Narrative Essay - Assignment was to submit an 800 word narrative essay - Charity went above and beyo

This narrative essay is well written and thought provoking. Nova, the main character, has a special set of skills she uses to save everyone on the ship, while her best friend constantly worries. The humor and friendship between characters is refreshing and charming. There are endearing moments and scary moments, but each moment makes us wonder. Overall, there are many components to this piece and it all tells a wonderful story.

“Nova!” Anaiya yelled through the door.

Today was supposed to be the best day of our lives. The day we finally start our voyage back to Earth and land our spacecraft, The Radium, and my best friend was waking me up before my alarm went off.

I shoved a small stack of notebooks engineering textbooks off my bed and got up.

“Supernova!” she rapped on the door.

“I’m coming,” I yelled back. I opened the door to her.

“When was the last time you cleaned?” she asked, stepping inside my cluttered cabin.

“Sure, come inside, Anaiya,” I mocked.

“And when was the last time you showered?” she asked, pointing at my face.

I wiped it and my hand returned, covered in soot. “A few days,” I mumbled.

“What? What was that?” she joked.

“A few days,” I said louder.

“Uh huh,” she nodded.

“Why are you here at…” I glanced to my nightstand but my clock was surrounded by dirty clothes and my toolboxes, “Early in the morning?”

“Juno and Luna wanted to talk to you in the control room,” she told me.

“Why did I choose engineering?” I groaned.

“Well, we all can’t be in medical care,” she laughed, tying her white-blonde hair into a ponytail.

She’s a nurse at our infirmary but we barely ever get injured so she hardly ever works. I, on the other hand, am working day in and day out.

I slipped on a plain black t-shirt and jeans and made my way to our control room, toolbox in hand.

“Nova!”

“Luna,” I said. She’s the lieutenant general of our regiment.

“Monroe,” Juno nodded.

“General,” I replied. “So what’s broken now?” I lifted the toolbox.

“Nothing, actually,” she replied.

“Oh?” I glanced at Luna who was bouncing up and down.

“We wanted you to lead one of our exploration groups,” General Juno said.

“What?” I asked.

“You designed our supplies, so who better to handle them?” Luna exclaimed.

“Oh my goodness, this is an honor.” Contain yourself, Nova.

“Get some sleep, Monroe,” Juno was… smiling. She was smiling? It’s not that she’s without feelings, she just doesn’t express them well. “You’ll need it,” she added.

I trudged back to my cabin, craving the soft comforter and sweet dreams.

I turned the cold, metal doorknob to my cabin to find that it had been cleaned.

Mental note: Thank Anaiya later.

I collapsed backwards onto the warm and welcoming waves of linen sheets.

I napped for no more than half an hour when I heard knocking on my door.

I opened the door slowly and softly, so as not to startle the person on the other side.

Much to my surprise, Luna, Juno and Anaiya stood there.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“The engine is failing,” Juno replied.

“Funny,” I scoffed. “So how’d you two get Juno in on this?”

“Nova-”

“No, no, no,” I interrupted Anaiya. “I would expect you of all people to understand that I need more sleep than three hours a night and scattered cat naps, General,” I hissed.

“This isn’t a joke, Nova,” Juno replied before I could get another word in.

We sprinted down what seemed like endless, winding hallways until we reached the engine room.

“What do you need?” Juno asked.

“The magician requests an assistant,” I joked. “Any volunteers?” Silence.

“Friends till the end, right?” Anaiya stepped forward.

“Dramatic,” I rolled my eyes playfully. “We’re going to fix this,” I said to Luna and Juno. “I’ll make sure we have a safe landing. Can’t promise much beyond that, but our landing will be smooth.”

I swiped my keycard and heaved the door open.

“So this is the engine room?” I couldn’t tell if Anaiya was amazed or disgusted.

“Yep,” I jumped down the stairs and onto the concrete platform. “Many an hour was spent here. By me, at least.”

“So what’s next?” she asked.

“I need to crawl through all of the mechanisms to get to the engine and you’re going to pass me the tools so I can inspect it,” I replied.

“And fix it, right?” she cued.

“I thought that was implied, but yeah, that’s the plan,” I nodded, setting down my toolbox and tying my hair behind my head.

The ship lurched forward and rumbled like we’d been hit with an asteroid.

“What was that?” Anaiya shouted.

“We’re falling out of orbit,” I replied.

I could practically feel her shock.

“And that means… what exactly?” she asked.

“That if I can’t fix the engine,” I hated even thinking about it, “We’ll freefall and plummet to Earth.”

“Nova,” I could see the tears filling her eyes.

“But it won’t come to that because I’m getting all of us out of this,” I grabbed her hands.

“Remember my mom’s motto?”

“‘​Domination requires determination​’.”

“Which is why I dominate at engineering,” I wiped the single tear that had fallen from her eye. “Which, in turn, will get us out of this mess.”

“Don’t you go doing something stupid, okay?” Anaiya asked, wrapping me in a hug.

“I’m not losing my best friend today.”

“Better not be,” I chuckled. “The rest of The Radium needs me to fix the engine.”

I patted her back and got down on my stomach to crawl through the different mechanisms to get to the engine.

