[hr][hr][center][h1][color=0076a3]STEIN[/color][/h1][b]MESS HALL, NEW ANCHORAGE
[sub]EVENING[/sub][/b][/center]
[hr][hr]
[i][color=0076a3]He is my father.[/color][/i]

Stein had been in the same room with her father many times in her life, of course, but it always had this effect. The suffocation, the feeling of uneasiness, the irrationality of her emotions, and the quaking in her bones. It was not a feeling she had ever been able to logically make sense of at any point in her life. She had tried to [i]cope[/i] with it, but her father had not been one to ask for her presence or attention back at Volkov and she was generally left to what she did best— being inside her cockpit. In her entire life… that was where she felt none of the issues with people and could just be alone. In her private quarters she didn’t feel quite as… secure.

[color=0076a3]“Yes, he is.”[/color] She stated in her monotone, though her body had begun to feel tense.

The conversation between Agatha, Jan, and… Ingram continued but she couldn’t really hear it. Everything had started to become hard to understand; as if she couldn’t really comprehend what they were saying— like she was incapable of hearing the words they were speaking. She saw them, of course, but [i]nothing[/i]. As her father pushed down on her right shoulder with his hand it became hard to breathe. Her hand slightly shook as she reached for the metallic “glass” and took a drink of the cool vitamin-enriched water that was inside.

[i][color=0076a3]I am not okay.[/color][/i]

There were questions for her— but she didn’t process them. She [i]couldn’t[/i] process them; not right at this moment. Her blue eyes looked at her food and a heavy sigh left her before she stood up from her seat at the table. [color=0076a3]“I have to check on my NC.”[/color]

Without a second word Stein left the Mess Hall— her tray of food laying where she had placed it on the table with not one single bite instilled in her food. There was only one place could regain herself right now and it was not in the Mess Hall. She needed to be inside the Little Dragon; it was the only place in Volkov where she could go— and it was the only place in New Anchorage where she could go in times like this where her body internally screamed at her that something was wrong.

But what was wrong?

Stein did not even understand it and that was what frustrated her the most.