Critical

The reactor has been hot for three days. It wouldn't do any good telling people about it, so I just keep it to myself. This morning she went red for three and a half hours. I just sat there next to her, in awe. I could almost feel the cancer building inside of my body, but I didn't care because I thought she was going to blow at any moment. Then she started to cool. I have no idea why. We have three more weeks under the ice, and not a whole lot waiting for us if we make it back to the surface, so I'm not worried at all. I am more curious. How is she able to go so far out of specs? What makes her cool down? I try to imagine the orientation the rods would need to be in for them to produce these fluctuations, but I can't figure it out. I half way want to go in there just to satisfy these nagging questions, but that of course would kill us all. At meals the other men don't even look at me, I'm sure they think it would be a jinx. I sleep alone, eat with my head down, and then slink away to be with the reactor. The gauges don't work any longer so I judge things by the glow of the hatch. What a funny little bomb we have voyaged with! Waking and sleeping in fitful cycles, just like her watcher. I almost trust her at this point. I don't dare flush the pipes or choke the chamber, I simply sit in there with her and watch the hatch. She knows best. The men, if they are mad, think I'm in control. This is so far from real though. One morning soon, when they are laughing and joking perhaps, this psycho bitch is going to warp our universe and blink us out of existence. For now though, nothing but passing marks in the log book.