Carson Wallbrown

There, Not Back

Day One “Forty five seconds until launch sequence commences” These were the words transmitted to everyone's cellular implants on January 14th, 2093. You see earth was dying at this time, all throughout my life I remember hearing scientists say the earth would be unable to sustain life after 2080 so you can say we were living on borrowed time. But now we must say goodbye to the earth. Breakthroughs in science have recently allowed humans to alter the atmosphere of Mars making it habitable for humans so we are being shuttled in a series of spaceships and my girlfriend found ourselves in the last group leaving earth, our breaths would be the final breaths of oxygen taken from the ever dwindling supply on this overused piece of rock. Elsie, my girlfriend, had to ride in a special shuttle because of her health concerns. This forty five second warning snapped us out of our warm goodbye hug. As we pulled away Elsie removed the heart shaped locket I gifted her years ago and took a picture of us out of the compartment. She handed the picture to me and said “You've had my heart since the day I met you, make sure to give it back to me up there yea?” to which I replied clutching the picture next to my own heart “Couldn’t stop me if ya wanted” and finished it off with a wink. Now I am in my shuttle waiting to blast off I suppose, this will be my first time in outer space so I am a bit nervous. So I just stare out the window at the medical shuttle that carries Elsie to our new world much like a mother carries her young to their new world.