Kenna tried very hard to pretend not to notice when Klaus’ gaze flickered her way at the moment of utterly mortifying stomach-growling. She was tired and hungry, it was totally normal, but that made it no less embarrassing – especially given that it is highly likely that everyone heard it. However, she had to appreciate that, hear it though he must, he didn’t mention it.
Then a voice broke through the momentary quiet.

[i]“Woooooah!”[/i] came Melanie’s voice, [i]”someone must be ready to eat us all whole – guys we better watch out!”[/i]

Melanie grinned and winked. She needn’t have, really – Kenna could see that it was a joke. However, that didn’t stop her from turning beet-root red, pulling her knees to her chest, and burying her face in her blanket.

[i]“Watch out, the Spectres might hear that rush in to kill the beast that let out that epic sound.”[/i]

“M-Melanie,” Kenna whined.

She kept her gaze firmly on the floor, face burning, and only looked up to see Church’s reactions to their questions on his well-being. 

As the Sector leader at the brink of a mission, with many members of his team injured from the other night’s riot and the mission taking place at ground level with very little knowledge of exactly what they were going up against, Churchill most certainly was not alright. He was tired like the rest of them, and Kenna was one hundred percent ready to call him out on any bull excuses.

She saw the surprise register over his features, that he had been unable to lull them into the false sense that he was fine, just dandy and nothing was wrong over here. Kenna knew the type; the kind of person who will carry the world of their own problems on their shoulders and still help others carry theirs whilst continuing to insist that they could manage. Eventually, however, the weight would become too much and they’d collapse under the pressure of shouldering their own burdens plus everyone else’s. Kenna knew all this because, plain and simple, she did exactly the same thing. She knew she did and she tried not to, she tried to speak to people when she was feeling overwhelmed, but it was a bit different now. A new Sector – she couldn’t burden them with her problems already. 

[i]Soon,[/i] she told herself, [i]I’ll open up to them more soon.[/i]

Kenna only started paying attention again when a piping-hot can of food was handed to her. She burnt her fingers and cursed softly under her breath, but was more than ready to dig in. Her tongue was scalded the moment the food touched it and she didn’t care. The food wasn’t even that good, a plain generic taste with nothing remotely special about it. Living at Sundown, you get used to the bare minimum. Sundown isn’t about living – it was about surviving. Runners were lucky as hell in some aspects; they were free. But they lose life’s luxuries as a result. 

Either way, food was food and Kenna devoured hers surprisingly fast for such a small, slim person.

One by one, the Sector settled down, and Kenna was no different. She rolled onto her side, curled up and pulled her blanket up to cover herself. It took her a long time to find sleep. She spent a while listening to Eva and Church bicker between themselves whilst trying very hard to not eavesdrop. 
[i]So,[/i] she thought absently, [i]Eva tells him off for shouldering too much, too.[/i]

As she waited for the dregs of sleep to come, she allowed her mind to wander. From menial things like worrying about wriggling in her sleep and disturbing her fellow Sector, to the more difficult aspects, such as the impending mission. Kenna needed to sleep. She needed to be rested for the mission so she didn’t make any stupid mistakes; she had to live up to her Sector’s name. Her actions could be directly responsible for the failure of the mission and she could not let that happen. She had to keep a cool head, calm, composed, and remembering how to breath properly. Eva had given them some tips on how to breath properly – which sounded really stupid – because of the change in oxygen levels. It took a while, but Kenna managed to get the hang of it. Lying down, however, it was much harder to do and she was very conscious of taking deep, heavy breaths and bugging her sleeping Sector, or the watchful Church. 
Eventually, she started to mentally hum a little lullaby to herself and drifted off to the land of dreams. Despite her fears, wriggle and mumble in her sleep she did. More than once a quiet, breathy laughter would escape her, then she would roll over and continue to sleep. Her mumblings were nonsensical – at some point she mentioned an armadillo eating grapes – and half of them weren’t even legible. She slept deep and she slept well, but that didn’t stop her from waking up when the morning was still so painfully early.
Kenna groaned quietly, unable to believe that she was up so early, and lay quietly on her bed roll.