“Okay, Ana, I’m going to need the wrench,” I told her.

“How do I give it to you without crawling myself?” she asked.

“Slide it to me,” I suggested.

“Slide it?”

“Carefully,” I stressed.

“So you know what the problem is then?” Anaiya asked.

“Yeah. No clue what caused it, but I know how to fix it,” I shared. “Here,” I slid the wrench back to her.

She waited a beat before asking, “So what’s wrong?”

“The air hose that connects the engine to steam converter was torn,” I explained. “So there was literally nothing providing power to the engine.”

“Quick fix?”

“Not exactly,” I shook my head.

“So how long do you have, then?” she added.

“Within the half hour,” I replied. “After that, gravity’s effect will be irreversible.”

“Remind me how you aren’t freaking out,” she requested.

“Because​ I​ know I can fix this,” I was getting fed up with her second-guessing me, but then again, her life ​did​ rest in my hands. “Solder.”

“Yeah, I know. I believe in you and I’m sure you have this under-”

“I do,” I interrupted her. “Hammer.”

“I know. But with ten minutes left-”

“Just hand me the wrench and I’m done!” I was ​very​ frustrated.

“Really?” Anaiya asked.

“Thanks for the faith in me,” I muttered, reconnecting the newly patched air hose to the engine.

The Radium slowly stop falling.​ ​Well, we were still falling but the falling that kept happening was planned. And also much more gradual than the involuntary one.

“Nova!” Anaiya wrapped me in another hug as soon as I crawled back out.

The door slammed open and Juno and Luna sprinted in.

“Hey, so I-” I started.

“You did it!” Luna squealed as the two of them joined the hug.

“Congratulations,” Juno grinned. “You did amazingly.”

At that point, I felt like crying. From both the stress of what had happened and… my three most favorite people in the world were hugging me and telling me that I did well and that I made them proud was a lot for little old me.

“Nova, I want you to take a break,” Juno told me.

“I-”

“Listen,” she continued. “We are oh so thankful for all the work you do for us. The last thing I want is for you to overwork yourself; because once you reach that threshold, there’s only so far you can go before you just collapse.”

I knew she was talking about my mother. Mom was always working; she practically never stopped. But there came a time when she was too tired to do anything beside venture to the meal hall.

“So I want you to take a break,” her voice was quavering. “We’re landing the day after tomorrow. So until then, I want you to take the time to take care of yourself. I don’t want you to have to worry about setting an alarm and always being ready to fix something when it breaks.” “But what happens if-”

“It won’t,” Luna cut me off.

I tackled Juno in a hug.

I could feel how stiff her posture was so I said, “This is the part where you hug back.”

“You can’t be afraid to say no, okay?” Juno held my head as she hugged back. “You’re only one person, honey.”

Anaiya and I retreated to my cabin for some much needed bestfriend quality time.

That night, I went to bed at 9 and woke up at 10 in the morning.

I spent the whole of that day in the tree garden, sat on a bench, next to the koi pond, sketching and reading and taking in the fresh oxygen.

Needless to say, I caught up on some much needed rest for those two nights.

At 8 on the second night I heard gentle knocking and a whispery voice saying, “Hey

Nova, you up?”

“General?” I asked, opening the door.

“Did I wake you?” she asked.

She looked unbelievably casual. She was wearing a grey sweater and black leggings.

“No, I was up,” I promised. “So what brings you here?”

“Oh. I found some things that belonged to your mother,” she replied, clutching the box.

“I realized that nobody ever cleaned out her locker and I figured you might want what was in it.” “Thank you,” I smiled. “Do you want to come in? I have a pot of tea brewing,” I offered.

“Sounds lovely,” she grinned, stepping inside.

“So what’s all in here?” I asked setting the box down on my coffee table.

“I saw a couple of notebooks in there,” she shared. “I think one of them was her journal.

A change of clothes, a small toolbox- just a lot of odds and ends.”

“Mom’s the one who encourage me to keep a notebook of all my ideas,” I chuckled, picking up hers. “No matter how outrageous.”

Juno nodded and took a sip of tea before saying, “I remember it was just a few days after you started your apprenticeship, your mom brought you to observe her fixing the control panel and you brought this notebook that was basically half your size and you started showing the whole crew your chicken scratch astrophysics equations to go with your sketches.”

“No, no, no,” I laughed. “I distinctly remember the whole crew asking to look at my sketches and chicken scratch.”

“Not quite,” Juno took another sip of tea.

“Thank you, Juno,” I finally thanked. “It means a lot that you thought of me.”

“Get some sleep,” she patted my shoulder whilst downing the rest of her cup of tea.

“Tomorrow’s a big day.”

I collapsed backwards onto the couch and read my mom’s notebook- notebook, not journal -for hours until I finally retired to my bed.

“Wakey, wakey, eggs and…” Anaiya’s smile faltered.

“It’s ​‘bakey’​,” I groaned, hoisting myself out of bed.

“I forgot the bacon,” she gasped.

“Don’t sweat it.”

I’m tired. So tired. I am exhausted.

It takes me a minute to figure out why. Then I remember, I had a nightmare last night. Premonition? Possibly.