That's what I'm Counting On

It fell to the ground the second after being thrown.

"Hey look." Cinder said enthusiastically, clapping her hands together from on top of a plastic crate. "It flew as high as your IQ this time."

           Thorne sat crossed legged on the ground, surrounded by almost an entire deck of discarded playing cards currently bent into shapes that mimicked the flight patterns of planes and ships. He had been washed over with a wave of boredom, and had attempted to fold cards blind.

Kai looked at the cards solemnly. "I don't see the point of this, Carswell."

"It was much better in theory." Thorne explained, not moving his head towards the sound of the voices. Cress sat beside him, depositing the last deck of cards onto the floor.

They were all scattered in a dimly lit room somewhere in the Rampion. No one had a clue what time it was, but Thorne had woken up everyone to a mandatory meeting with absolutely no purpose, and Wolf had passed out cold on the couch with a weird stain. Iko was charging somewhere in the cockpit. The yellowed lights from the halls flickered on and off. The whole situation was surreal and unearthly, and Cinder wasn't completely convinced that she wasn't experiencing some estranged and poorly formed hallucination from sleep paralysis.

She had been awake for much over thirty two hours, and whatever the commotion was that awoke her from her one hour of sleep was nothing too memorable, because she had no idea what it could have been. She pressed herself up against the metal wall that the crate was pushed against, hoping that the cold shock of it would heighten her awareness, but she had already begun to drift off back to sleep before she heard another clunk.

They all turned towards the noise, including Thorne, despite his lack of perception.

"Sorry." Kai had knocked a small object off of a shelf while shifting his position. Both him and Cress looked awkward in stature, having not yet grown used to their current accommodations. She did not see what had fallen, but it couldn't have been too important, and other than the creaks and groans of the stress of the ship, it was mostly silent.

"Are you guys asleep!?" Thorne yelled after a few minutes. No one had moved.

"Yes." Cinder mumbled.

"Which card is this? I don't want to bend my ace." He held a card up above his head.

"I don't know, captain. I can't see." Cress replied, taking the card from him. "But I'm pretty sure you already bent the Ace."

"What do you mean you can't see? That's my thing?"

"The lights aren't on."

"No one turned the lights on?" He asked, as if he had heard wrong. "Why can't we turn the lights on?"

No one replied, because there was no reason as to why no one had turned on the lights.

"Someone, turn the lights on."

"No one turn the lights on." Cinder replied, covering her arm over her head.

"Cinder! You vampire. You can't just not turn lights on."

A click sounded in the room, and the lights slowly flickered on. Cinder hissed when the sensation hit her eyes. She brought her legs closer to her body and tightly shut her eyes, as if the brightness would kill her.

"I just need to know if I killed my ace." Thorne said.

          Slipping off of the plastic crate, Cinder planted her feet on the ground. Picking up the only card left, she kneeled to the floor and folded it until it actually resembled an aircraft. She then proceeded to chuck it at Thorne, who was unaware of its flight path, but the small plane tilted left and landed on Wolf, who flinched and rolled over.