Past the Stars, onto Mars

(DISCLAIMER-Lots of background information)

Landon couldn’t sleep.

His anxiety surged. He counted all of his school subjects in his head, tried to remember if he had homework, and even counted to one hundred and back.

He sat up straight.

His math homework was due that day.

He threw his blanket across the room and stumbled out of bed. He tripped over his backpack and face planted into the wall.

He groaned in frustration.

He knew it was going to be a long day.

He eventually got up and brushed himself off, shocked that his family wasn’t awake, due to the noise. Then again, he was secluded to the attic as a punishment for getting a C minus on his last History test. So what if he didn’t know the name of the sixth president? The past is the past.

He unzipped his backpack so aggressively, the zipper almost broke off. He grabbed his red, unorganized folder and opened it up.

There it was: the crinkled-up, untouched math homework, due in less than ten hours.

His tired brain did the best it could to finish all of the questions correctly, but alas, he was almost positive he did miss a few. Ah, well, he thought. Better than a zero.

He did his best to go back to sleep, and he did… a few minutes before his alarm.

Meanwhile, Caleb was still asleep, even though his alarm went off. He finally woke up with a jolt, realizing that he slept in 20 minutes past his alarm, and jumped out of bed, threw on two completely random pieces of clothing, ran his fingers through his ginger hair, and ran out of his bedroom door, throwing cereal into his bowl and scooping giant spoonfuls into his mouth.

He got looks from his sister, Rose, and his brother, Landon. 

Rose never had much to worry about. She was in the fourth grade, and she was so smart, she flew through her tests and assignments faster than the majority of her class.

Their mom was already up and moving. She was already running a little behind schedule, but that’s fine. At least her kids were almost ready.

Rose stood up and aggressively brushed her flamy red hair out of her face. People told her she looked almost identical to Caleb, even though she was six years younger than him and was, in fact, a girl. She never understood it. It didn’t make sense for a girl to look like her brother if they were opposite genders.

Landon looked nothing like his siblings. He had the most gorgeous, fluffy brown hair anyone in his city had ever seen, and a perfect pair of dark hazel eyes to go with it. He was tall and slim, while the rest of his family was still tall, but had a regular build.

They all three snatched their backpacks from the bench by the front door and walked out the door once they had finished getting ready. They waved goodbye to their grateful parents and off to school they went.

They had no idea what was coming.

The school was buzzing with something other than excitement. No one knew what it was, though. However, the Taylor siblings, Caleb, Rose, and Landon, all had their suspicions.

Things started going downhill since the Great Island of Guatemala was uncovered from the sea thirty years back. It was absolutely enormous, and contained so many wonderful things, like beautiful trees, plenty of food, freshwater, and lots of other amazing things.

But America claimed it.

They plowed the entire thing, selling more than one million tons of lumber in the first week alone. They completely covered the island in asphalt, concrete, and buildings…

And pollution rates skyrocketed.

And with that, so did the climate.

Since a large amount of trees were chopped down, and people travelled a lot to get there, using gas and emitting exhaust fumes into the air... well… you can see how that could be bad.

And then there were the wildfires.

They started on that island, then spread throughout Central America, then spread to the rest of the Americas.

Apparently, their town was predicted to be hit by the flames next. Those were the words of Dr. Trish Valentine, who predicted the Great California Divide in 2050. That was when the biggest, deadliest, most powerful earthquake of all time hit California, causing it to divide from the rest of America, not including Hawaii and Alaska.

Every single kid was talking about how she and Elon Musk, who was still alive due to his scientific medication, were going to send a unit of one million people to Mars, launching up to ten thousand units up into space at a time.

And that’s when the Taylor kids started to worry.

What if their families got separated somehow? Were they really prepared for going to space?

It all sounded awesome, but there was no way that they would survive the rest of their lives on Mars.

The situation was awful.

School was just school. Boring, with homework, of course, with a dash of more random and useless information to stuff into their brain.

They were each picked up, driven home, and forced to finish their homework.

After that, for some reason, their parents were really tense. They didn’t speak, they just worked around the house. But their silence startled the Taylor kids. Rose was the first one to speak up.

“Mom, Dad… is something wrong?” she asked in her sweet voice.

“No,” their mom replied, “nothing at all.”

Caleb was slightly irritated. “Come on, something’s wrong. Tell us, don’t be shy,” he said.

“Well, your mother and I…” their dad began. Oh boy, Caleb thought, all bad conversations start this way. “... think that we may have to go to Mars in order to stay safe.”

“Seriously? Awesome!” Landon shouted, leaping out of his seat. He then realized that he was the only one. “It is awesome… right?”

“Well… they can’t give us training in time for the actual event, so we may have to just wing it,” their mom said, visibly worried but sounding reassuring and soft.

“You can’t wing a trip to Mars without dying, Mom,” Caleb said. “It’s better off to find a fireproof shelter here on Earth and stay there.”

“But here’s the thing: those flames are so hot, if you come within ten feet of them, you die instantly because of the extreme heat. We’ve got to find a way out of this planet,” their dad argued.

“Why can’t we just go across the world?” Rose asked.

“It’s climate change, Rose, it affects the whole world,” Caleb told her.

“Oh,” replied a disappointed Rose.

“So here’s the plan,” their dad said, sitting down, “we’re going to pack our things, just the essentials, and load them into our moving van. We’re going to be assigned a locker number, then put our things in there to keep them safe during the trip up. Your purple unicorn is coming with us, don’t worry,” he said when he saw Rose’s sad face.

