Chapter 4: Changes

John and Rand were going to be staying in the same room for now. It was small and only had room for two hammocks inside. They would occasionally see people sleeping on them in the middle on the hallways on their old station, so it was not unfamiliar to them. They were both content with the situation because they were at least being treated better than before.

"Well this sucks," John couldn't help say after seeing the room. Being treated better than before didn't take away how much the situation sucked.

Rand just looked at him before crawling in the hammock and falling asleep. You could tell by the look on his face they he was still mourning whatever/whoever he lost on the destroyed station. One look and John felt sad as well.

Climbing into the hammock, John couldn't fall asleep. For one there was too many things on his mind, and two he didn't feel tired. His jaw no longer was hurting either, and he knew they kick to the face was a hard one.

He really wished Sam was here with him. It was usually only the two of them, compared to others. Some people had whole families on the station, but most were by themselves.

Closing his eyes and trying to fall asleep, John could feel almost a warm ball moving throughout his body. Starting from his feet, and constantly moving up to his head and backed down, it would make him get out of the hammock to check his body.

Not being able to sleep, he went to the bathroom that was connected to the room to wash his face. Looking at himself in the mirror, he thought he looked different.

'Wow, can't even believe it's been less than a month since everything changed,' John thought.

Looking close, John could see that his upper chest was bigger than before and his features were sharper as well. He even felt a couple of pounds heavier and a couple of inches taller. His skin was a little smoother and had a slightly less pale color to it.

Going back to the hammock, he still couldn't fall asleep. Closing his eyes, he decided to concentrate on this warm ball of energy that he was feeling.

'It kinda looks friendly,' he thought after observing it moving around his body for a couple of minutes. It looked almost like the sun. It had a slightly pulse to it and wasn't perfectly spherical.

John tried to manually control where it went and felt some resistance. Being too curious, he forcefully pushed it around his body. Getting the hang of it now, instead of flowing naturally, he was making it travel around his body.

He made it travel faster and faster, just like a heart beat. It got to the point where it would do one cycle every second. Anything more than that and John could feel that his body was straining from the effort to move it around.

*BANG BANG BANG*

John was startled from his concentration when there was knocking at the door.

"Hey guys, time to eat," Steg said before banging on the door again.

Rand finally woke up and was rolling out of the hammock.

"How'd you sleep?" John asked, and Rand just gave him a look that either told him to shut up or I'm not in the mood for talking.

"Come on criminals. Don't keep me waiting." Steg said again from outside of the door. John could hear him laughing when he said the word criminals. John could tell that Steg was different from the guards.

'Maybe working here won't be the worst thing,' John thought.

Opening the door, he saw Steg standing there with two pairs of handcuffs,

John and Rand immediately frowned thinking this was going to be different. Steg noticed their expression and addressed them.

"Not what it looks like guys. This is just for show. We are still tied to the main ship, so guard will be walking around. Once we leave, you guys can have more freedom."

They put on the handcuffs without complaint because they were actually given some information and followed Steg to the cafeteria.

. . .

The short walk through the ship, John noticed Steg looking at him more than once. Yesterday, he looked at John like a weakling, but now he looked at him with curiosity. John tried to keep his head down, but not being able to stop his brain from saying something he blurted out.

"Is there something pretty on my face?"

Rand finally showed some emotion after hearing John speaking. Somewhere in between you idiot and I'm not with him. On the other hand, Steg looked a little shocked then let out a hardy laugh.

"Well kid, I guess you'll find out later, but you better watch your mouth before someone takes your life. Or make sure you are strong enough to back your words up." Steg said as a warning. A friendly warning.

John gave a slight chuckle and continued walking. Sam would always tell him that he had a loud mouth in their room, but never stopped him from saying things. As long as he didn't cause too much trouble, Sam would be on his side. Sam considered themselves lucky that they were just loud mouths and didn't cause any real trouble.

'I guess without Sam here, I automatically just say what whatever comes to mind," John thought as they continued walking.

. . .

Walking into the cafeteria, they could see about a group of 50 people. Everyone stopped and stared at them. Everyone there was from the low class of society, but John was from the lowest class of society. Being told you would be sent to a prisoner station was practically a life sentence without ever getting a chance to leave. Even your kids, if you had any, would grow up on the station.

Some looked a little disgusted at them and had a mean face on, but most looked out of curiosity. While the boys were sleeping, Steg went and told the others that they were forced to take on 2 prisoner station survivors. No one was really upset about it, but a few complained saying, it was a small cargo ship already, or questioning how they were going to keep up with the work. Most of the guys were men in their late 20s or early 30s, so it didn't make sense to have 2 kids that could not move the cargo.

Steg reassured them that they would do small tasks that none of us wanted to do, like clean the toilets and wash the cargo rooms. Some chuckled at that and stopped their complaining. Especially the ones who were in charge of that job before.