After their time was up, Daisy hauled herself to her feet. Aria simply gestured towards the doors, which opened instantly. Neither of them said a word as they made their way inside and through the now almost pitch black hallways.
It was a few minutes’ walk to reach the Hub. The Hub itself was also dark at that time which meant that they'd switched the power off to more places than Daisy had previously thought. It seemed as if the aliens were maybe a bit paranoid than they'd been before, she'd never seen the lights in this are switched off before. Either that, or there had been a power failure, but in that case an emergency lockdown should've been triggered and that had certainly not happened.
"Why have they cut the power to The Hub of all places?," asked Harry, voicing Daisy's thoughts.
"I have no idea but I do know that should get back to quarters," said Aria," No time for any more chit chat today. And make sure to stay as close to each other as possible. This is not a great time to be getting lost."
"Yes Mom," chorused Daisy and Harry. Predictably, Aria just sighed and continued to walk deeper into the gloom.
In the darkness, the hallways seemed to go on forever. There was no way to tell where the walls were and they could barely figure out where one hallway ended and another began. It was only the practice of having walked the same path for a week or so that kept them to not get lost. As it was, the three of them still clung to each other's shoulders as they walked to make sure they did not lose each other.
Daisy was feeling particularly uneasy. Usually she was used to the silence of walking along the corridors having accepted it as a necessary part of surviving in the camp but in the darkness the silence was a whole other entity. It made chills creep down her spine and the hairs along her arm stood up.
Fifteen minutes, the time it usually took for them to get to their quarters from the door, came and went in the blink of an eye as they creeped along the hallways at a snail's pace due to the dark. Daisy couldn't help but wonder if they had somehow also lengthened the hallways or made their way back longer. She had to mentally slap herself. It wouldn’t do to get paranoid now of all times.
The influx of increasingly ridiculous ideas stopped as they finally arrived at the dimly lit hall. The lights streaming in from the quarters lit up the passages leading off from the hall and gave off just enough light that Daisy's unease slowly began to take a backseat.
"So... are we breaking the news tonight itself?" asked Daisy, tentatively.
"It is already very late, can't we just let people have a night where they still have some hope," said Harry.
"False hopes can be very dangerous," said Aria, quietly.
"It’s only a few hours. Would you like to hear something like that right before you were about to rest after a busy day of hard work?" said Harry.
"Yeah," said Daisy, quickly jumping in. She could see Harry's point and more importantly she could also sense that having to talk about this to anyone wasn't going to be very good for Harry's health. He was feeling sad enough as it is.
"I can already see that I am not winning this argument," said Aria, holding her hands up," I surrender. Let's all go catch some sleep now. We're going to need it with our current situation but we will tell everyone as soon as we can tomorrow."
"She has finally understood that she can never win," said Harry, hopefully smiling as he usually did in such situations. The light wasn't enough for Daisy to make out his face. Daisy smiled back, hoping he could see.
"Good Night and Sweet Dreams Daisy!" said Harry.
Daisy gave them both hugs and said her own good night before the three of them parted ways, Harry and Aria headed for their quarters, Daisy headed to hers’.
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