The New Planet of Gibberzol

I looked up at the smoggy Earth sky. It used to be bright blue, sometimes filled with puffy, white clouds, but not anymore. Global warming had changed all that.

It was a good thing I wouldn't have to stay here much longer. The dirty fog was making it hard to breathe. I was helping my parents load up the spaceship so we could take off to live on a better planet. It would take some time to adjust to, but at least it wouldn't be as toxic as living here on Earth had become.

"Addilyn, what are you doing?" Dad called. "This old planet ain't getting any more habitable!"

Dad's voice snapped me out of my reverie. "Okay, Dad!" I said even though I didn't think he even told me to do something.

It seemed to take forever, but finally, we got the last of the stuff into our spaceship the size of a minivan. As we all buckled up our seatbelts to take off, I took one last look at Earth.

It had been in bad shape since before I was born. (I was almost fourteen.) Scientists all around the world had been trying to fix it up. But nothing worked. Eventually, Earth's atmosphere became full of brown, stinky smog, so everyone on Earth had to evacuate to different planets. Luckily, scientists. had found a few habitable planets that seemed to be vacant.

Dad started up the spaceship's engine. I sat in the backseat with my hot purple backpack next to me. I was excited to breathe decent oxygen again, but would I see my friends again? Would we be in the same town, or even on the same planet?

Our spaceship suddenly rose up a few feet off the ground as the wings began to come out. I was used to the lifting feeling I got when the spaceship rose, but it still surprised me.

"Here we go!" Dad exclaimed, stepping on the pedal. We zipped into the brown sky.

"Which planet are we going to go to?" Mom said. "There are several options."

"Well," Dad said. "I was thinking about Faxalon. Its atmosphere and gravity are very similar to how Earth was how I was young."

Faxalon? That sounded fine. But then I realized. Almost all my friends were going to Gibberzol!

"Dad!" I said. "Faxalon sounds great...but all my friends are going to Gibberzol! Can we go there instead?"

Dad thought for a second. "Are you sure all your friends are going to Gibberzol?"

"Almost all of them!" I exclaimed. "Please, can we go there? My friends told me about it, and it seems just as good as Faxalon!"

"I'm not sure, Addilyn," Dad said. "We did have plans."

"Uh, no, we didn't."

I looked out the window. We were starting to break out of Earth's atmosphere.

A few minutes later, the moon came into sight. I had seen the space station where we set off to our planets before on TV, but in person, it was magnificent.

"Whoa," I said.

We pulled up our spaceship in one of the countless parking spots along the side of the space station. Then we got out and started to unpack all our luggage. The space station had a bubble of breathable air around it, so we were fine.

I put on my backpack and grabbed my gray suitcase from the trunk. It had all my clothes, my toothbrush, and other necessities. My backpack mostly contained entertainment for the long ride to our new home.

We all brought our luggage into the space station. It was amazing! The floor, walls, and ceiling were mostly white, but with lots of colorful signs and other things. Many registration desks were to our left, with people having their universal passes scanned, so they could travel anywhere in the universe. A little ways away, many tunnels led to spaceships that took us to our new home planets.

We walked towards one of the registration desks and had to wait as an elderly woman got her universal badge scanned. While we waited, I took my own universal badge out of my backpack. It had my picture that I had taken a couple weeks ago, my name, and basic information like my birthday, (former) home country, and age.

Once it was our turn, the woman behind the desk asked for our universal badges. My dad showed his. The woman scanned it. Then my mom showed her, and the woman scanned it. Finally, I showed mine, and it got scanned as well.

"You're good to go," the woman told us, and she smiled. "Have a good time at your new home."

I smiled back. "Thanks." Then we set off towards the tunnels.

After walking for a bit, we came across the tunnel to Gibberzol. "There it is!" I exclaimed. "Dad, can we please go there?"

Dad went up and examined the description sign next to the tunnel. "Well, I'm not too sure. It says here there have been strange figures spotted at various locations."

"Pleeeeeaaase?" I begged. "I at least want to be on the same planet as my friends!"

My dad looked at my mom. "You think so?" he asked.

"Sure," my mom said. "Her friends are all going there."

"Yes!" I exclaimed. We went up to the guard by the tunnel. He scanned our passes again. Then we walked into the tunnel.

We boarded into a huge spaceship almost two times bigger than an average airplane. It was incredible! Once we got into the spaceship, a flight attendant had to scan our universal badges again, then we went to sit down for the long flight there.

