​Callum and Sanna discover a secret of the Ark

"So dinner wasn't too bad tonight," Sanna said to me as we walked to the residential area.
"The vegetables were very bitter," I replied.
"They were probably grown during the time after the Destroyer landed, lot's of food grown after that time were kind of soured by the poor rainfall and terrible toxins in the air," Sanna explained as her hand ran along the wall she was walking next to. 
"Why are you doing that?" I asked.
"Doing what?" she asked.
"Running your hand along the wall," I pointed out.
"I don't know, ever since I was young I used to like the tactile feel of things. We spend all our lives seeing, hearing and smelling but rarely touching and enjoying how things feel. The walls of the Ark feel very nice..."
She suddenly stopped and I stopped with her. 
She then walked backwards her clothes billowing around her as she stepped back and forth.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
She stepped back and pointed at the wall. "This panel is different from the others," she said.
"So?"
"All the walls panels on this ship are the same but this one isn't."
I looked at the panel, there were slight lines either side where it touched the panels it was next to. I also noticed that the colour of the wall was slightly off, it was maybe lighter than the ones next to it."
"Maybe it was made by humans, not the aliens who built the Ark. This wall could have been damaged and we replaced it."
I then leaned closer to the wall to inspect it. "What I don't understand is why they bothered to make it match the colour of the wall panels next to it. Someone went to real trouble to paint it the right colour or as close as they could get."
"I think they wanted us to think it was real alien wall," Sanna said.
"Why though? There are human made places all of the ship mingled with alien tech, why go to such effort for one panel.
Sanna took another step back and held up her fingers as if she was lining them up with the seams of the panel. she then went to another panel and did the same. "It's also smaller than the others. Wait here Callum," she added then ran off before I could ask why.
She was back in a few minutes with Maiara from the USA and Itte from Nauru in tow.
She was carrying tools.
"Let's get this pane off and see what's behind it."
I tried to stop her, this felt like vandalism, even though technically we had stolen the whole ship and could do what we wanted with it.
"Look at this," Maiara said. as the panel came away, "The seams are filled with filler like you get with bath tiles."
"Weird, what's the point of that?" Itte said.
The panel came off the wall, or peeled off really since it was stuck the structure of the ship behind with glue.
Maiara and Itte walked the panel out of its space like workman moving a window.
They revealed a door.
"I knew it, they were hiding something?" Sanna said.
The door was a like many others on the Ark, built by the aliens who made it, it should have opened automatically.
"It's not opening," Sanna said.
"It's got the same filler in the gaps," Itte pointed out.
"Is it supposed to be air tight?" I said.
"Why, we're not near the hull of the ship, we're not going to open the ship to the vacuum of space."
Sanna put a crowbar in the door.
"Wait is this a good Idea?" I said.
The other three looked at me like I was stupid.
Sanna then levered the door apart.
Old mechanisms strained against her efforts yet the door yielded and opened.
A musty smelled issued from the room with a faint odour of eucalyptus, which was odd.
"I like that smell," I said and it drew me into the room first.
I found a light switch and illuminated the room.
It was filled with scientific looking equipment strewn across the room. There was an air vent on the far wall filled with foam and beneath it a plant.
It was very shrivelled. 
We all entered the room.
"Looks like an alien laboratory," Maiara said.
Itte pushed tools littering the floor with his shoes. "Alien scientific equipment, do you think anything is useful?" he said.
"Guys this is dried blood," Maiara said, pointing at a wall with various starburst shaped patterns on it they were a brown-red colour. 
"Someone was injured in here?" Sanna asked.
I looked around the room again something then seemed out of place.
The green, healthy looking plant towered above us, reaching for the only light source in the room like all plants did.
"All four of you step out of the room very slowly," someone said to us.
One was at the door to the room, beckoning us towards him. "Slowly gently but right now," he firmly said, he had one arm behind his back like he was hiding a present from us or something.
"What is it One?" I asked.
He was staring behind me, I looked and noticed the plant casting a shadow as it blocked the light source.
"That thing grew quickly," Itte exclaimed.
From the plant's leaves, vines suddenly snaked out and wrapped around me. The pulled me towards it.
One leapt into the rooms and grabbed the others and pulled them behind him.
I finally saw what he had been hiding, it was a bottle of weed killer.
"Turn off the light Sanna," he hissed.
Sanna flicked the light off.
The plant dropped a pod down next to my head it was covered in large thorns.
"Let him go," One said and he raised the bottle of weed killer.
The plant dropped the mace made of thorns closer to my head. I then realised that it was using me as a hostage.
One sprayed a short burst of liquid on the plant. A section so branches and leaves shrivelled immediately. 
"I will use this to kill you," he threatened the plant.
The plant appeared to consider this.
Then the vines let me go and I stepped away quickly from it.
One backed out of the room with me then slammed the door.
The plant then shot vines out, just as he brought it closed.
One slammed the vines between the door and the frame, then sprayed them with weed killer. They shrivelled up and died as the door sealed tight and he locked it.
"What was that?" Sanna said.
One sprayed the edges of the door with weed killer, the frame and any gaps he could see. He then sprayed all the wall around it.
"When we took the Ark this room was found, that plant was inside. it killed several men trying to grow and escape the room."
"Escape, is it a prisoner?" Maiara asked.
"Dr Ghost's experts theorized that it was an alien seed that was sucked into the Ark when it was on another world. It entered that room vire the air vent, and must have stayed there since then. The room was sealed before we got into the Ark so even the aliens who made this ship couldn't deal with it and made sure it was sealed in that room."
"Can it get out?" I asked.
One moved the wall panel back into place and sprayed it with weed killer too.
"With no light it will shrivel up again. It had no water so eventually it will die. However it will take time. Never open it again," he warned us.
He sprayed the panel one last time. "I will go get more sealant to make sure it can't send smaller vines through any gaps, leave this corridor at once, do not tell others about this, it is your secret," he added.
We all walked away looking at each other and the small adventure we had had.
"It seemed there were more secrets on this ship than we had first realised. 
​