Uro (updated)

The year is 4.6 ^2.8 ATF. 4.6 meant 4.6 billion. That is how old the solar system is. Here, we count time from the birth of our solar system. There is no religion anymore. There has not been since the Wars.

2.8 meant how long it was until the sun died. That number also changes, as it gets closer. Since it was the year the sun will die, that is why it is there. ATF stands for After the Future. The future already happened. Everything that would happen to the Earth while it was still here has happened. Therefore it was After, the Future.

I was born in the unlucky era of when the Sun’s latest days were here. This era is called Red Giant, after what the sun will become...it is a Red Giant. Do you remember when scientists called other stars Red Giants? Well now, our star is one of those.

I wake up every day to a no longer blue sky. It cannot be called sky blue anymore. It is orange. Bright, blood-red orange. The Sun is a huge ball of red and orange gas, threatening us. It is massive. It takes up almost a third of the visible sky. It might sound terrifying, but honestly, you get used to it.

At night, it is not dark. Not black. It is blue.

However, since the sun is getting larger and larger, everyone must evacuate the Earth. Scientists have been deciding where humans will go.

After the sun swallows Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, and possibly the asteroid belt as well, it will become a white dwarf. Everything will go dark. All the outer planets will not be affected, only parts of their atmospheres will be gone. But other than that, no, they are safe.

They are all made of gas, and Pluto is too far away and too small to live. So, we are going to go to a moon to live.

They chose Europa of Jupiter and Enceladus of Saturn. Some of us will go to Europa, and others to Enceladus. We choose. I still do not know where I want to travel to. By living in one of the few wealthier families of our time, I can afford to leave Earth. Others will not. Sadly, most of our population will have to stay.

Not that there is a lot of population left.

Since the sun has heated the Earth far warmer than normal, there are no continents anymore. Barely any water. We live on a giant cratered beach. That’s all it is.

Dry sand everywhere, lots of wind, hardly any water or vegetation, and there are no animals left here. Only humans, or the final versions of us, and bacteria and the hot sun. It is practically Hell.

Our years are much shorter too. Since the sun is so large, we orbit much faster than it used to be.

A day is ten hours long. A year, barely a few months.

The moon got pulled out of orbit too and is long gone.

I sometimes wish Earth was already gone. We’re going to have to leave soon.

Most of my friends are staying here. The only one coming with me is Uro. Just me, Alaye, and my best friend Uro.

My family is coming too, not that there is a lot left of us. My father and sister died from heatstroke. So it’s me, my mother, and Uro.

~

I woke up one day to Uro shaking me. His soft hands gripped on my shoulder, shouting quietly, “Alaye! Alaye! Do wake up!”

I blinked open my eyes groggily to see Uro’s large brown eyes staring down at me, his blonde hair still messy. He must have climbed down from his bunk to mine quite frantically.

“What’s the maaaatteeerr…?” I yawned.

“Look outside, Alaye!” He forcefully dragged me by my arms off the bed and to the window. It was the same. The sunrise was dark red and very hot already.

“It’s the same, U,” I said.

“No! The sun is bigger,” he replied. “We need to leave soon. Where are we going to go? Have you decided yet?”

I turned around to face him. He looked genuinely concerned.

“What are you so worried about, U? We are leaving eventually.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Uro said, sticking his lower lip out a little.

I smiled. That was cute. “I won’t, Uro. Neither of us will. We are leaving.”

He did not reply, just stared at me and then the ground.

“Now let’s get ready for school. Life goes on when the sun is dying.”

~

We lived in what was once the United States of America in the Democratic Age. It wasn’t America anymore, of course. The Sand Continent was divided into North Sand, South Sand, and so on. We were in West Sand. Countries? They don’t exist. We are just one Super-Continent, and all of us have to get along. Of course there are still races and diversities. It is decided by the people on where they want to live.

The Sands have their governments. There were town and city governments thought.

