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Chapter 4: Within

The laugh caused a twinge of resentment in John, who turned away on pretense of continuing to dress. Once again, he inwardly chastised himself. His voice had been sharp. He must control himself. Yet he continued to feel cool toward her, there was no denying. It was surely the effect of their confinement, nothing more. John resolved to address the matter on his own, without her knowledge, and not let any aspect of it bother her. He would let time and wakefulness cure his rough nerves, and endeavor to be as unceasingly pleasant to her as she was toward him. It was not, if she had not been walking in the night, a matter that should touch her. And he promised himself that it would not. Within a few minutes they had dressed, and went on deck.

John stepped out onto deck, quickly turning to help Iris up behind him. He pulled her up with his hand, then turned to face forward. His eyes widened, his face flushed, and his legs weakened beneath him. He instantly fell back upon the wall next to the door he had just emerged from.

There was no land in sight.

The world outside the ship was an endless layer of sky, an unbroken surface of rolling water. The sea was a trackless waste of steel gray in every direction, sky a mirroring inverted landscape hung with gray rags of clouds. One could see no more than three miles ahead before the sea faded into lingering white haze, bleeding into the close, suffocating sky. There was nothing beyond the dark line of rail that indicated a direction, nor even a world remaining outside the ship itself. Now it became materially clear that he was afloat aboard a flimsy man-made mass of wood and line riding the thin surface dividing light and life from darkness and death.

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