Lord of Annihilation

Chapter 68: A Witness.

Room J28.

Faint sobs could be heard coming from within the room. A beige colored shirt was carelessly thrown aside, right next to a pair of hard brown boots covering the floor of the room.

In the middle of the bed, a figure could be seen curled up in the fetal position with a blanket covering her body. Approaching closer, one could hear the sobs gradually increasing in volume. The figure did not move from this position, except for the sporadic shivers of her body.

After a few minutes, the figure suddenly stirred from her position and slowly sat up. Removing the blanket covering her head, Reyna blinked her eyes to get rid of the stiffness.

Her eyes were red and puffy and her pretty golden hair was disheveled. Tear marks covered her face, running down to form a small wet pool in the bed.

Getting rid of the stiffness in her eyes, Reyna then used her hands to pat her surroundings. She was searching for her glasses, before eventually stumbling upon them.

Rubbing her eyes once to get rid of the tears pooled in her eyes, Reyna then wore her glasses.

Her face carried an awful expression, with her beautiful emerald eyes looking dim and sad. The tears lines marking her face, only served to accentuate this dejectful figure.

'Why do they have to fight?' Reyna thought to herself while still feeling melancholic.

Lucius and Alex not getting along with each other was a very hard blow for Reyna. To her, these group of friends represented the people closest to her heart and the one's she cared about the most.

Reyna had tried her hardest to help them make up with each other, but somehow it did not seem to work. Lucius had his uncaring attitude and Alex did not want to apologize. What's more was that Alex had informed her to stay away from Lucius.

'I know seems scary, but he is actually a good person.' she had told this fact to Alex, only for him to be even further angered against Lucius.

After the announcement was made, each of them had immediately left for their own room and had separated from each other, giving Reyna no further opportunity to mediate.

Growl!

Just as tears began to well up once again in her eyes, Reyna heard her stomach rumble. Due to directly coming to the academy from her lab, to meeting Lucius in the cafeteria and then directly boarding the spaceship. Reyna had no opportunity to have breakfast.

Her body was feeling weak and her stomach, hungry. Using on of her hands to rub her smooth, flat tummy, Reyna slowly got up and walked towards the bathroom.

'I need eat something.' she thought to herself and got dressed.

Once she had gotten completely dressed, washed her face, corrected her hair, etc. Reyna used her hands to tap her cheeks.

'Being depressed will not change anything. Like Father said, thinking with an empty stomach results in an empty mind.'

'Let's eat something first, then come up with an idea to reconcile them.' Reyna cheered herself up.

If she wanted to stop her best friends from fighting, then she had to put effort to stop them.

Thinking in this manner, her mood recovered a fair bit. Checking the time, Renya noticed that almost 6 hours had passed since the ship had gone into hyperspace.

'No wonder I am feeling so hungry. Not having breakfast, coupled with the stress from going into hyperspace, resulted in a lack of nourishment in my body.'

Wearing her brown boots, Reyna check her black one-piece suit to ensure that her ID was within it, before leaving her room.

'To the Kitchen!'

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The bright white lights, which had previously been turned on were now switched off. In their place were dimly glowing yellow lights, which provided just enough light to navigate through the ship.

Interstellar Travel consumed a lot of energy. Although mankind had many breakthroughs in the field of energy sources, reducing such unnecessary consumptions was still helpful.

'It's so quiet.' Reyna thought to herself while slowing making her way towards the kitchen.

While the announcement had asked the students to remain in their room for sometime, the majority of the students remained within their room. Some sleeping, some playing a game on their watches, some studying, anything that helped them pass their time.

Messaging or making calls, was not possible whilst the ship was in hyperspace, therefore the students would not be able to contact their families or friends for a while.

Following the directions pointed by the colored lights in the walls of the corridor, Reyna nervously made her way towards the Kitchen.

Being alone in a long, dimly lit corridor, with only the sound of her footsteps and heartbeat to accompany her, Reyna was unnerved.

This was the first time for this young woman to leave planet Earth. If not for her stubborn insistence, he Father might not have allowed her to go on this planetary expedition.

Turning around the corner, Reyna suddenly saw a dark shadow slit across her vision.

"EEEKKK!" Reyna let out a sharp shriek.