The Governments were not that great, let’s say. They set up the Schools alright, but everything else was s**t. They were terrible at organizing our “Planetary Leave to Enceladus And Europa”.

Most of our school was gone. Many people just do not go anymore. Uro and I were two out of the hundred or so students who still attend school and not preparing to leave Earth. We were preparing, but not excessively.

There was much stress in the community, with high crime and unemployment rates. It was like living in danger and fear all the time. The people, such as me and what is left of my family, were lucky to have money and lived in an enclosed, government-owned property. It did not exactly help with anything, but it did not make it worse. There were metal, electrical fences with high voltages of power and lasers to protect us and keep us inside, except for the land that was once the coast. Our school was in this enclosed property.

We had to wear uniforms to school. The Democratic Age never did solve that problem. Our uniforms were entirely black, black jeans and black collared shirts with black shoes. Girls had to wear their hair up in ponytails or buns, preferably buns. I did not, however, do that. My hair was way too short to do either of those things. It was black and spiky down a little past my chin. My eyes were cat eyes,and two different colors! That wasn’t that rare anymore, but it wasn’t common either. One was a bright emerald green and the other was a greyish blue.

When Uro and I walked into school, we were surprised to see Guards there. They were never there unless there was a problem, or they expected a problem to occur.

Uro instantly grabbed the hand that wasn’t holding my briefcase. He held on tight.

We walked in together, cautiously ignoring the Guards watching us with suspicion.

Uro glared back at the Guards. He was always against having Guards following us wherever we go, and he wasn’t shy about it.

I tugged him along to class before he started something.

The Teacher and most of our class were already there. They watched us curiously as I yanked Uro to his seat. “Hey!” he quietly hissed at me, leaning over and sulkily squinting his eyes at me. “Shh!” I said, and pressed my finger to his lips. His eyes opened wide in surprise and he pouted a little.

“Anyway,” The Teacher said. “I hope most of you will be Evacuated as soon as possible. I am going to Europa. Is there anyone else here going?”

A few people raised their hands.

“Good, good. Has anyone else heard about Guards already being on Europa and Enceladus?”

“No?”

“Well, Guards are confirming the safety of those two worlds and making sure they are habitable for humans. So far, they are.”

“We shall be safe.”

~

I found myself being stark nervous after we left class. My tablets were clasped tightly to my chest, and I walked so fast and brisk that Uro had to run to catch up.

After he’d caught up to me, he kept gazing at me expectantly, as if he wanted me to say something. But I did not.

Neither us of spoke for a good five minutes.

Finally, he said, “What’s on your mind?”

“I don’t know.”

“What?”

“How is the planet still existent? How is civilization still existent? Why are humans still here? Shouldn’t we be robots? The past human civilizations would have expected that. Why are we still here? Now we find ourselves pretty much dead already ‘cuz of the Sun. The thing that gave us life is also the thing that will bring life to an end.”

Uro didn’t reply. He just put an arm around my shoulders as he helped me guide my shaking body to our next class. He held me close next to him, and I found that my heart steadied.

We shall be safe.

~

When I arrived home alone, I decided to take a walk. Just a simple walk, as if life and civilization were not at its knees.

The pavement was burning hot beneath my shoes, designed to protect my feet from the heat. It also felt slippery, as if it was evaporating already from the Sun. Was that even possible? Apparently so.

Something was not right. I knew it.

I got a sixth sense as I walked to where the original beach used to be. Of course, I don’t have any memories of it, since I was not yet alive when it used to be there. But the remnants still lay. Charred, blackened wood from when palm trees inhabited the area. They had caught on fire.

But again, something was not right.

I looked to the sky. It was redder than normal. With blue tints.

Blue tints.

Of course.

That meant only one thing.

*Solar flares.

