To the Stars and Back

Chapter 5

Alyssa

When we get onto the shuttle, it is enormous and beautiful and so different from what I expected. We walk into a room filled with lockers, and there are two doors on the other side of the room. Two security guards hand us maps of the shuttle and point us toward the door on the right, telling us that later on we can put our items in the lockers. We go through the door, and there is a long hallway with many doors on each side, like a hotel. Another guard asks us for our last name, then she leads us to a room on the left that has a slip of paper laminated onto it that says, "Hansen".

We enter the room and put down our things.

I sit down on one of the four beds, Estella and Luna both jumping up to explore this new setting.

This is all crazy.

I mean, how did they even get enough money to build all this? And time?

I walk through the door to the small room built into ours. It's a bathroom, with a toilet and sink. On the counter is a small bin with snacks and candy in it. There is a note beside it.

Help yourself to some treats! We know it's been hard for you!

I grab a candy bar and bite into it. I mean, who can pass up an opportunity to eat free candy?

An announcement comes on.

<Please get comfortable. We lift off in twenty minutes, and afterwards we will give you a tour of the shuttle.>

I take out my journal and a pencil.

Entry #1: May 14

Well, we made it. We're on the shuttle. It's crazy! There's lockers and the bedrooms are like hotel rooms! I'm really nervous, but it's getting a little less stressful and more exciting. It's sort of distracting me from the fact that an asteroid is plummeting toward Earth, so many people will die, and so much could go wrong on the shuttle.

But I guess I'm lucky to be here. So lucky.

But, I mean, luck is a human-created idea that's completely inaccurate, so maybe I'm not...

This is all so confusing.

I wish I could just wake up and realize it was all a dream.

But that's the weird thing about dreams. They feel real and true until you wake up, and then you're relieved at first that it was a dream. But then you realize it's kind of funny, even though it was technically a nightmare. Like when you just think, hey, that was pretty creative and cool! How did my imagination or brain or whatever even come up with something like that- and especially make it seem so real? But then again, that's why this can't be a dream, because it's so real and impossible that I just couldn't have created this on my own.

This is where I stop because an announcement comes on that tells us to sit in the safeseats in our room and buckle in, and I glance over at four seats with seatbelts on the wall, and we each take one and buckle the seatbelts.

This is it. My last few seconds on earth.

Goodbye, Earth.

The shuttle begins to rattle and shake.

I feel like I am lifted off my feet, though I'm strapped into my seat.

An amazing rush floods through me. I feel as if I'm flying!

Although, I guess I am flying.

Almost as quickly as it began, it's over. The rush stops, and my breathing slows.