Madelyn gasped when we got back over to Nathan and she saw he was invisible. I crossed my arms and placed most of my weight on my left foot. "What do you think about Nathan's new style? I think it's kinda snazzy, with a hint of hipster vibe going on," I say in a serious voice that broke into laughter after I finished.
Madelyn didn't laugh, she just looked at me with the face you give someone when you woke them up after they got 2 hours of sleep and they found out one of their best friends was invisible. You know, that face.
"This isn't funny Carla. I'm not sure if I can fix this. I'm not sure if anyone could," She sternly stated, "You've entrusted to much hope into me this time. I can't do tests, there's nothing here for me to test. I'm not sure there's anything I can do."
"Well Carla's second power only lasts about an hour or two so maybe it's the same for him?" Liam said half asleep as he rubbed his eyes with his hands.
Kathy yawned, "I can't help, can I go back to sleep?"
Carter nodded at her and she walked away. Liam followed afterwards and went to talk to her, she was sitting on the opposite side of the boat just staring off into the ocean.
"What's the game plan then?" I ask.
"I'm not sure," Madelyn's voice cracked as she was checking Nathan for any kind of problem other than the fact he was invisible and we couldn't hear him.
Carter walked over to the ocean water and started to flick it at Nathan. Nothing happened.
"Well, what's going to happen if we can't fix it?" Carter asked.
"We give him a fancy top hat so we always know where he is," I laughed.
They both looked at me with the anger.
"Sorry, I won't make anymore jokes," I said as I sat down on the cold wooden deck. A breeze flowing over the ocean was extremely cold and ran chills down everyone's spines.
"The equator shouldn't be this cold at night, are you sure we're going the right way?" I asked as I rubbed my hands together.
They ignored me.
"Fine then, I'll just go away," I huffed as I walked downstairs. Almost everyone was sleeping. Penelope was awake and making ice to melt for fresh water. She was the only child awake. Carter's parents were awake as well, they were sitting on the opposite side of the boat playing a card game with my parents. I looked over at Penelope who seemed exhausted.
"How's the water coming along?" I asked as I sat down on the wooden bench next to her.
She looked up from what she was doing, "Good, I've made a lot of it."
"How about you take a break then, I can make some fresh water from salt water later if anybody needs it." I insisted.
"Thank you Carla," Penelope smiled and hugged me, "I'm tired."
"Go get some sleep then, you don't need to overwork yourself into exhaustion," I laughed. I gave her one last hug before she walked over to where the other kids were and curled up under a blanket. I grabbed a bucket and walked back upstairs.
"Did you find a snazzy hat for Nathan?" Liam laughed.
"Best I could do on short notice," I smiled, "I'm just getting some water."
The wind hit me so hard that I fell over. I sat on the floor for a second before getting up. I had an idea on why Nathan was invisible. I ran as fast as I could down stairs to the kids and woke up Will and Presley. "I need you all for a few minutes."
They nodded and followed me.
"What are you two doing awake?" Madelyn criticized, "It's past midnight, you both should be sleeping."
"Hold on I have an idea," I said as I stood behind them, facing the wind and created a wall to block it.
"Will listen carefully.." I said.
"Why is that blanket floating," Will asked as he pointed at the blanket.
"That's Nathan but..."
"Why can't I see him?" Will interrupted as he looked at Nathan.
"Listen Will, you need to heat him up. Not to much, just warm him up like you did with Kate last year when she was sick." I described.
"Okay!" He happily said as he put his hand on where Nathan's chest would be. Will's hand started to turn pink and the area around his hand started to show a black cloth. The redder his hand got, the more of Nathan we started to see. Will pulled his hand away when we could see all of Nathan.
Carter and Madelyn looked at me like I had three heads.
I gave Will a high five.
"Penelope I need you to chill him, don't freeze him, just chill him."
She nodded and a frosty must started to come off of her hands. Nathan started to disappear again. I put my hand on her shoulder, "Okay, that's enough."
Carter and Madelyn were looking back and forth between Nathan and I.
"Will, heat him up," I said.
Nathan started to appear again under the blanket.
"Number one," Nathan laughed and pointed at me. He bumped his fists together twice and broke into laughter. "for those jokes. And number 2: how did you know?"
I laughed. "I had no idea, a breeze blew me over and I thought that maybe you were cold. It was really just a half thought of plan that I didn't think was going to work"
"Speaking of cold," Carter said as he looked over at Nathan, "Why is the equator cold?"
"It could be global cooling due to the nuclear war, it could be that theres a cold front moving in, it could be a storm coming, there are several reasons why the equator would be cold." Madelyn explained.
"Let's hope it's not a storm," I said, "I don't think the boat could handle storm waves."
"This boat can barely handle normal waves, storm waves would rip the ship to pieces."
I nodded, "So let's hope and pray we don't get a storm."