*You might be wondering why we weren’t already dead, since solar flares were even fatal when the Sun was in its young age. So, you probably put two and two together and realized that solar flares were likely far more fatal if it’s a Red Giant. But you see, this is far later in time. Our race somehow survived long enough that we had adapted and built up tolerance within our bodies to solar flares and the results of them inside us. So, if someone gets hit by a solar flare now, in my time, the damage within their more adapted and tolerant system is far less than it would be when the Sun wasn’t nearly dead. However, they obviously are still very dangerous and you’d want to avoid being hit by them all costs, since they screw with your brain and might possibly make you do crazy things, as if you were drunk or high.

~

I sprinted as fast as I could back to the house. It was somewhat far, and I was starting to get anxious.

I’ve had experience with solar flares before. But this one seemed way, way worse than all the ones of the past. It might kill.

“ALAYE! ALAYE, WHERE ARE YOU?”

Uro.

“GET INSIDE NOW!”

I saw him from a distance. He’d seen me, and was running towards me. S**t.

“URO, GET THE F**K INSIDE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I shouted.

“I CAN’T LET YOU GET HURT!”

D****t.

Time sped up, and my words began to be garbled and incomprehensible. I felt dizzy. Why was the world spinning?

My ears rang loudly, and I tried to scream, “WHO RANG THE DOORBELL?”

He kept running, and seconds before he grabbed me, a hot flash jolted through my body, causing my brain cells to shut down and black me out.

The last thing I felt was Uro’s arms around me as I stumbled awkwardly forward.

“No!”

We shall be safe.

~

I woke up uncomfortably warm and very confused combined with an enormous wave of sadness.

“Whaaatt…”

“Alaye?”

“Does someone have a fever…”

“Alaye!” I think it was Uro who ran towards my bed. He knelt on the floor and stared up at me.

“Whoooaaaa…”

He cocked his head and then grinned. “Wow Alaye, I see what solar flares do to people now when they don’t kill.”

“Head...hurts…” I gripped my head, tugging lightly at my black locks.

He reached up and pulled my hands away from my hair. “That won’t help.”

“Are you an angel?”

Uro raised an eyebrow. “Um no but…Thanks? I think?”

I stared at him. Despite looking a bit tired, I found him somewhat gorgeous with his messy blonde hair and wide brown eyes.

And though I thought of Saturn, I threw my head back onto the pillow and said, “Why the f**k do we live on Venus???”

Uro raised an eyebrow and started laughing.

“FRICKING GREENHOUSE EFFECT!”

“SPED AWAAAAYYY!!”

“Alaye, hush, Venus doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Whaaaat?”

“The sun ate it four years ago.”

“But what about my family?”

“Alaye, we live on Earth.”

“EARTH IS SUPPOSED TO BE GREEN!”

“WHAT---WHY---”

“WHAT IS THIS LIFE??!!”

Uro grabbed my pale, skinny wrists as I struggled to get off the bed.

“Alaye, relax,” he said.

His strength obviously excelled mine, since I just froze as he stared into my eyes.

I breathed hard and then relaxed my muscles.

“Why,” I said tightly, with my eyes open and unblinking, “Do we live on Venus.”

~

The days following the solar flare were identical. Each day I went a bit psychotic, but the symptoms were slowing down. The only things left were the occasional insomnia episodes and mood swings.

Uro continued to be patient with me, which was good. He’d seen my worst and best altogether.

I always woke in the night with a throbbing headache, and Uro would instantly come from his bunk and stay with me the rest of the night to help me breathe and calm down. During the day, I’d have these humongous mood swings that affected everyone and anyone, as I would have tempers and tantrums to the max.

The flares also gave me scars all over my body. I was looking in the mirror, nude, and across my almost translucently pale skin, there were long purple and blue gashes that somewhat resembled bruises all over. I turned myself and examined them closely. There were several ones across my stomach, back, shoulders, collarbone, lower arms, and all of my legs. They almost looked like claw marks, like the Sun was a wild lion bracing for attack on all of the very mouse-like Earth. The marks never left my body, only faded slightly, just a reminder of what something far away can still do.

