Home Sick

Written by Jinhao Shen

When I was your age, I believed
a human's future was just a ticket away

.
While the Third World War broke out.
Cold war were not clashing behind the sight anymore.
Two most powerful countries
lead their allies into a battleground again.
Economic war came first,
but there will be the dead-end
when they reach to the nuclear one.

..
Along with those robotic machines reported from Mars,
Mars became just another continent to our humans,
although it is a dry and cold planet where people can reside terribly
The wealthy and powerful people began to invest their money in space transportation.
The manned spacecraft were launching mostly in Russia and the United States.

...
No matter how my relatives
suggesting me to stop being hallucinated,
I sticked to my belief.
This badge was only for a hundred men,
who are qualified to be the first group of settlers to Mars.
I fought real hard to be one of them.

The journey took a year to reach Mars,
only one-third of us were there alive.
Most of them were died by boringness.

.
Getting supplied by the unclaimed baggages,
it was a perfect start for us to gain
more seeds, clothes, and solar pannels.
I hoped those seeds could produce foods as soon as possible.
Otherwise, there would be another group of "boringness" people.

..
Landed and the gravity changed.
I was shocked when I stepped out of the spaceship.
Instead of being the first group of settlers,
I would rather claim myself as first group of civilians.
It seemed those armies and constructions
had been established for years.

....
We were guided by a armed soldier to go in a bunker,
they called "the Dig".
It is an endless-deep underground building which
contains the amount of pathways,
like the roots of a tree, to connect various divisions.
People in uniform were too engaged in their work to aware us.
I felt excited to meet strangers after the long journey
and to start a new chapter for my Mars life.

.....
Along with the elevator's door opened,
we reached our residence place.
The soldier turned on the light,
there was a row of small rooms on sight.
A signpost on the wall said "Temporary Residence Room".
Each room with a brand new steel bed and one toilet.
After the soldier arranged us to move in the room,
he turned off the light and the door of the each room locked.

Instead of being
the first group of civilians on Mars,
I recognized myslef as
the first group of slaves on Mars.

For people here in my age,
the future is still a ticket away,
just the price we can't afford anymore.