A Modern Day Journey To The Center Of The Earth

Chapter 5

Chapter 5:

Today. Today. Today. It was October 15th. Finally. Dreaded. Expected. Hoped for. Today. Today. Today.

            We spent the last week partying it up before October 15th. We hung out at the water park, went sailing, climbed the rock wall to the Jacuzzis and chilled there all day once. I won an intense game on minigolf. We feasted on the finest cuisine, all delicious, except for the day we went all out and ordered the most expensive thing on the menu: A gallon of caviar. Gross.

            But now that it was October 15th, I was panicking majorly. I packed and repacked my clothes bag, entertainment bag, pet bag, which I picked out for my adorable little corgi dog that I chose for my animal study. Why corgi? Well they were uniquely structured as far as bones, compacted for space, ideal test subjects for science… Nah just kidding I picked this one cause it was FREAKING ADORABLE.

            I grabbed my food bag, filled to the brim with dehydrated deliciousness, and stuffed it in my miscellaneous bag. Joey yelped his little corgi bark from his tiny kennel. I wanted to let him out, but my schedule said I had to be ready at 11 o’clock sharp. It was 11:15.

            My stations had been assigned; Rock Sample Collecting, Pressure Gage, and Shuttle Guidance (The most important one of course) and we all did indeed have partners. No information had been disclosed about them, not even their names. I hoped she was nice. Just my luck to get stuck with some weirdo drama queen like Jessica Hawthorn.

What if the cabin was super uncomfortable? The heat must get in eventually. What if it was too small? There were three cluster rooms, where three beds were in the same room. Four in one cluster. There were two main rooms, three lavatories, and 5 offices to work on our stations. None of us had the same stations, so we all had a new partner.

I groaned. I was going in the same thought circle I had been going in for hours. Pack, Dog, Station, Partner, Conditions, Repeat.

“Felicius!” Audrey stormed into my room. “Tweets won’t fit into her outfit!” Audrey’s pet was a cockatiel named Tweety Bird, nicknamed Tweets.

I sighed. “What you do to that bird is practically abuse.” I acted annoyed, but I was actually relieved to have a break from my paranoid thought cycle.

Ding, Ding. Attention Mission Members. Please meet in the Mission 2 Launch Pad.

That voice rang out in our minds, radiating from everything. It awakened the same sleeping beast that circled around my mind, the same vicious thought circle. Today. Today. October 15th. Today.

Audrey and I met Raysha, Celia, and Nazzari out in the hall. Raysha had a Madagascar day gecko, Celia a rabbit, and Nazzari a mudskipper in a little aquatic glass habitat as their pets. We chatted mindlessly down the elevator to Mission 2 Launch Pad. The long hallway we had to walk down to get to it left us with a dreadfully suspenseful taste in the back of our mouths. Giant steel doors loomed in front of us. Nazzari stepped foreword and swept her arms in front of them, triggering their motion sense. They opened with a futuristic whooshing noise. We walked in and were immediately blinded by the lights. I held my arm up to shield my eyes and saw someone move. It was one of the other mission members! I blinked away the fuzziness creeping around the edges of my vision. I smiled at the figure as it became clear. Then took a double take. Wait… No….They can’t…. They’re boys!?!