I’d also have weird happy moments, and sad moments, and strange moments where I’d try to make out with someone, usually Uro. The solar flare also very much screwed with my brain.

It was interesting.

This day was no different. I was in an odd mood where I followed Uro everywhere, which was normal, but since I was in a bizarre mood, Uro wanted no part of it. At least I could not tell if he did.

My mood swings were calming down, yet they were still there but less frequent.

“Uuurrrro…” I said.

“Yes, Alaye?”

“Come hereeee…”

“Why?”

“I wanna….”

“What?”

“Kiiiisss youuu….”

“Alaye, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Why nooott?”

“Alaye…”

I walked towards him, as he had turned around to look at me. His expression was serious.

“Alaye, don’t. You’re not yourself. The solar flare hurt your brain, and it’s been affecting your thoughts.”

“Yes I am.” I’d stopped slurring my words. “And no it didn’t?”

He looked confused.

I walked closer to him.

“Alaye…”

I cut him off by kissing him on the mouth. He did not pull away at first, but he gently pushed my shoulder off of him after four seconds.

“Alaye,” he said, this time a bit more seriously. “We need to focus on Leaving, okay? You’re not yourself. Just listen. We have to go.”

“What does that have to do with anything,” I said, gazing at him.

He stared at me, and I saw something flicker in his eyes.

“The solar flare screwed with your brain,” he repeated. “Alaye, please. You’re just not yourself.”

“What?” I said. “Uro, I’m okay.”

“No you’re not. I’m your best friend, not your boyfriend.”

“So?”

He continued to stare. “Alaye, please listen. We have to go immediately. Stop talking about this.”

I was kind of hurt. But I decided it’d be best to just ignore that feeling. Was he right? Was I just not myself? I couldn’t notice the difference, and even now I still do not know.

“Fine,” I said after a moment. “I don’t care. Let’s just go.”

Uro nodded.”Good. We’re going to Enceladus.”

We shall be safe.

Are we?

~

I found myself being quite hurried to pack my belongings into an entirely too small bag, since I wanted to bring far more than the space given. It did not help that the belongings I left behind could not be retrieved either. They’d be on the Earth, then the Earth would be swallowed by the sun, then everything would be blasted into space. Fun.

“Alaye! We need to go!”

“I know!” I shouted back. “Give me a moment, maybe?”

Uro sounded impatient. “Two minutes!”

I sighed and continued to throw clothes and pictures into my bag, without even glancing at some of them.

When I finally barreled down the stairs to go with him, he looked even more impatient than he sounded.

“Well, sorry,” I said. “I kinda sorta don’t know why you want to Leave so abruptly, and it kinda sorta caught me off guard…”

“Whatever,” Uro said, biting down on his lip, almost to prevent him from saying something else. “Let’s just go.”

Shall we be safe?

~

The Leaving was something that lasted for two days. We had gone on the first day, which was somewhat risky, but they both were really.

The way to Leave was somewhat complicated. There were these small metallic spaceship contraptions that you would usually find in a sci-fi story. But not. They were real.

They were sleek airtight compartments that were about 25 meters length and 10 meters width. So they were quite spacious, and surprisingly comfortable.

They had large fuel cells on the exterior of the device, and used hydrogen to power the ship and maintain the speed. The windows were along the sides of the ship, and were made of a hard clear material that was scientifically created in a laboratory. It was made to last through space and having no air. On the ceiling there were images to make it look like Earth, with blue skies and clouds….and the Sun, as it was in the 21st century.

Inside the compartments were storages of food, blankets, drinks, and oxygen. The ground of the compartments were covered in soft material, or else they’d be hard metal which would be awkward to sit on.

The height of these Leaving ships were about 15 meters, so you could stand up comfortably.

For these ships, the steerage was already installed. No one needed to steer it because it was on auto. It would take us to Enceladus easily, and quickly.

Quickly being about a week.

