The Day We Left Earth

Blue Skies, Green Grass, Not a Care in the World

When I was little, we could do whatever we wanted to. My brother would ride his hover board everywhere, but I preferred this thing with two wheels that my mom told me was a bike. I got laughed at by my peers at school, but I liked our history. It was cute. Bikes, iPhone 6's, whoever Donald Trump was.

I was weird, I guess. No one else cared about the twenty first century. Not like how I did.

My brother Asphero always stuck up for me, said its good that some people care about the past. That's the only way we learn from our mistakes.

That's why I was named Mia. It was an old fashioned name. That's why today you'll never find it anywhere.

I remember, when I was little. No one cared about the world. The skies were still blue, I guess the grey tint didn't raise any alarms. The grass was still green, where there was grass, anyways. But there was no more... life.
Blue skies and green grass can only make up so much.

Asphero never cared much for the small things like I did. He never looked at the sky, and merely hovered over the grass. It was sad to me, but no one else seemed to notice.

Then a few years later, people started talking about the sun exploding, or burning out, or something like that. My parents, Christaline and Aspheros, never let me or Asphero hear what they were talking about.

My friend, Sandrayik, always told me about it during school, when the teachers weren't looking. It was only science, but we were forbidden to talk about it. So at recess, we would hide under the mechanical trees, and talk.

Then another few years later, it became more than just talking. The rumours became more than just rumours and as much as no one liked it, it was silently confirmed that it was going to happen. We were going to die.

Everyone's table is a holographic projector, where we watch the news during breakfast. They don't filter what they put on the news. They think we have a right to know what is going to happen, except they left out one major part. They were building ships. Big rockets that could fit billions of people each. They didn't tell us that we would have to leave Earth one day. They didn't tell us that we would be safe, that we didn't have to worry. All they told us was that the sun was going to explode. That we were in danger.

Sandrayik took it upon himself to protect me. I told him I didn't need protection, and that since we were friends, we would protect each other. Turns out he liked me. That's why he was so cautious when I was talking to the other boys.

So a few years later, when the sun was no longer talked about, and we were in our late teens, we didn't care about the world.

I ditched my bike for his hover board, the blue sky for the holographic television. I ditched the green grass too, and merely hovered right over it.

It seemed like no one cared, so why should I?

I stopped researching about the twenty first century and instead went to parties with my friends.

I hated my name, and wanted to change it, but Sandrayik told me not to. He liked it, so why change it?

I didn't care anymore. I wasn't a little girl, and now no one has the right to call me weird.  Other than my out of century name, I was just like everyone else.
I partied, had a boyfriend, had the newest iPhone and watched the best shows on my table. The blue skies became more grey, and the grass became less and less. And I just didn't care. No one did.

Everything seemed fine, actually. No one had to worry. My family still ate breakfast together while everyone watched the news. My brother still loved his hover board. My bike collected dust in the garage. Everything seemed fine.

But like I said before, they didn't tell us what we needed to know. So one day, while me and Sandrayik were having a picnic in an unknown place, I stole his board and adventured while he slept. Then I saw it. The big ships. All the rockets that could carry billions of people. I stopped. I couldn't think straight.

Everything seemed okay, but that doesn't mean it actually was.

I got scared. Started hyperventilating. Then one of the workers noticed me, while I was listening in to a conversation. I was glad to leave. I didn't want to hear about the sun exploding again. I didn't want to hear their shouts, nor see them chasing after me.

The world wasn't supposed to know what was going on. That's why we were forced to watch the news every morning, to give off the illusion that everything was fine. Who remembers news from five years ago, anyways? Who would notice the rocket ships in the middle of nowhere?

That's why they were so surprised to see me. So I took Sandrayik's hover board back to where he was sleeping. He was dead.

If one person finds out about what's actually going on before the government wants you to, there's a 99.9% chance you will die. That is, of course, if they can catch you. So I kept going on his hover board, the sight of everything making my cry. The sky wasn't blue, there was barely any grass left, and Sandrayik was dead. I cared again. I was just too late.

After a few hundred miles, not knowing where I was, I at least knew one thing: I wasn't dying today. So I picked a mechanical tree, and slept under it, thinking about anything and everything, but one thing in particular. One thing I always went back to.

When we were little, we could do whatever we wanted. I'm not little anymore.