Chapter 75-Losing her charm

Chapter 75: 75-Losing her charm

After several long hours of exhausting work, Dylan and Sarah finally managed to stabilize the ship.

It wasn’t pretty; several areas remained damaged, some systems were still malfunctioning, and the once-pristine interior had lost much of its elegance, but at least the ship was no longer in immediate danger of falling apart.

They had also gone through every storage compartment they could find and recorded everything they still had: food, water, medicine, fuel, batteries, clothing, cleaning supplies, tools. Everything.

The list was much shorter than the one they had made before the first waves hit.

Back then, they had been confident. They had stocked the ship with enough supplies to survive for a long time, spending enormous amounts of money on food and necessities.

But the disaster had consumed a frightening amount of those resources. Still, there was enough left that was enough to survive for a while.

Sarah stared at the final inventory sheet, gripping it so tightly that the paper trembled between her fingers.

"We should be fine." She said, mostly trying to convince herself than make a statement.

She needed the words to be true. She needed something... anything, to hold on to after hours of watching the ship groan around them and wondering whether the next impact would tear it apart.

Dylan leaned against the wall, exhausted, his clothes dirty, his hair disheveled, and a faint bruise along his forehead from the damage they had been repairing.

His arms felt too heavy to lift, and every breath seemed to drag against the ache in his ribs. "For now."

Sarah frowned at his tone. "What does that mean?"

"It means exactly what I said."

She rolled her eyes, but the gesture could not hide the fear tightening her chest. "Why do you always have to make everything sound so negative?"

Dylan gave her an incredulous look. Beneath his irritation was something more fragile: the terror that if he stopped being cautious for even a moment, everything would collapse again.

"We’re in the middle of an apocalypse, Sarah."

"So?"

"So things are bad!"

She crossed her arms, using anger to cover the sudden sting behind her eyes. "I know that."

"Then stop acting like I’m the one making them bad."

Sarah scoffed, though her voice shook. "I didn’t say you were."

"You didn’t have to."

They stared at each other for several seconds. Neither apologized to the other and neither looked away from the other.

The silence between them felt heavier than the damaged walls, filled with everything they were too frightened and exhausted to say.

That they were scared, that they did not know how long they could last, that neither of them knew how to save the other from what was coming.

Eventually, Sarah turned toward the interior of the ship. "I’m hungry."

Dylan blinked. "So am I."

She walked toward the kitchen, and Dylan followed, not because he wanted to argue, but because the thought of being left alone with his fear felt unbearable.

The kitchen had suffered some damage during the storms. One cabinet hung crookedly from its hinges, several dishes had shattered, and part of the counter was scratched and dented. But it was still usable.

Sarah opened one of the cabinets, stared inside, and then closed it. She opened another, then another.

Dylan watched her, trying to ignore the hollow ache in his stomach and the growing dread that even something as simple as eating had become another problem they could not solve.

"What are you doing?" He asked after a long minute.

"Looking for something to eat," Sarah answered. "You just said you’re hungry."

"Yes, I did," Dylan spoke, holding back on just how hungry he was. "Then make something. We have ingredients right here."

Sarah slowly turned around. "Make something?" She questioned.

Dylan nodded. "You’re the one who said you’re hungry and we don’t have ready made food. It’s only proper than you cook, right?"

Sarah stared at him as if he had just suggested something completely absurd.

Beneath her disbelief was a rising panic. She had never felt so helpless over something so ordinary.

"Why should I cook?" She raised a question to him.

Dylan’s eyebrows rose. "Why shouldn’t you?"

"Because I don’t know how."

Silence followed as Dylan struggled to digest what she just said. Dylan blinked. "You don’t know how to cook?"

Sarah’s expression hardened, but embarrassment burned beneath it. "Do you?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it. No, he didn’t. Neither of them had ever needed to learn.

They had always had people for that: chefs prepared their meals, housekeepers cleaned their homes, drivers handled transportation, assistants handled errands, and staff handled everything from laundry to grocery shopping.

They had spent their lives believing that food simply appeared when they wanted it and clean clothes magically returned to their closets. Now there was no one.

The realization settled over them with a quiet cruelty. Aymara’s wealth had not taught them how to survive, it had only taught them how to avoid needing to.

And now, with Aymara gone, even the most basic act of feeding themselves had become a crisis. They had not merely lost a servant; they had lost the person who had quietly kept them alive through every ordinary day. If they could not replace what she had done, the ship’s supplies would not save them for long.

Sarah looked toward Dylan. "You cook."

"Why me?" He asked seeming offended.

His mind thought of Aymara and how she would have never made such a ridiculous request to him. Infact, now that he was hungry, ready made food that was served hot and just to his taste would be available.

Meanwhile, Sarah, the woman he chose was busy asking him to cook. The difference was way too huge and he didn’t like it. Without Aymara around to pull his heavy needs, he didn’t see the charm in Sarah’s incompetence. Her lack of skills suddenly lacked their usual allure.

"Because I’m tired," Sarah responded like it was supposed to be a known face. "Go ahead. Cook."

Dylan laughed bitterly, but the sound broke before it became genuine laughter. "I’m tired too."

"I did more work than you today," she said and sounded defensive and dismissive about the effort that Dylan put in.

Dylan felt a vein in his head about to pop. He was the one dragging supplies, steering the ship and holding her throughout the storm and now she had the nerve to say that. "No, you didn’t."

"Yes, I did."

"You spent half the afternoon complaining," Dylan fired back.

"I was helping!" Sarah firmly stood her ground and refused to back down.

"You were standing there telling me what to do, Sarah," Dylan called out her lie. "How was that helping or doing more work than me?" ℯ

"Because you were doing it wrong!"

Dylan’s expression darkened. "And you think you could do better?" He asked, regretting his choice more and more. "You can’t even cook. What good are you?"