Which was actually quite speedy, compared to other travels. The exact speed was unknown, as it was so fast that it could not be measured simply, even by the most intelligent of us. It was just fast, very fast.

My mother was almost done packing, and Uro and I were waiting for her downstairs at the door. I looked up at him. He kept fidgeting uncomfortably, and would strangely not make eye contact with me. “U,” I said. He looked at me. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You don’t look it.”

“Alaye, I’m fine.”

“I’m not stupid, Uro. There’s something on your mind beside the Leaving, isn’t there?”

His brown eyes met my mis-colored ones. Then he sighed.

I crossed my arms, waiting.

“Uro. What’s wrong? I’m your best friend, am I? You can trust me.”

“I know I can, it’s just...I don’t want to worry you.”

“You’re worrying me by not saying anything.”

“I mean...it shouldn’t be something to worry about, but you have better things to think about than this. You need to focus on Leaving and getting to Enceladus safe, and I’m just a distraction. Now I’m not saying that I’m not coming with you, because I definitely am, it’s just that...that I haven’t been entirely honest all these years you’ve known me. We’ve been friends, then best friends, and just that. You’ve been a sister, a teacher, and everything you can possibly be to me really. The only one I could totally rely on, not including your mother. Alaye, I’m in love with you. I have been for about a year, and although it hurt me, it was best you didn’t know. But now you do.”

        He stared at me, clearly expecting me to say something. But I was completely speechless. Uro in love with me? No.

“Uro…” I said.

He just raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, thought so. You can’t think about this now, okay? You have better things to worry about.”

“Why is this not as important?” I said. “Uro, stop assuming you’re worth lesser than everything else in my life-”

Just as I finished that sentence, my mom had come down. She must have heard it all. If she did, she did not show it. All she did was murmur, “Let’s go.”

Uro held my gaze for a few seconds, causing me to feel a few strange flutters inside that I’d never experienced before. I reached up and touched the purple scars on my collarbone. They were cold and had glossed over.

In the Levitator, we sat in the back together as my mother lifted it off the ground to fly us to the Leaving site.

We were silent for a few minutes, making me uncomfortable as I was used to us always having something to talk about.

Finally, Uro broke the silence. “Alaye… here’s the thing about me, and even though I hate talking like some 21st century teenager who’s proclaiming his ‘undying love’ to his crush-”

I couldn’t help it, I snorted.

“I’m different. Wow, that does sound corny. Let me rephrase that. I’m not an average person. I’ve had to experience a lot of crap in my life than I should have. I never had someone really care for me when I was younger, and that has really affected how I am today, as you probably have noticed.”

“Yes, you are more difficult,” I intervened.

He smiled. “Yeah. There’s that. But I also just have a tougher time expressing feelings-”

“Yeah, whenever I hug you it’s like I’m hugging a statue,” I interrupted again.

“Will you shut up?” Uro said, laughing a little. “I’m in the midst of a monologue here.”

“Fine, go ahead, Augustus.”

From the front, I heard my mom laugh.

“Thank you. As I was saying, I’m not an average person. It was quite hard for me to adjust to living with people who actually did care about me. So when I first started to fall in love, it was like that. I couldn’t let you know or say anything, especially since the world was practically ending. We had to prepare. That was far more important. The end of the world is NOT a love story. It’s the end of an era. A long era of humanity, courage, science, and math. It is where we learn how to fend for ourselves again, like we did thousands and thousands of years ago, when humanity began. It’s our time again to do that. There can’t be any distractions to you. Or me. Or anyone. We have to focus on the more important thing: our lives. We also need to begin a new era of humanity, hopefully a better one. We need to start to create new inventions, find new discoveries, etc. Our story will be one of courage and science, of math and the stars and philosophy, of technology and the speed of light. Of space travel and time and singularities. And that, is love, but it is not love. It is love of life and humanity and intelligence. Not a love story. A love story is cliche and copied and twisted and is just the same thing in different words. Let our story be something different, but with the same words. Because everything that has ever been written, everything written in every single language, uses the same words. That cannot change. Words are infinitely the same, but you can tell many different stories with them.”

