Colonized {PUBLISHED}

Chapter 2: Jace

Her screams were the first thing he got to know about her. Jace heard them echoing through the metal wall between them, screams of pure terror, and wondered what that kind of first impression said.

He was also screaming, but for a very different reason. The girl sounded like she hated this. He loved it. All of this─ it was a dream come true, and that was why he'd almost refused to sign up. You had to have a few dreams that weren't possible, something to hope for.

After all, hope was all that had gotten him through everything that happened in the past few months.

But he didn't want to think of all of that now, not when his heart was pumping this fast, when his and the girl's screams intertwined, not when they were plummeting to the surface of an unexplored planet. Not when, for the first time in months, Jace felt alive.

The surface pod gave a lurch as the automatic controls started to slow them down. It was less fun falling now, less of the full-on pulse-pounding, adrenaline-pumping, life-in-danger excitement. They got even slower now, so it felt like they were floating, drifting. Jace wondered where they would land.

He realized that the girl had stopped screaming. She seemed to be laughing now, or gasping for air─ he couldn't tell which. It didn't really matter, though. He hadn't signed up for this to meet girls. It was the exploration he'd dreamt of, the chance to escape Earth and see the stars. Their planet was beautiful, but so human, and everywhere he went someone had been before. The history of so many lives was stifling, knowing that they all ended the same way, and he just wanted to get away from it and everything that had happened.

What seemed like a few minutes later, they stopped altogether, touching the planet lightly. He inhaled sharply, his heart suddenly rushing as his seat restraints released and the door slid open. Jace stood slowly, wobbling a bit. The gravity here seemed just barely stronger than the artificial gravity on the ship had been, making it a little bit harder to walk out the door and onto the surface of a new planet.

The first thing Jace noticed was the sky. It was a strange combination of purple and pink, streaked through with orange, so it looked like a sunrise even though he knew it was midday here. The air felt crisp and cool and fresh, and smelled like nothing on Earth. It was somewhat like the scent of coffee, intertwined with the smell of rain and leafy vegetation and something else entirely unknown.

"We have two suns," another voice said. If he had to describe it, he would have said that she sounded like the smell of this place─ voice warm and somewhat soothing, but cold at the same time, full of mystery and wonder.

He looked around and found that she was right. "Yeah," he said, "Two suns."

Jace could feel her stare on the back of his neck, and his skin prickled. He found himself looking anywhere but at her. They were on some sort of coast, but the sand was rougher and darker than most on Earth, and the water was the same color as the sky, or maybe it was just reflecting it. A few feet away, there was some kind of strange plant, like a transparent blue flower bud, but taller and wider than him. There wasn't any sort of grass underfoot, just the sand, and off in the distance he saw mountains and what looked like forests. There was so much to take in that Jace almost forgot about the girl completely until she cleared her throat.

"Are you done staring at the clouds, or should I go inside and wait?" She sounded somewhat annoyed, and he turned to see if her expression matched her tone.

The podcams swooped in closer as he saw her for the first time─ curly blue hair, light brown skin, squinted eyes that could have been the result of genetics or just the bright light of the double suns. A small, pinched mouth, but smiling slightly, a short, athletic body. He realized that the Colonized people had given the two of them the same outfit of jeans, hiking boots, and an American flag t-shirt.