Thalia was woken by the sudden blaring of a horn, followed swiftly by the flashing of a red light. Alarmed, she flew from her bed but stumbled half-way to the door of her compartment as the room seemed to shift violently to the left. Groggy and disoriented, she regained her footing just as the emergency lights blinked on overhead and a robotic voice began to sound throughout the room.
"Remain calm, make your way to the sanctuary. Please remain calm, make your way to the sanctuary—"
Her door opened on its own, and she saw that the hallway was already filling with the other girls. Some seemed still half-asleep, clutching their robes about them in confusion. Most seemed intent on panicking.
"Make your way to the sanctuary—"
"The ship is crashing!" A shrill, human voice drowned out the robotic one.
"We are all to die!" Someone else added.
"Please remain calm, make your way—"
"Come on, then!" Thalia yelled into the mass of nightgown and robes. She elbowed her way out into the hall and was relieved to find that the mass of humanity was actually moving in the correct direction. The more hysterical girls were being pulled to their feet and ushered along by their cooler headed friends.
While there were still agonized declarations of impending doom, the floor did cease rocking and the alarms suddenly shut off. The normal overhead lighting blinked back to life, the emergency lights extinguished.
"Make your way to the sanctuary," The robotic voice repeated above them, but even it seemed relieved.
In a matter of moments Thalia and the other girls had found the stairs leading down into the heart of the ship. It took nearly ten minutes for the swirling mass of humanity to travel down the spiral staircase. As soon as the last trembling girl, her face nearly white as a sheet, left the bottom step, the voice instructed them to stand back. The door at the top of the stairs slammed shut, and a lock clicked loudly into place. A second door slid from the wall and sealed off the stairs completely.
Everyone seemed to take a deep breath at the same time. The sanctuary was the safest place they knew of. With the doors closed it was a seamless circular room, airtight with thick walls to protect them. There were padded benches with in rows throughout the middle of the large room, each with various straps that could be secured in case of turbulence.
Many girls had collapsed onto the benches, the sudden fright sapping the energy from them, but only one girl had the presence of mind to secure herself with the straps.
Thalia remained standing near the wall, twitchy with anxiety. While it was all well and good to be secured away, to be safe, she wanted to know what was happening. Aside from a few violent shakes, what was there to hide from? Certainly they had experienced worse turbulence than this before. Why the need to frighten everyone with the alarm?
Certainly a few jolts of turbulence would have woken Thalia, but she normally would not have given it a second thought. Was the danger still imminent?
Everyone else seemed to be calming down. A few even let out nervous laughter and began to mock each other over the faces they had made in their fright. What a good laugh, some said, to be so scared for no reason. Others bemoaned tears in their nightclothes, and scrapes on their arms attained during their hurry to safety.
In all fifty of them, it seemed Thalia was the only girl still on edge. They had never been needlessly alarmed in such a way before. The crew had yet to appear to console them. Surely they would have come to apologize for the false alarm by now?
Unless, Thalia mused as she eyed the solid white walls, the crew was still engaged in maintaining their safety.
"Didn't the gearmen hear the alarms?" One of the girls had broken from the group and come to stand with Thalia. "Or did they do this as some kind of joke, you think?"
Thalia snorted and relaxed slightly. "A gearman with a sense of humor?" she returned, looking up at her friend.
Abigail was a good six inches taller than Thalia's five feet and two inches. Both girls had white, nearly translucently pale skin, like the rest of the girls. They had all been raised inside this ship, and kept from windows less the harsh rays of a sun tarnish their complexion. Aside from their skin, Abigail and Thalia looked nothing alike. Abigail was tall and willowy. Her hair was the color of gold.
Thalia was the nearly the shortest girl on the ship, despite being among the eldest. She was shapely as well, with a trim waist and softly flaring hips. Although they all ate the same food in the same quantities, she had simply become fleshy in areas that her slim friend had not. It was not something that bothered her, however. Each girl in the group was unique in some way. It was the only way that Thalia could be certain that they were not all the same person.
The crew of the ship—the gearmen, as the girls called them—provided the girls with everything necessary for life, if not for comfort. Their belongings were minimal. Each owned a few white nightgowns, a white robe, some identical white dresses in their size and dainty white slippers for walking the ship's halls. In such a sterile, boring environment, they had quickly begun to celebrate differences they saw in each other. Abigail's height, Rhonda's fabulously blue eyes, and the shocking orange color of Zia's hair were all fawned over in turn.
