A New Generation

Chapter 1-Luna

I jolted forward, screaming. I was breathing hard. I flopped back down, staring up at the bunk above me. It was the third time in the past week I'd woken up from that dream. I could still see Roslynn and Ryan hugging. 'Course, most of this month, I hadn't slept, so that was pretty much the only dream I remembered. I looked around the moon base. People were scattered around the floor in sleeping bags, snoring, fast asleep.

I sat up, rubbing my eyes. I couldn't tell the time, since it was almost always dark on the base, since we were on the side facing away from earth and the sun. The moonbase, first of its kind, was named Luna, like me. I liked that, except my name had one extra letter. I'd always liked my name, but it always confused people. Lunah; l-u-n-a-h. I'm glad I'm using my middle name now; Artemis. Plus, it kind of honors my cousin who died in order to start the government and the world anew.

I got out of bed, threw on some clothes and sat on the ground. According to a nearby clock, it was 2:06, MST: Moon Standard Time. I was having a really hard time sleeping, since on the moon, I had no way to get sleep medication, so my insomnia, dreams, along with my depression, were running wild.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. I jumped up, spinning around. I was two inches away from stepping on a person.

"Careful," Bryan whispered, as he dangled upside down from the upper bunk, "Just 'cuz you can't sleep doesn't mean you should wake others up by trampling them."

I rolled my eyes. "Funny. Why are you up?"

He smirked. "You woke me up with your scream." He hopped down from the bed, sitting next to me. "Another dream about the portal?"

I sighed, nodding.

"Want to take a walk? That might calm you some."

"Where would we go? Or even walk? You were the one saying we shouldn't step on people."

He laughed. "Yeah, I changed my mind. Let's step all over them," he said, heavy sarcasm in his tone.

I pushed him playfully. "Hilarious. What do you actually want to do?"

"I actually think we should take a walk. I found some suits yesterday when I was snooping around. I think they'll fit us."

I shook my head. "We shouldn't. We might need them later, and we shouldn't use up the oxygen."

"Lunah, they filter oxygen out of the air. We can use them as long as we want. That's why the Luna base hasn't run out of oxygen, even though it was built while ago. Plus, it uses atomic bonding to create oxygen if there isn't enough around."

"How on earth do you know that?"

"I heard Thalissa talking about it. What, did you think I'm some kinda nerd? Anyways, I'm going to go for a walk. Care to come?"

I looked around at the room at all the people, sound asleep. "Won't we get in trouble?"

He smiled mischievously, his eyes with a glint of laughter. "Not if they don't find out." He held out his hand. I smiled, and took it.

We raced silently down the hall. Left, right, right, down the stairs... I lost track of where we were, but clearly Bryan hadn't. We finally stopped, standing right in front of a metal chest about the size of a bed—a good bed, that is, not like the tiny ones we had now. He pulled out a hair pin from his pocket, and undid the lock.

"Where did you get that bobby pin?"

He handed it to me. "It was in your hair yesterday."

I rolled my eyes, snatching the pin back. I used it to pin my hair out of my eyes. I realized it had been my hair in my face—not my eyes—that had been making my sight fuzzy.