Curious

Leaving Earth

          "Phoenix.... What an odd name. I'm not sure how mom chose that when she decided she wanted to give me a name that would make it difficult for others to guess my personality." Phoenix rambled to himself, packing a small bag.

          "At least now I can nickname myself Nick... Heh." He talked to himself while stuffing some things in his bag: starting with meals, a few notebooks written by Pidge, two small tracking devices made by Hunk, and some sort of weird doll Lance had. It was rather small for a doll- he saw a girl give it to him earlier in the year. Phoenix figured that if he were going off to find the missing teens, he could at least bring the doll to see if Lance wanted it. 

          Phoenix had snooped around the missing teenagers dorms earlier, lucky enough to have a schedule that only a few other students had- which was a large contributor to how he actually managed to pull off what would be considered a crime. He finally had what he wanted in a small bag and made his way up to the roof, and then down the side of the building. He rushed off to the pod that he had managed to recover; it was from a nearby crash site that had been long abandoned. He was eternally grateful for Pidge and Hunk being way more intelligent than he was, as their gadgets and notes made it possible for him to fix up almost anything he came across. He ducked into the small cave he made for his ship, pressing a button that resulted in the pod being scooted out of the cave.

          Scooping his dark, cherry-red hair into a bun, he hopped into the pod and sat in the seat. He started it up and went over the controls once more with the manual he wrote for himself, then took a deep breath and slowly rose the pod off the ground. Phoenix felt his heart race; even though he had flown the pod around safely a few times before, he'd never attempted to leave the planet. He pinched his hand to remind himself why he was doing it, and tried to pump himself up for what he was about to do.

          He closed his eyes, thinking about how he was finally going to leave Earth. He was finally going to solve the mystery of the missing students; or at least he hoped he would. He opened his eyes and hovered a few feet above the ground as he built up his courage to leave, and spotting two people in the distance running in his direction pushed him to finally fly off. It didn't take him as long as he expected to leave the Earths' atmosphere, and his face lit up once he was in space.

          "Oh my God... I.. I'm doing it. I-I'm actually in space. I'm doing this. I'm doing this!!" A huge smile spread on his lips, and he bounced happily in his seat, zooming off in his little pod. He knew he'd have to hurry and leave, or he might get caught once they send people after him- as students are not permitted to just up and leave the planet. 

          As he zipped around space, Phoenix told the pod to search for any nearby space crafts that could communicate. He set the pod for autopilot, telling it to go full speed and avoid whatever came their way. He didn't really mind which way the pod went, he'd most likely get lost anyway. Once he had done that, he stood up and sat on the floor. If the whole area in front of the chair wasn't controls, he'd stay in his chair; but alas, it was. He took out the notepads and gadgets, hoping to figure out more about them, as they were practically the only things left that would be useful.

          Countless days went by, and eventually Phoenix was tired, and low on food. He decided that since they were so far out, he'd pilot his pod manually, just so he wouldn't forget. As a result of his hungriness and weariness, he accidentally smashed his pod face-first into a space rock, severely damaging it. The alarms on the pod blared, and Phoenix desperately tried to land it on the nearest moon, which ended in him crashing his pod rather harshly into the surface, and his face slammed into the control panel. He scrambled to put on his helmet to keep himself alive, just in case of the probable chance that the moon didn't have oxygen.

          "E..Everything.... Everything is so... s-swirly..." He whispered, involuntarily resting his head on the control panel out of lack of energy and a bit of blood loss through his nose. He could barely feel the gloves of his suit touch anything as he searched for the distress button, and pressed it as hard as he could before he completely lost consciousness.