It wasn't until I buckled my seat belt that I realized my best friend Caroline was sitting right across the aisle from me! "Hi!" I exclaimed, waving. I was glad I was sitting in the aisle.

Caroline turned her head and saw me. "Oh! Hi, Addilyn! I thought you were gonna go to a different planet."

"Nope! We were about to go to Faxalon, but I convinced my dad to let us come here instead."

"That's great!"

"I know, right?"

Caroline and I talked almost the entire ride, and it was eight hours long. Near the middle of the ride, a flight attendant came and gave out meals. It wasn't as good as my mom's home-cooked food, but it was still good. It was just like riding in an airplane, but I saw glittery stars when I looked out the window.

Near the end of the ride, I think I fell asleep. I was woken up by Caroline shaking me.

"Wha?" I mumbled.

"We're here!" Caroline exclaimed. "At Gibberzol!"

I quickly unbuckled my seatbelt and grabbed my backpack. I stood up, still a little sleepy. But we were here!

My family went to grab our luggage from the luggage compartment. Then we got out of the spaceship for the first look at our new home.

When I got out of the spaceship, I was nearly attacked by fresh oxygen. I'm serious. I had breathed the fumes of Earth for so long; the breathable oxygen actually felt weird. But I got used to it in about thirty seconds.

Gibberzol was amazing. It looked a lot like how Earth looked before the apocalypse, with a blue sky and a few puffy white clouds, but the scenery sure was different. The trees had purple leaves, with lots of different colored trunks, and the bushes were dark purple.

As my family and Caroline's family left the spaceport to go to the train station to go to our pre-built new hometown, I think I saw a strange figure lurking in the shadows of a tree. But I blinked, and it was gone.

It didn't take me long to settle into our new apartment. It was pretty small but nice. It had a living room, a kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. It was late at night when we arrived, so once we unpacked a decent amount of stuff, we settled down and went to sleep.

I think it was pretty early when I woke up the next morning. I still had my eyes closed, but I was aware. The first thing I noticed was that there was a hard surface underneath me. I must have fallen out of bed during the night.

But wait...I never fell out of bed...

I opened my eyes with a start and realized that I wasn't in my bedroom anymore. I was in a small, dark gray room made entirely of metal. Then I noticed the bars. I was in some kind of cell!

"What's going on?" I exclaimed.

I saw a figure approaching me through the darkness the cage was surrounded by. When it got closer, I almost cried out in shock. It was an alien! It was a bit taller than my dad and had scaly, green skin. It was dressed in a black robe and had claws on its four-fingered hands. Its eyes were on stalks, and it held a golden specter in one hand.

"You are here," the alien said in a deep voice, "because your kind took from us what was rightfully ours."

"Wha?" I said. "What do you mean? And...how can you speak English?"

"We were thriving on our home planet, this planet," the alien said. "But then your kind invaded. They built cities all over the planet, cut down the forests we needed for our survival, without even a second thought that the planet might have already been inhabited."

The alien was talking about the preparation of Gibbazol for inhabitation! "No, you don't understand-"

"You don't understand!" the alien roared. "You came and colonized a planet that was ours already! And for that, you will pay!"

"Where are my parents?!" I yelled.

"They are trapped in cells, just like you," the alien said. He tapped his specter twice. The room suddenly lit up. I shielded my eyes from the brightness. After my eyes got a little adjusted, I realized that I was in a huge room, with many humans trapped in cells just like me! There were cells stacked on top of each other, even. It looked like a maximum-security prison.

I looked around in awe. I didn't see my parents at all or anyone I knew or even recognized briefly.

"What will you do with us?"

"We will wipe out your entire species," the alien said. "If there are some strong ones, we will enslave them. We will not be mistreated like this!"

I gasped. I didn't want to be killed, or enslaved if I was "strong"! "Wait-" I started.

"There will be no more waiting!" the alien said. "We will take back what is rightfully ours!"

"We only colonized this planet because our original home planet was ruined!" I cried. "The planet got too warm! We had to evacuate to different planets so we could survive!"

The alien stayed silent. "Is that true?"

"Yes!" I cried.

The alien thought for a minute. "We will consider this," the alien said. Then he left the room without another word.

I sat down in my cell. Would it work? Would the aliens let us live? Or would we all be killed?

It seemed like hours until the alien finally returned. It probably was.

"The Council and I have decided," the alien said. "We will let your kind live as long as we live in peace together."

I smiled. We weren't going to be killed after all! "Thank you," I said. "Thank you for letting us thrive on this planet."