~

The next week that we were Leaving was quiet. I was often in deep thought about what Uro had told me.

We often sat next to each other on the small ledge within the travel device, sitting close to each other where our arms were touching and our legs were swinging. Occasionally, if I hadn’t slept that night, I would rest my head on Uro’s shoulder silently. He wouldn’t complain, as I always did this, but ever since we Left it’d been different between us.

The end of the world was not a love story. Then why did I feel that I had to admit some undiscovered feelings to him when we arrive to Enceladus? I’d known Uro a long time, and never once did I ever feel more than friendship towards him. Was his telling me the feelings he felt made me awaken some feelings of love that I had but did not want to share?

I looked at Uro, sitting peacefully beside me, his long legs swinging and his arms pressed up against mine. His posture was not the greatest, it was casual and easy. He was looking down at our hands, which weren’t holding each other but were touching softly. His thick blonde-brown hair was touching my forehead lightly, and I could see the sprinkle of freckles across his nose. His deep blue eyes glanced up at me, then I found myself glance down to look at his mouth. What the hell? I immediately looked away.

It wasn’t a love story. Why was I ruining that? Why should I, a girl who was part of the last generation of humans on Earth, ruin the ending of the world by making it into a love story, when it should be one of courage and science and strength and stars? Not that love was a bad thing to tell a story about, but I felt this story should be something different.

I did not want to be that girl. The one to ruin Uro’s beautiful thinking, his strength in a world where he was constantly put down, and lost, and rejected by ones he loved. He had found a home with me and my mother. A lonely family, living on a planet that no longer had water, the substance that was the life for life.

That was when I realized something.

Uro loved me. And I, despite all my denial, loved him too. I was the one who was rejecting him. He thought he found a family where he would find love, all kinds of it. I needed to fix this in order to make this story the one it was.

I was the one hurting him.

I looked back to Uro. He had been watching me think.

“Alaye, don’t distress yourself.”

“Huh?” I said, feeling the last bits of color drain from my face.

“You’re clearly stressing yourself out. Calm down. Nothing is wrong.”

“Everything is wrong,” I said. “I’m hurting you. My very existence is hurting you.”

Uro stared at me as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Do not think of that when we are starting over,” he then answered.

“Do not consider yourself irrelevant,” I replied.

“I’m not. It’s just that my place in the universe is insignificant. My place among the rest of humanity is unimportant.”

“Stop all your grand talk for one moment. You are not insignificant. Bullshit. You’re very important to me, and I love you.”

I could see the inner philosopher beneath Uro’s eyes dissolve immediately. “I love you too, Alaye.”

We hugged. And only seconds later, we heard a loud bang, then the sound of small cracking bursting into explosion occurred.

Both of us jumped and ran to the front of the machine. People were scattering everywhere, and I saw some of them fall out and sucked into the darkness that was space. Large bits of space rock were spread all over, and I then realized that an asteroid had smashed into the bottom of our ship.

“NO!!” I shouted as my mother fell and was pulled down into the dark vacuum. I tried to run to her, but Uro pulled me back tightly into him.

“Live a new life, Alaye!” she called. “My home is forever Earth….” then her voice was cut off as she disappeared. The airless space had enclosed around her. I suddenly could not breathe.

I started crying. Uro held me closely and didn’t speak. We stood there for a long while, until we realized no one else had survived and that we were the only ones left. We had later run into the back so that we were safe from being sucked out of the ship as well.

There was a loud crash sometime after that. I had no idea how the ship kept flying, but it did. As it crashed, Uro and I hurried to see where we landed.

I saw a small white world beneath us.

~

About fifty other people came to greet us as we were helped down from the ship. It was cold, so cold, as we first stepped out. Though humans had adapted to extreme temperatures, we were immediately pulled into a glass dome world that the first humans had set up. They were mostly scientists and specialists.

