding footsteps outside my door and I can see through the glass that one of Gaia's guards are on the other side. I gingerly walk over and the door opens to a very worried looking face.

"Are you okay Katlyn Mayfield?" The guard asks and I nod, slightly annoyed.

"Just peachy. I fell out of bed if you are wondering," I say, pointing to the overturned step stool.

"Are you sure you are alright? That's quite a fall, and how did you even fall?" The guard asks and I shrug.

"I'm fine and your guess is as good as mine. I woke up to falling," I say, leaving the nightmares out of it.

I've had nightmares for years, these are just slightly different. At one point they had gotten so bad Aunt Cass had to take me to a doctor and get me a sleep medication since I was so sleep deprived. That was a complete disaster and I didn't need a repeat.

"If you are sure you are alright. I will go now if you have no further need for me?" He asks and I shake my head.

He walks away and I step away from the door. The door shuts and I sigh. I was tired before sleeping and now I've added the word sore to that. What sounds good right now is a long, scalding hot shower, followed by a freezing cold blast to wake me up.

I hobble my way to the door to the bathroom and strip once more, leaving my clothes strewn about, too tired to care about them at this point. I was over the nightmares. I thought I was over them at this point. I guess the fire from the shuttle retriggered something and so the nightmares started again.

By this time, I'm opening the glass door to the shower and climbing in, already reaching for the water valve to turn it on. Instead of a nice and simple handle, there is one of those screens and I groan, not wanting to figure this out at the moment.

I turn around and press the screen, watching it come to life. I see an on/off button and a line going from cold to hot. However, there are a bunch of buttons under it. These buttons range from lavender-scented water to a body cleaner.

Just because it's there, I decide to go with lavender-scented water, lavender is the stuff that makes you calm down, right? I set the water to medium to hot and turn the shower on. I jump back when hot water hits me immediately. Now, this is a pleasant surprise. It normally takes about five minutes for the shower at home to heat up but this one was already hot, sweet.

I lean against the shower wall and sigh, letting the tension ease out of my muscles. It's a giant relief. I didn't realize how tense I was before I actually relaxed.

I was so relaxed in fact, that I fall asleep. I of course don't notice until I actually wake up to a buzzing sound and I groan. However good it may half felt before I had fallen asleep, sleeping on the floor of a shower isn't the most comfortable of things. What was surprising is the fact that the water is still hot and comforting.

I groan and heave myself to my feet. I wipe my face off of water and sluggishly open the door and grab one of the fluffy towels hanging on a rack. I wrap it around me and frown, it was warm. I put my hand on the rack and am surprised to feel that it was quite warm, sweet, no more freezing cold towels.