“Then we’ll be assigned a pod to our corresponding colony. Plan?” their dad asked.

By then, everyone had zoned out. They were thinking about what they were going to pack, what they were going to leave to be charred by these mutant flames, and most importantly, what was for dinner.

“I want Chick-Fil-A,” Landon said out of nowhere. His mom gave him a look, and he immediately stopped.

Now was not the time to joke around.

***

Finally, everything was loaded into the moving van, and Landon was filled with his cuisine of choice- Chick-Fil-A. Apparently, it was the only thing open during a world crisis. Still delicious.

They drove all the way to Canada, where, in the middle of a giant empty field, sat ten thousand gigantic space pods.

Caleb did the math, and they were sending one hundred billion people into space, which was perfect, since that was just the right amount for every person on earth, and every single one that was about to be born. The extras were for storage, supplies, and animals. Some wanted to stay behind, however, since they were going to die anyway. It made the Taylors so sad to see sick, injured, or old people crying, saying goodbye to their family for the last time.

Elon Musk and Dr. Valentine were standing on stage, directing everyone to where they should stand in single file. They would count them off, give them locker numbers, and separate them into their pods. Unfortunately, the Taylors were at the very back.

It wasn’t until the golden sun began to rise that the Taylors were numbered off.

And immediately, they ran into a problem.

“999,999…” the person counting said to Landon.

“1,000,000!” the person counting then said to Rose.

She turned around to face her parents.

“Guys… what about you?!” she said, freaking out about the situation.

The Taylor parents stared at each other, wide-eyed and mouths hanging open.

“Ma’am, there must be some mistake… they’re our kids!”

“I’m sorry, that’s how my job is done,” she replied. “By the way, you’re one. Kids, why don’t you run over with your group?”

They were outraged. Caleb started to shout at her, asking her if she was out of her mind, or if she wanted to go take a hike straight into the mutant fire. His mom immediately started bawling at the fact that she was going to be separated from her ‘babies,’ and their dad stood there, shocked at what just happened.

Well, obviously, Caleb got in trouble, and Mrs. Taylor was escorted by Mr. Taylor to their pod.

Each one was massive, towering over 700 feet tall. They were shaped like stretched out spheres with three legs and a giant SpaceX logo. There was a small door which opened up to a ramp, which people were being filed into. Their moving van was towed to their giant locker, the size of a three-car garage. Each one had a number, and there were exactly one million numbers per storage pod, and there were five thousand of those in total.

The pods were pretty much covered in pure diamonds- no kidding. The inside was two feet of steel which was encased in diamonds. The stairs led up to a giant room, where each person was assigned a cubicle with a white chair, a computer monitor, a white leather chair with a heavy seatbelt, an oxygen mask, a vomit bag, and a snack bar with all of the Taylor kids favorites- cookies, Coke, and chips.

Each person was directed to sit down and wait for the instructions, given in every language known to man. Caleb, Landon, and Rose all put on their high-quality headphones and listened to Elon Musk give instructions.

“Welcome all to the SpaceX: Project Mars space pods. Please remain seated, with your seat belt buckled at all times. If not, you will most likely die, due to several things like pressure, gravity loss, and even more. If you feel sick, there is a bag on your desk to your left. If you are hungry, there are snacks and drinks available in the mini fridge on your right, on the desk of course. You can see footage and receive instructions from the computer situated in front of you. Also, that’s where the countdown will be shown. Thank you, and enjoy your ride.”

That’s all the Taylors needed to know. They took off their headphones, almost in unison, and almost five hours later, the timer was displayed on the desktop. Only ten minutes until takeoff.

Rose began to panic. She decided that eating would be the best solution, so she pulled a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos open and began shoveling them into her face. After that, she took some deep breaths and decided that she would be alright.

Landon was unfazed, which was typical. By then, he’d already guzzled three cans of soda and cleaned out five bags of chips. Even after Chick-Fil-A, he’s still hungry.

Caleb was a mix of Rose and Landon. He was worried immensely: his parents were in a completely different pod. What if the one his parents were in had a malfunction and came crashing back to Earth while theirs was perfectly fine? Vice versa?

He had to stay strong.

He had to put on a brave face for his siblings. He was the oldest, after all.

Finally, the timer counted down to zero. The pod rumbled, then shot into the sky faster than an airplane.

The pressure was intense. Rose’s ears hurt so bad, yet they wouldn’t pop. Nausea crept up her throat, and she grabbed her bag just in time.

The ride was bumpy until they finally reached space. That’s when their screens flashed the words ‘feel free to move about the cabin’ popped up on the screen, and everyone began to unbuckle their seat belts, and to their surprise, they began floating out of their cubicles and into the tall space above them.

Landon and Caleb swam toward Rose, who was crying since she was so scared. They hugged each other, saying that it would be alright when in reality, it wouldn’t be.

Suddenly, the speaker crackled.

First, the person speaking spoke in English, since it’s the most popular.

“Attention, passengers, I regret to inform you that SpaceX Pod number Fifty Four has crashed. As reported, all passengers have died. Every other pod, however, has launched to space successfully. Thank you!”

While he was speaking, the Taylor kids exchanged glances.

That was their parent’s pod.

They would be living life on the road (or, well, the stars) as orphans for the rest of their lives.