Down to Earth

Chapter 1

This is it. If I get an A on this test I go to Earth, if not I float around in this stupid ship for the rest of my life. No pressure though, right. As I walked into the small room it seemed more intimidating than ever. I sat down at the small desk that most of the kids had grown out of two years ago, but I, being smaller than most of the other kids, fit nice in the small chair. "Okay you can flip over your test," the lady announced. She was dressed nicely, with styled blonde hair and a blue dress, she was probably from the A wing of the ship. That's where all of the "important" people lived. It was mostly descendants of government officials or millionaires. I was C wing so we weren't rich, but not poor either. I flipped over the large packet, looked down at my test and easily finished the first section on space history. After about two hours we had to do the interactive part of the test. This included identifying multiple parts of the human body and making some of our own medicines. After we finished that part, we got to take a break and get some food from the cafeteria. I saw my friend Hadley sitting with her boyfriend Merlyn and a few other kids I recognized from class though I wasn't really friends with them. I didn't have many friends as I spent most of my studying to make it to Earth. Hadley on the other hand knew pretty much everyone on the ship. The way it works here is you spend the first eight teen years of your life either studying or training to be a soldier. At eight you have to take a test that decides which you are, then they put you in a program to prepare you for the test when your eighteen which decides whether you get to go to earth or not. If you make it you board a ship and probably never see anyone on the ship again. When you go to earth one of two things happen 1) You die 2) there is no two. So at least I had something look forward to. I got my food and sat down next to Hadley, "How do you think you're doing?" I asked biting into a baby carrot. "Good, I hope," she said. She had never overly cared about going to Earth. I mean obviously she wanted to, everyone did, but she just didn't really seem to care if she made it or not. I don't understand how she, or anyone else for that matter, could be content just riding in this hunk of metal not doing anything or having a purpose. But that's where we were different, Hadley was carefree as long as she had friends and something to do she was happy, I however felt like I owed it to everyone on this ship to make Earth inhabitable again, or at least make some kind of a difference. I sat through lunch listening to everyone talk, nothing they talked about was important all just nonsense about who was dating who or so-and-so kissed so-and-so. No one even mentioned the new cure for the flu or the fact that the people on Earth just took back Chicago. I tried to mention it but no one heard me and they all just continued to talk. After that I stayed quiet and ate my lunch until Hadley asked me which boy taking the soldier test I thought was cutest. "I don't see why it matters, but probably Uri Suzuki," I said giving in because if I didn't she wouldn't leave it until she knew. "Eww," some of the girls at the table said others wrinkled their noses in disgust. Hadley however was used to my taste in guys which according to her was "ugly." "Not bad, but how about Scipio Newton?" she asked. It didn't surprise me that she thought he was attractive. He was tall with dark hair that fell almost to his dark eyes and was ripped; honestly he would probably make it. He was a really good fighter. I once saw him spar a trainer and he took him down within 5 minutes. "Eh," I shrugged. She rolled her eyes and turned back to the other girls who fawned over Scipio as well. I finished my lunch and went to sit next to my only other friend still on board, Stellan. He was tall, like really tall he had blonde hair that he spiked a little. A lot of the girls liked him but he was completely oblivious, he always had his nose in a book. He was testing to be a scientist as well and was probably going to Earth. "How much did you get done?" I asked sliding in next to him. "A little over half," he said nonchalantly. I had only gotten like two thirds which with the size of the test was a difference of like 8 pages. He didn't think he was all that smart but he was probably the smartest in our class. We've been friends since we were little and for a while I had a big crush on him, but he didn't like me so I got over it. We sat there a little while talking about all the recent events on Earth, and how we would do it once we were there. After a while we went back to my cabin. On our way there we passed by the training room there was a large one way window there so we could see Uri and Scipio sparring. "He's so cute," I said gazing over Uri. He was just a little taller than me, so not very tall, but he was smart he ducked under Scipio's punch and tackled him to the ground. Stellan made a puking motion and I punched him playfully in the arm. When we got back to my cabin we opened the door to the living room, with a small kitchen to the left and three bedrooms to the right. My little brother and his friend had destroyed the house and were now running around playing something that looked similar to tag while jumping over everything they had strewn across the floor. Stellan and I barely managed to make our way around the room without tripping our being tackled by either nine-year old. When we had made into my room I shut the door, but not before yelling, "Pollux if you don't pick up Mom and Dad will be furious!" Through the door I could practically feel him ignoring me. Stellan and I sat around for about half an hour reading and talking, before we had to go back to the testing room. On our way back we passed the training room which no one was using at the time. When we had made it back to the testing room the blonde lady was already standing at the front and a few of the kids were in their seats. Stellan and I took our seats and a few minutes later they handed our tests back for us to finish. Once I had finished I put my tests in the bin on the desk at the front of the tiny room. As I walked out I was greeted by Stellan who looked like he'd been sitting in the hallway reading since he'd finished his test half an hour ago. "How did you do?" he asked me as if I already knew what grade I'd gotten. "I don't know. Good, I hope," I told him as we walked back to his cabin. He lived with just his mom in wing B, because his dad had gotten a special invitation to go to earth when they'd needed more soldiers. When we walked in his mom was in the kitchen making dinner as always. My family always bought food from the cafeteria for dinner, but every night his mom made a meal for the two of them. After we ate we went to the park, which was a large room with artificial grass and lots of play equipment. "So when do we find out our scores?" I asked Stellan as we got on the swings. "Tomorrow. I think I'm going to make it, but what about my mom? How am I going to leave her?" I didn't really have an answer so I just continued swinging in silence, but it was a comfortable silence.

*A/N* If you could please give me feedback, that would be amazing! This is my first story and I was really scared to post this. Love you guys!