She stumbled backwards, before hitting the opposite wall and falling on her butt. Due to her sudden movement, she had accidently hit her head on the metal corridor. A sharp pain was felt in the back of her head.

"Hiss!" Reyna took a sharp intake of air.

Using her hands to rub the area where she felt the pain coming from, Reyna scanned the corridors to identify that dark shadow.

Looking around she was nothing.

'But I clearly saw something!' Reyna yelled within her mind. She was currently feeling very scared, as her face turned pale.

'I should have brought Olivia along with me.' Reyna regretted her hasty choice to move alone.

Olivia's room was just a few feet past hers. While Reyna did think of this action before she left, she did not want to bother Olivia for such pointless things.

'I can do this! I'm an adult!' Reyna cheered herself. While it may not be obvious, due to her pure and childish nature, Reyna was actually 18 years old. In fact she was older than Olivia and Lucius, being in the same age group as Alex.

Sitting on the floor for a few minutes, Reyna gathered her courage and warily stood up. She did not stand completely upright but undertook a crouched stance. Her self defense instructor had taught her this stance, if she was to ever come in contact with a hidden opponent. Reyna did not really understand why she had to do this, but recalled it had something to do with the opponent's centre of mass.

Moving forward with slow and cautious steps, Reyna suddenly realized something.

'I'm such an idiot!' She hit her forehead with her palm, before fully standing up.

Walking back and forth a few steps to test her deduction, Reyna finally solved the case of this mysterious dark shadow.

It was her own.

Due the peculiar arrangement of the lights in that turning, Reyna's shadow was cast in front of her, instead of behind her.

Her earlier fear had completely faded, leaning behind embarrassment and shame.

Shaking her head, she then began moving towards the Kitchen with wider, more faster steps. Reyna just wanted to be done with this and go back to her room before she was caught up in any more embarrassing events like this.

'You can do it Reyna! Ghosts don't exist!'

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"Hmm.... Ketchup....aaanndd done!" Reyna placed the bottle of ketchup, back on the counter and looked at her plate with satisfaction.

In front of her was the product of her efforts in the last half an hour. A plate of eggs, toast and bacon.

It was a simple meal, which Reyna had decided to cook by herself. While she could have used the machines present in the kitchen to do so, Reyna decided to do it herself as a means to take her mind off some problems.

Staring at the plate of food before her, Reyna nodded her head in satisfaction.

Grumble!

"Ah!" Reyna's face reddened as her stomach grumbled loudly once again.

She quickly turned her face to scout around in order to check if anybody else was present in the room. Fortunately, she was alone.

Grabbing the plate of food in her hands, Reyna decided to walk to the viewing deck to have her meal.

The Kitchen aboard the spaceship was right next to the cafeteria. The viewing deck however, was perpendicular to the area of the cafeteria and required a 10 minute walk to get there.

As she wanted to distract her mind for some time, Reyna decided to take this walk. Stuffing her mouth with a piece of bread, she walked out of the kitchen and towards the viewing deck.

Munching the piece of toast with her mouth, Reyna stood in front of another pressure sealed door with the words, -Viewing Deck-, written on them.

Swoosh!

Using her ID to open it, she directly entered inside.

The viewing deck, consisted of a large area, filled with multiple benches and seats. The roof and the wall which was towards the right of the door, were completely transparent giving a view of the vast open space outside.

Small gazebos and resting areas were also built providing the occupants complete luxury to view the outsides with comfort. Since the transparent wall was actually the hull of the ship, one would have a unimpeded view of the outside.

Just as Reyna was about to find herself a seat to sit down and continue her meal in peace, she suddenly heard some hushed whispers sound from inside the room.

Due to the white lights not being on, the visibility was not ideal. Unless the one was within 10m of another, they would not be able to see each other clearly.

'Other students?' Reyna was curious. She wondered who it could be as she slowly made her way towards the hushed whispers.

Taking care not to expose herself, she tiptoed towards the source of the sounds.

"You! Are you insane?! Do you even hear yourself?!!" a hushed but extremely furious voice sounded out. The voice was quite young, resulting in Reyna concluding it to be a male student.

'What are they talking about?' Reyna's curious nature was stoked.

As she neared the location of the voices she carefully hid herself.