I looked down at my raggedy old boots that were falling apart. The laces were nonexistent and they were pretty much being held together by duct tape. I trusted my friends but something didn't seem right. I payed enough attention in history to remember that after Hiroshima got nuked, it sped up global warming, not global cooling. Something wasn't adding up.
"Nathan have you still been steering since you froze?" I asked.
"Yeah, the nano tech should still be steering." Nathan said.
Everyone turned to look at the steering wheel, it was covered in his nano tech.
"Carla I'm sure it's just global cooling, or the fact it's night time, or that a storm is coming." Madelyn reassured.
That time she sounded like she believed herself, or was trying to convince herself. Either way I stopped asking.
I nodded and turned towards the ocean. Suddenly I couldn't breathe, I sharply turned towards my friends and fell to the ground.
Everything was dark, I was sitting in a room, tied to the walls. My hands were covered in metal cups, probably so I couldn't use my power. I could feel that I was moving extremely slowly downwards. There was a dim light on the other side of the room that gave enough light to see someone standing there. It looked like a skinny guy who was just standing there and watching. I could just barely see his shoulders which were covered in a pale baby blue shirt. I tried to stand up when I heard someone whimper. It sounded like someone I knew. The guy in the blue shirt turned on a flashlight that lit up the whole room. It looked like it was only fifteen feet by fifteen feet. All of my friends were in the little room. The guy with the blue shirt walked over to Madelyn who had tears running down her face. I started to thrash, trying to get out of the chains or break his attention from Madelyn. He turned, pointing the flashlight at me with a sinister look in his colorless eyes. He smiled a murderer's smile as he walked over to me. His smile made me uneasy, it wasn't a normal smile, it was entirely too big to be normal. I realized he was trying to scare me with it, he did scare me with it. He stood too close to me and just looked down with that creepy smile and the sinister, colorless eyes. I kicked my leg out at his knee with all the strength in my body which buckled his knee and sent him falling backwards into the metal floor. I sat there, paralyzed in fear of what I just did. "Carla?" Madelyn's voice broke out of the darkness.
"Carla? You okay?" Madelyn said as I woke up.
"How long was I out?" I asked as I sat up and looked around, I was below deck and nobody else was around.
"A hour, you're not passing out for as long," Madelyn excitedly said as she handed me a cooked potato.
I held it in my hand for a few seconds and looked around once more, "Where is everyone?"
"They're up on deck watching the first sunrise on our voyage," Madelyn explained.
"You can go watch it, I'll be okay," I assured her.
"The sunrises on sea are the exact same as they were on the island, sunrises are always the same," Madelyn explained, "There's nothing special about an ocean sunrise."
I nodded and started to eat my potato.
"What was your vision about?" Madelyn asked in between her bites of potato.
I stopped eating to speak, "We were shackled on the walls of a metal box. There was someone in there that I didn't recognize, he was really creepy."
"What did he look like?" Madelyn curiously asked before she took another bite of her potato.
"He had no color in his eyes, he was scary skinny, he was wearing a blue shirt, and he had this long, creepy, teeth filled smile," I described, "He was super creepy."
"What did you do?" She asked.
"Knocked him out, or killed him, I'm not sure which."
"Well, that does sound really creepy." Madelyn laughed, "I hope I wasn't there, I think I'd cry if I was."
"I'm surprised I wasn't crying," I jokingly laughed.
"Well," She looked down and her hands and then mine, "Since we're done eating, do you want to go see the sunrise we've seen a million times."
"Yeah, that sounds prettier than the wooden walls of the hall," I laughed.
We stood up and walked up the wooden steps up to the deck where we were greeted by all our friends. The steps led out right in front of the platform where the steering wheel was located, and that is where our friends were watching the sunrise.
"Hey!" Carter exclaimed, "You're awake! That was quick." He ran over and hugged me. I walked around our friend group and hugged everyone.
Madelyn gasped when she looked over at the sunrise. She shuffled through an old backpack we got her a few years ago. She kept important stuff in it.
"What's wrong?" Liam asked Madelyn as he tilted his head to look at what was in the book bag.
"The sky is red," Madelyn blankly stated as she kept rummaging through the bag.
"And? It's pretty, what's wrong with red clouds?" Kathy asked. We were all tilting our heads to see what she was looking for. Madelyn started throwing stuff out of her book bag: a book, another book, a pack of pencils, paint, another book, extra tech, a radio, an earpiece, a pistol, another book, a container of ammo, another book, another radio, 2 more earpieces. She kept pulling out stuff.
"Do you have a cow in there?" Carter laughed.
Madelyn turned around and threw a bag of jerky at him. Carter caught in and started to pass it around.
"Ah, here it is!" Madelyn yelled as she pulled a book out. It was a small book with clouds on the front.
"And what exactly is that?" Liam asked.
Madelyn started to flip through the book, stopped on one page, and started to read, "Red sky at night, sailors' delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning..." She stopped reading and looked at us, "The rhyme is a rule of thumb used for weather forecasting during the past two millennia. Looks like that storm we were hoping wouldn't come is on the way."