The Earth We Left

"We never did learn our lesson, did we?"

         It’s the sudden craving for that last slice of cheesecake that forces Agatha’s lashes open.

         Rubbing them, she crawls out of bed to satisfy the itch.

         She should be watching her weight, but she’s becoming a bit tired of the pretence. Being ‘perfect’ in high school is an exhausting job.

         With a yawn, she shuffles down to the kitchen. However, she ducks quickly behind the wall when she realizes she isn’t the only one awake.

         She glances at the clock.

         1:35 a.m.

         Why are her parents still up?

         Peeking again, she studies their hunched figures. Dad is still wearing his work shirt, the sleeves rolled up, patches of sweat darkening the fabric beneath his arms. Mom is dressed in her ugly sunflower-print housecoat and slippers.

         He looks exhausted—more than usual. The half-empty beer bottle beside the pile of documents on the table suggests that whatever has kept him awake is work-related, and judging by his expression, it isn’t good news.

         Her mother’s face is equally strained. She has never been the type to win a beauty pageant, but she makes up for it with a sharp wit that must have caught her father’s attention all those years ago.

         “…tomorrow by eight,” her father says.

         He takes a swig from the bottle, his hand trembling.

         A wave of concern washes over Agatha.

         “…th-that early?” her mother stammers. “But…we don’t have time to-”

         She looks around the kitchen as if seeing it for the first time. Tears well in her eyes, then spill down her cheeks.

         It is a sight that sends a chill down Agatha’s spine.

         Her mother rarely—if ever—cries.

         Agatha struggles to make sense of her father’s next words.

         “It’s been almost twenty years, sweetheart. Twenty f’ing years.”

         “Oh, Sam…I don’t know if I’m ready for it. And Agatha…oh my God! How will she adjust? She was born here. There’s no way she can deal with the harshness of home. Wh-what if her body can’t deal with it, Sam? We never even thought about-”

         “The atmosphere should be fine,” comes the reassuring words, though his eyes scream otherwise. “She got all her shots, right? They convinced us that it should be okay. All those born within this time…they should be fine.”

         “But why now? What’s wrong with us just staying here-”

         “Population control,” Sam mutters.

         “Bullshi-”

         “Yeah, I know, but this new government and its leader…” He pauses, rubbing a hand across his face. “It’s been a slow purge over the years, and we didn’t even know it. They’ve been trying to keep things under cover, but it’s getting harder. Ricky and the boys at Central, they’ve been spreading the word, warning folks about the government knocking on their doors and asking us to return to our planet.”

         He takes another drink.

         “This planet can no longer sustain all of us. They took us in out of the goodness of their hearts and look…they blame us for all the pollution, wars, and diseases that have almost destroyed their home. We are considered a plague.”

         “I don’t believe…” her mother begins to argue, but her lips thin as she realizes there might be some truth to it.

         Agatha, however, has heard enough.

         She steps out of her hiding place to ask. “Mom? Dad? What’s going on? Where are we going?”

         Her parents’ dual expressions of shock and fear would be comical, but there is nothing to laugh about now.

         She allows them to hug and smother her with meaningless words of appeasement, but Agatha refuses to be placated. Her stubborn nature insists on knowing the truth.

         Finally, with resigned sighs, they agree to tell her everything from the beginning.

         It is a lot to absorb, but between their halting explanations, Agatha infers that the place she has called ‘home’ for the past fifteen years, is nothing more than a placeholder.

         A sanctuary.

         “You can see our planet from here,” her father explains. “Well, through a telescope. That blue dot just left of the Moon on a good night. Alzha-F9.”

         He pauses.

         “Or, in this case…the original Earth.”

         “…what?”

         “This Earth—the one we live on—is nothing more than a duplicate created by the aliens who rule us. They loved Alzha-F9 so much that they mimicked everything. Perfectly. Down to the atomic composition of…well, everything.”

         He swallows.

         “Unfortunately, while they thrived, we were too busy destroying Alzha-F9 with endless wars. Then came the nuclear explosion that poisoned the air we breathe. Humanity was wasting away.”

         “We were down to mere millions,” her mother interjects softly. “Humanity was on the brink of extinction.”

         “In their desperate need to preserve what little was left of us, those that survived were brought to this new Earth. And now…”

         “We never did learn our lesson, did we?” her mother whispers.

         In the thick silence that follows, broken only by the ticking of the clock akin to a death knell, Agatha doesn’t know whether to be terrified by the thought of losing everything she has ever known or excited by the possibility of seeing an entirely new planet.

         Even a dilapidated one.

         Alzha-F9 sounds both fantastical and sinister.

         And in less than six hours, she’ll have to gather the courage to experience something entirely new.

         She has never been on a space flight. That privilege was reserved for the elites—who, as she now knows, are merely humanoid forms of alien beings far superior to humanity in intellect.

         Later that morning, Agatha and several hundred other families find themselves at the station with only enough personal belongings to fit into a backpack or travel bag.

         The atmosphere is solemn broken only by soft whispers and muffled sobs.

         “I hear things are a bit better now,” someone mutters behind them. “It should be, right?”

         Her parents do not respond. Their shared expressions of doubt say more than enough.

         Agatha cranes her neck to see if any of her classmates might be in the queue.

         It would be nice to have something to talk to during the flight.

         There are a couple of neighbours she recognizes, but otherwise, failing to identify any one of the girls she’s known the past few years growing up with, is a grim and chilling reminder they might all have been humanoids.

         I was the alien this whole time, she thinks with a wry smile, just as the families soon begin their slow march up the steps and into the towering shuttle.

         At the entrance, Agatha pauses and looks back for the last time.

         An azure dawn stretches across the sky, breathtaking in its beauty. Seagulls cry and wheel overhead, their silhouettes cutting across the horizon.

         It is a bittersweet farewell with a sliver of hope for a new beginning in a world desperate to heal.





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Winning Entry
Word Count: 1125 (post activity edit)
Prompt: Write a story or poem in which the earth turns out to be a sanctuary for an endangered species, humans. Use Sci-fi as one of your genres.
Written For: "The Writer's Cramp"