TerrEx: The Exodus

In seconds, I remember everything.

I remember thinking the wind would swoop me off my feet if I let go of my mother's hand. When my sister and I were young, this is what our mother would tell us to make sure we wouldn't let go. I remember feeling the power of each breeze against my skin. The cool air caused goosebumps but the firmness of my mother's grip kept me rooted to the ground.

I remember being so adventurous that I would climb on top of our family's fridge when my mother would try to hide "unhealthy" snacks there. This was our great heist, my sister and I, I'd hand the snacks down to her and then she would fruitlessly try to help me down. One time the fall was so bad that I fractured a bone in my arm, I was in a cast for months - I remember the constrained and sweaty feeling my arm got under the white plaster cast.

I remember learning how to ride a bike with my sister. Our mother would try her best to show us, but we were much better at learning how not to ride our bikes. Maybe we were just rebelling against our mother since all of our friends' fathers taught them how to ride their bikes. We were too young then to understand why we didn't have a father.

I remember beginning high school and being excited that my sister and I could take different electives and not be in all of the same classes. In the year or two before high school, we both began growing sick of feeling hidden in each other's shadow.

I remember learning about spaceships in my high school history class. The sheer size and potential of them amazed me. We learned about the old space missions from the 1960s and the neo-space age in the 20s. Our teacher even told us the UN banned space missions after the Visitors arrived.

I remember my first love. He was in my high school astronomy class. We learned about shooting stars, solar eclipses, and the Day the Sky Turned Dark. He sat nearer the door and was taller than me. For awhile I thought he was into girls but we snuck into the school together to prank our teacher and we ended up exploring empty rooms and racing down dark hallways all night. Eventually, we collapsed next to each other on the ground and I put my head on his bony shoulder and closed my eyes.

I remember the day I lost my sister. We heard of a place far outside our quaint town where a meteor fell to the ground for the first time since the Day the Sky Turned Dark. Some kids from school were going to check it out; it seemed exciting and we were graduating in a couple weeks so we wanted to have some last-minute festivities. We brought coolers of homebrewed moonshine and all the beer that we could get our hands on. I was riding with my boyfriend in his parents' old Jeep and my sister was in with some friends just in front of us when we saw a massive pillar in the ground. It was glowing and a sharp ringing pierced our ears as we got close. My boyfriend swung the car around when we saw a spiny humanoid figure spring onto our friend's car. I screamed and hit him, yelling for us to go back but he frantically brought us back to town.

I remember learning about what was happening to our planet when I was in college. The Visitors were taking Earth's resources. Massive pillars across the globe extracting water, iron, carbon dioxide - whatever they wanted. Supposedly the world's militaries tried fighting back when it all started but the fight didn't last long. I heard rumours of small outposts of militants and scientists trying to figure out what to do but every attempt has been futile so far. Our world was being drained.

I remember getting the locket I still have grasped in my hand. My boyfriend was not my fiance and we wanted to plan our future together. The world was falling at a dramatic rate: wildfires were tearing through the remaining forests and plains, dried up lakes and rivers caused massive food shortages, earthquakes ripped through major cities, even the air quality was so dangerous that most people began keeping air tanks with them to breathe from when they needed. We were frightful that there wasn't much of a future for a stray set of engineers. He bought me this old, golden heart-shaped locket from a pawn shop for most of our money and told me that we would always have each other. Running my finger over the locket, I could feel a small dent and an old scratch that was painted over. We could never get the locket open but we liked to make up stories about its past. It was an old war hero's, it was a young girl's, it was an old woman's, maybe it was even tossed out since it was jammed or maybe it was made improperly and someone stole it from the factory.

I remember when we found the group of scientists working on the TerrEx mission. We heard rumours and were searching for almost a full year until we found them. They led us to their home deep in the Appalachian Mountains, we were amazed when we saw the half-built makeshift spaceship built from random-colored metal scraps. Sheets of metal with logos, graffiti, and patch work were assembled in a way that looked just like the space shuttle from the 1960s. Rumours were that the fragments of the US government that were still in place were planning a nuclear strike at the structure surrounding Earth. That was our chance, if we could at precisely the right time to plunge through the hole created then we could make it to space. The plan was to use the Moon's gravity to propell us towards the outer solar system and just drift, saving our remaining fuel to direct us to a good moon to land on.

I remember starting off today. It was launch day. The TerrEx shuttle was complete and everything was prepared - it was stocked with resources and everyone knew their jobs. Our plan was, admittedly, not perfect. Best estimates put life on Earth on its final leg, though; we had no option. We boarded the shuttle and listened for the radio signal. When the signal went off, so did we. Twelve of us, we were going to space. We were finally leaving our hopelessly failing planet.

I remember just moments ago seeing the government's missle hit the Earth-enclosing structure. A massive bright plume of yellow and orange light and smoke was kicked back towards the Earth. I felt our ship rumble and we plunged into the dark cloud. I closed my eyes, frightened by the enourmety of the explosion. My fist clenched around the locket my husband gave me. I feel the small dent and scratch in my palm as I feel an incredible heat. My eyes are closed but I see a brightness far brighter than anything I've ever seen. A rush of internal warm plows through my veins - is it excitement? Nervousness? Fear? Dread?

In seconds, I remeber everything.