The Mothership

“Goodbye, Calliope.”

“No, don’t leave me here,” a brown-haired girl says, tears streaming down her cheeks solemnly. 

“I have to go,” the man says. He walks away, not looking back at the crying girl on the ground. As he walks into the distance, he pixelates into thin air in a teleportation-like manner. The girl looks around with puffy eyes, observing her surroundings. She pulls her hair up with shaking hands, a tic she adapted to when she gets anxious.

Large trees surround her, and a dark green color invades her eyes. A dark night brings a sky of stars and constellations and there is an unnerving sound of crickets chirping. She breathes deeply and stares at the nature in intense thought.

This must be planet Earth.

The girl continues to sniffle, realizing the inevitable truth: She had been extruded from the Mothership she once called home for breaking the Code, and now she had to survive on her own. 

She had heard of Earth before, read about it in the many pamphlets on the Mothership. It was said that a large population of ‘humans’ once lived here, too large. As their species kept growing, technology did as well. Different nations of humans fought each other, and when the nuclear bomb was introduced, the population quickly went extinct. 

“No,” she thought aloud. “I cannot be stranded here alone, forever. Come back Julius!” 

She screamed at the sky, hoping for the man to slowly appear in his mystical way. There was no response, no Julius to come to rescue her. 

At the Mothership, things run a lot differently than how the humans did on Earth. Every six years, a new generation of passengers are born. Every ten sets of six years, the oldest generation is put down to a never ending sleep. This maintains the population, but also makes it impossible to grow relationships with any generation other than your own. 

And then, there is the Code. The five rules every passenger must follow to stay in the Mothership.

Rule 1: You wake up at 5:00 AM and you go to sleep at 10:00 PM. You cannot sleep in or stay out past curfew. You eat at your generation’s dining periods. You maintain general hygiene and perform custodial respect with your items.

Rule 2: You only communicate with your generation unless told otherwise by higher up authorities. You eat, sleep, and leisure only with your specified generation and cannot interact with older or younger generations. 

Rule 3: At labor times according to your generation, you must provide work for the Mothership following your job for that day. You must use the most focus and skills as possible while performing labor and fulfill your daily requirements.

Rule 4: You cannot harm physically or verbally the peers of your generation and must always show respect. When speaking to elder authorities, you must show full honesty and kindness and perform all of their requested tasks.

Rule 5: You cannot avoid the death process, try to escape the event of putting down the eldest generation, or aid someone else’s escape from the ceremony. You must show gratitude for the time you have spent on the Mothership instead of defiance.   

If you break any of the rules, you will instantly be evicted from the Mothership and will not have any time to protest or defend your reasons.

Page 385, chapter 6, volume 8, pamphlet 66, section 19. 

The brunette memorized the position of the Code in the Mothership’s library, remembering ironically reading the rules over and over the night before she broke them, like she knew all along that she would. 

It was a Saturday morning, and it was the first of January. A new generation to be born, and a new generation to die. 

Her first suspension of the Code was when she talked to her mother that day, who was in generation 802. Calliope was in generation 808, with the current age of twenty-four. It was a simple conversation with a desperate message from her mother. She wanted Calliope to know that she loved her, and was watching over her for so long, but now she had to say goodbye.

Calliope had never been too good at goodbyes, so her mother didn’t go to the ‘elder passing ceremony’ subtly. Even though her mother was a total stranger, she felt a connection to her. To her blue eyes, brown hair, and similar nose.

She wouldn’t let the authorities take her birth giver with ease, so she snuck into the ceremony with a disguise. She grabbed her mother and led her out of the large chamber, easily achieving the rule break. But, it was too easy.

The elder authorities met Calliope and her mother speeding down a hallway. The moment she had locked eyes with the head governor, she was paralyzed with absolute fear. A terrorizing pain which you can’t escape, you must endure. 

She was sent to a capsule separate from her mother, both with different destinations. She was crying in her seat that she was forced into, wishing she could erase her actions. Calliope had heard many stories before of rebels being sent to terrible places, where they died traumatizing deaths, supposedly. 

The officer on duty at the time was Julius, her best friend. How easily he betrayed her trust because of her rule break phased Calliope. He was sent with her on the capsule, looking through the smudged window the whole time avoiding her pleading eyes. 

When they arrived, he unstrapped her restraints and tossed her on the floor. Only saying a simple goodbye, he left her alone on the exotic planet and pixelated away. 

She got up off the ground, a headache pounding against her brain from the past events. She hoped she was having a wild dream, but everything was too surreal. Calliope didn’t know where to start, or even how. She had taken classes and performed jobs on the Mothership, but none had come close to surviving stranded on Earth. Passengers have an immunity to gaseous air, which is why they don’t die right away from the lack of oxygen. 

So, in order to continue her young life, she would need to build a shelter, gather food and water, and not go insane from loneliness. The last one was going to be the hardest for her. This would be her first challenge of survival. 

That night was like no other, a cold breeze terminating any warmth. She had started a low fire, glowing a dim orange light on her shivering form. She hugged her body, wrapping her weak arms around her legs. 

She glared at the ground with distaste, contemplating another option than living in complete loneliness: suicide. To end a life of unknown terror, full of despair all alone. But, she had to stay strong, live a long blessed life on that survivable planet Earth. She was lucky to survive for so long, so she knew what she had to do, and that was to continue forward.

Although she had made a grave mistake, she would try her best to get back to the Mothership, and although it seemed impossible, she had just a little hope.