Terrestrial Mayhem

My once well-manicured nails are now reduced to dust. They are stubby, jagged, and well, non-existent. I switch to autopilot and join Alessa in the back. I sit down on the hard metal floor. 

She rolls up her map and looks up at me.

“This will be like a little adventure, you and me against the world. Like always,” She laughs.

I also force a laugh, but I’m not convinced, and by her looks I can tell that neither is she. But it's the longest exchange we’ve had in hours. 

We both know that this is nothing like those adventures we used to go on back home. 

Ouch, thinking about home; or what is left of home hurt more than anything. Alessa rolls out her map again. Starting at Terrestrium, also called planet home, our home, she drags her finger along the galaxy, passing the planet restaurants, the planet bank, the plant mall, and even the planet with swirls of blue, and green, called Earth. Alessa’s finger lingers there for a minute, her eyes full of hurt and pain. Earth, what an odd name. It was unlike the simple and self-explanatory names of our planets. What was Earth for? What on that planet terrified the people of Terrestrium? 

Alessa shakes her head then points to a round blue planet, or planet marketplace.

 “This is where we’ll go,”

I nod fiercely, Mama Frandi, had used this map to go buy the things she needed. She’d use her little space shuttle, the exact one we were using right now, but Mama had never allowed us to tag along with her, especially to the marketplace.

“Jenna,” She’d say, “Your kind isn’t welcome there,”

Your kind. Almost everyone back home hated ‘our kind’ yet Mama Frandi was kind enough to take us in. 

It seemed pretty stupid to go to a place where we were not welcome or wanted, but we both knew why we had to go. Because our only believer, other than Mama Frandi was there. It was an unspoken agreement that we’d go there. 

Alessa eases my fingers out of my mouth which I had started sucking due to the lack of my fingernails.

 “It’s gonna be okay, we’ll be okay,” 

I want to believe her. And I do. Alessa is someone who I trust and she trusts me. We only have each other. And I know that no matter what she’ll be there to protect me. Just as she had done years ago when we ended up in this new place. She had found us a way to survive and even found a way to make Mama Frandi take us in.

Her hand is still in mine, frigid and bony. I know that she is struggling to act brave, like everything was fine, but deep down she was just as scared as me. 

I return to the front of the spaceship, to steer ourselves toward the blue planet, to the last piece of hope we have left. 

“Almost there,” I say. My voice, which I hadn’t heard in forever, comes out sounding hoarse and unfamiliar. “Almost there,” 

    The sunlight is what wakes me up. It comes from the door which is ajar. How long had it been since I’d seen sunlight? Alessa is standing in the doorway. 

“I’m hungry,” she says.

I grumble and turn on my other side. I hadn’t slept that well on the cold metal floor. 

“Eat the dried furry fruit,” I moan. We had shared a bag yesterday after we landed.

Alessa taps her foot against the floor making a loud clank sound. 

“No, let’s go get food. Real food,”

I sit up, bewildered. “Out there?”

She rolls her eyes, “Yea duh,” 

Sometimes Alessa can be annoying. 

“But, are you sure it’s safe?” 

“If you aren’t gonna get out how do you plan to find Tebet?”

She has a point, but I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of being right.

    I am angry, angry, angry, angry. Why was I stupid enough to come along with her? Everyone is staring at us. Our tan colored skin and brown hair standing out against the green and aqua hues of the rest. I have never felt so self conscious.

“Are you a hooman?” The officer asks with such hatred he spits out the word.

I cower behind Alessa.

“Yes, I am Alessa, and this,” she points at me, “Is Jenna,”

One officer snickers at our names and I can practically hear Mama Frandi. 

“What weird names you have,” She had said. The names here were very simple, usually 4 letters. The older you were the longer your name. 

“Where we come from Mama, that’s how names are,” Alessa had explained, “These are the names our parents gave us,”

Alessa knew a lot about our old life, but always refused to tell me anything about it.

But Mama Frandi knew very much about us and our kind, because she was the foreign creatures teacher at the school. She had recognised us and knew that we weren’t at all how the holograms perceived us. That was one of the reasons she had taken us in. 

“Hmm,” The officer rubs his bald green head. “You may go find Tebet. He is inside the marketplace,” He gestures his hands towards the gate. 

“But before you goes, are those eeeears?” He points at the sides of our heads.

Alessa nods eagerly, “Yes, they are,” 

She always wore her hair up in a ponytail, showing them off, proud of who she was, while I wore my hair down, always covering them up. The aliens didn’t have ears and were usually fascinated or suspicious of them. 

We go through the gate, and are suddenly overwhelmed by the numerous smells, sounds, and bodies. 

Aliens are everywhere, tall, short, young, old, men, women, and shades of blue, greens, and even the rare orange. 

“We lucked out, huh?” I say to Alessa.

“Nice guy,” she murmurs. She cranes her neck around trying to spot any sign of our friend sure that his bright orange would stand out against the rest.

A waft of some good smelling warmth crashes over me. Space bread. And I want it.

“Okayyy,” Alessa agrees after a couple minutes of begging. I know she wants it as much as me. 

We run up to the stall, a blue alien woman with multiple arms refuses to sell to us. 

Wow people really hate us here.   

After hours of wandering, getting distracted, avoiding angry allies who refuse to sell us items, we find who we were looking for all along. 

“TEBET!” we both shriek, jumping into his wide spread arms. 

“I got word that you were looking for me,” he laughs.

“Yes, yes,” I say. My heart is bursting with joy, but then I remember what we were here to tell him. 

“Tebet…” starts Alessa slowly. She was never good at giving bad news, she couldn’t tolerate it either. Her eyes start to brim with tears. 

Tebet looks confused, “What is it?”

“Terrestrium is gone,” I cut in, hoping to get it over with quickly.

He nods, “I know,” He says softly. “Some had told me, but I had refused to believe it, and now you two are proof,” 

His shoulders sag and he looks older. 

“Sorry,” I whisper.

He sighs, “It’s alright, I have friends I can stay with here,”

“Can we stay with you too?” Alessa asks. Her bottom lip is trembling afraid of what he would say. I know that Tebet would of course take us in. 

He ushers us to a table. We sit. He orders cups of tea and space bread.

Gosh I was hungry. We both stuff the bread in our mouths

“Oh, how I wish I could,” he begins. What does that mean? “But I cannot. Me and Mama Frandi agreed that one day you both would have to return. When we didn’t know, but it seems that day has come quicker than we expected,” 

Alessa falls silent. We stop eating.

“Where do we have to return? Why can’t you take us in?” I wonder out loud.

“Earth, your home. You can’t continue to live here forever, you don’t belong,”

Earth? What was wrong with him? Did he not know how dangerous that place was? How could we go there? I didn’t understand, but it seemed that Alessa did. She was now a frozen statue, her face expressionless. She grabs my hand.

“Let’s go Jenna,”

I am screaming at the top of my lungs. This could be a joke for all we know, but the somber expression on Tebet’s face and Alessa’s reaction tells me it’s the truth. 

“Jenna, pleeease,”

She was pleading. Alessa never pleaded. And this somehow shook me. If she could be so strong why couldn’t I.

“It’s okay. I’m still going to be there, with you,” 

I’m quiet. Tebet is not looking at us, focused on his cup. 

He’s right, I think glancing at the bread. People wouldn’t look us in the eye here, they wouldn’t even sell us food. How would we survive on our own here?

“Like an adventure?” I ask like a 6 year old.

And Alessa smiles a real smile, not the strained one, for the first time in days, “Exactly,”