Uro held my hand. We hadn’t spoken since the crash.

When we were inside, there was a very basic town in front of us. Only consisting of a few small buildings, there wasn’t a large population. The town hadn’t yet been advanced. But from what I could tell, it was definitely getting there. I turned and looked to my right. The other ship had landed, and people were pouring out of it, curiously checking our their surroundings without speaking. I could see many different emotions on each person, ranging from joy to sadness to shock to calm.

Everyone asked us about what had happened. We told them that we did not know, that we were in the middle of a conversation when there was a sudden loud noise that signified something bad had happened.

No one asked us any other questions after that.

We were rushed into a large room, and had barely any time to explore the new world. I was having a panic attack, and the effects of suddenly losing my mother were taking over. My breath was short and quick, my skin was turning a tad blue from going without oxygen for a while, and cold sweats ran down my back and neck. The scars from the flare that covered my body had not changed. I knocked myself out by falling to the ground from forcefully stopping my breathing, and Uro had to carry me to the medics.

I ended having to take a new creation called oxygen pills to oxygenate my body again, and to take a long nap. Uro did not leave my side once as I recovered from my panic. The other ships that had been behind us arrived just as I awoke. Many of them had saw the asteroid, but did not say anything. They had managed to avoid it.

Enceladus was an interesting world. It was mostly ice, so the scientists had created unique machinery that flew people around in the air so that they could not disturb the ocean below us. The buildings were also on these strange floating foundations that I could not comprehend how they managed to make.

I didn’t ask.

If we wanted to leave the Dome, we had to wear these long black suits that insulated our bodies and protected us more from the temperature change. Over our heads, we did not have to wear anything special except for a tube that carries oxygen to our lungs.

Uro and I kept to ourselves for the most part, not speaking of what had happened to us. No one asked us about the experience, but continuously checked on us and made sure that we were recovering properly.

But a few days after this, Uro and I were living together in our own floating home. I had actually recovered from my panic attack, but was still a bit disoriented and had some strange hallucinations. For the most part, I was calmed down and no longer attacking anyone out of panic, which had happened a few times.

We had left our home temporarily to explore our new world. As we were walking-er-floating around outside of the Dome and on the actual moon, we turned to look at the planet before us. Saturn.

It was gorgeous.

Its elegant rings closer to sight than before, we could see it in incredible detail that was almost indescribable. The gas planet itself was a stunning yellow color, with hints of green and other colors that mixed together beautifully. It appeared still and peaceful, but I knew that deep inside, there was chaos. Storms inside storms.

Chaos inside order. It sounded strange, but it was true.

Uro looked at me. I looked deep inside his dark brown eyes, appearing still and peaceful, there was chaos. There was love and hate and dark emotion and strong wind and sadness and storms and clouds and beauty. Uro was just like Saturn, in every possible way.

We would start a new era of humanity on this moon, and make it as right as possible. We would start over humanity and life and intelligence. We would make it similar to Earth, but also different. We would remember Earth fondly as the planet it was before the sun destroyed itself, when it was a young star with a young water planet that would produce life like no other. Life as in dinosaurs, as in insects, as in birds, as in sharks, as in reptiles, as in tigers and lions, as in the smallest one-celled organisms, as in trees and plants and flowers, and as in humans. All the generations of humans.

We would find a new life on this moon, orbiting a planet of beauty and chaos and order. Uro.

I hugged him tightly, appreciating everything he has done to help me live in this world of chaos. Uro was beauty and order and chaos in one amazing person. And I knew that I could not live without any of him.

Our story is one of science and stars, of math and the speed of light, of courage and time, of space travel and singularities, of chaos and order. And I feel, not felt, because it is not past tense, that I can easily say without ruining the beginning of this story, that I love him.

“You are beautiful, Uro,” I say softly.

Author's Note

I hope you like this nearly finalized version x

Reviews

[Benson Osuji]

wow I love it, it is a very captivating story