Lost in Deep Space

Prologue: The end of the world

It's just my mother and me; my Mum is the only family I have. My Dad died in a car crash before I was born, so I never got to know who he really was. Everything I know about him is just straight from the stories my Mum would tell me as a child, although I feel like they weren't always true. I had a brother too, and he was about ten years older than me. I was only thirteen when he left to go to America. He always wanted to be an astronaut, so he went to work for NASA. He was going to pilot one of the first space shuttles NASA had ever created, and then try to land it on the moon. Unfortunately there was an system error before they got out of Earth's upper atmosphere and his ship fell back towards the ground and got destroyed, killing everyone aboard. Since that day, I have made it my mission in life to go further than any of my family has ever gone before, and I will make sure the whole world is watching me when I do.

I started by saying goodbye to my family. Well, by family I mean my mother and our dog. Our dog is named Sparky, and I'm not entirely sure why that is. I think I named our dog when I was 10; young and full of crazy ideas.

My Mum's eyes are watery, and I can tell that Sparky is sad that I am going as well. But I don't think he knows that I am going away for much longer than just a few days. My Mum couldn't help herself and proceeded to cry her heart out. That then made me cry, of course.

"Come on Mum, you'll be able to watch me on TV," I said trying to wipe away the tears that are streaming down her face.

"I know, I know. But I'll still miss you, and there's nothing you can do about that."

"And I'll miss you too, Mum."

"Alright, well you'd better call home every week and keep me up to date on everything that goes on up there!" she said, trying to look happier.

"Mum... I'll be in Cryo-sleep. For like 200 days, at the very least."

"Oh, yeah... what's that again?" she said, holding my shoulders and looking innocently into my eyes.

"Come on Mum, I told you yesterday. It's where I go to sleep for a long time, and then I wake up when we get there."

"Right... I remember now," she said, disappointedly looking down at her feet.

I kissed her forehead, hoping that it would make her feel at least a tiny bit better.

"Come on Sparky, we've gotta let her go. Otherwise she'll be late for her liftoff," she said to the dog, smiling and turning away.

I walked towards the door and managed to open it a little bit just before my Mum yelled "OH, AND MARILYN?".

"What!?" I yelled back.

"You know I've always been proud of you. Ever since you were a little girl. If only your father was here to see you now..."

"Thanks Mum, and I'm proud of you too."

Great. One of my last face-to-face conversations with my Mum and I say something that doesn't even make sense. Typical me.

There was an escort waiting outside my home; I assume to take me to the airport. It was a simple, small, black car with some guy in a suit waiting for me in the drivers seat. He noticed I was on my way over to the car, so he got out and opened the door for me.

"Oh, thank you," I said as I awkwardly got into the back seat of the car.

After nodding at me, he silently got back into the driver's seat and drove off.

I can not believe that I finally made it. And I'm not talking about arriving at the airport - I'm talking about being the captain of a space-ship.