Day 1 Hour 5

First part of chapter 1

I wake up to the sound of my alarm clock. The random Christmas music playing from the alarm clock was not fitting considering it was in the middle of spring.

I had slept on a blow up mattress that was mostly deflated, laying on a dirt infested wooden floor. I also severely underslept due to all the partying downstairs of those rat b******s. Don’t they know what’s happening today? The alarm clock sat on a makeshift table, which was basically just my duffel bag and other stuff that couldn’t fit inside the duffel bag, including photos, books, some large clothes, and my factory issued 9-Tech energy pistol.

I slugged my hand over to the alarm clock to try and turn it off, but it was a little too far away. I moved closer to it, my body now hanging halfway over the mattress. As I went to try and hit the switch to turn off the alarm, my finger slipped and slightly pushed the damn thing instead. It hit the floor with a slight thud. I then heard a pop, and my body was slowly gravitating towards the ground. Great! I just popped my mattress. At least I turned my alarm clock- F**K! I somehow broke that too! God f*****g damnit!

I have no time to waste. I need to get ready. It’s 4:50 and I’m not even heading down there. I rummaged through my bag and pulled out some soap, a toothbrush and toothpaste, as well as a clean towel that even I’m surprised I found.

I opened the bathroom and started to work. As I turned on the shower, I decided to multitask by brushing my teeth so that my shower water could at least get to lukewarm. I put some spray on that was given to me by the apartment manager, and I immediately regretted my decision to use it because it was expired. At least I thought it was expired. It smelled like a orgy of dead animals all thrown in a dumpster that was on fire. I don’t know how that happens, but that smell is now on my hair and armpits. I then corrected my mistake by scrubbing the bad parts with the soap I had, and I actually felt clean. This process took me about a quarter of an hour to finish, which in my mind, is pretty good. But not as good as Alex’s routine, or as she claims.

“I only had to take ten minutes to clean myself up!” Alex boasted as she packed up the rest of her essentials. “I even did it before you woke up.”

“I don’t even think I ‘woke up’. I probably slept for a collective thirty minutes.” I shot back.

Alex, though sounding incredibly mean and agonizing, is actually a very good friend. When I moved away from my parents to go to California, which is where I currently am, she invited me into her apartment. This was about five months ago, back when I was tempted to take the program’s offer. She was really sweet and even told me stories of what she did when she was a little kid. She even told me that she was also going to enroll into the program too, and I was glad that I would at least have a friend that would join me in my quest to find our future. Though she can be a bit bratty at times-

“What?!” She jolted back, “You’re telling me that you can’t sleep through some drunk guys partying to old classic songs? I, for one, slept like a rock.”

“Of course you did.” I replied with a sarcastic tone. “Because you’re Alex, and Alex is perfect in every way imaginable. She can even sleep through a gun being shot by a policeman when one of the ‘drunk guys’ threatened him with a broken bottle.”

“Wait, what?” Alex questioned.

“When I said ‘a collective thirty minutes’, I meant it.”

She rolled her eyes and entered the bathroom. I did the same, but went over to my stuff to shove my other things in the bag. As I was putting some clothes away, a picture fell off the bag and onto the floor, I picked it up and saw that the picture was a photo of me and my family sitting on the couch for our annual Christmas photo. As I looked at it, I shook my head. Why? Because everyone except me was frowning.

There were two reasons why I left Ohio: 1) The program, and 2) My awful family. Ever since I grew up, I have been constantly been left in the dark by my parents and my memories ruined by my siblings. Not only that, but everyday, my parents were boring. Boring as f*****g dirt. They are probably still living under the same rock I lived under for seventeen years of my life. If something amazing was happening, they would shrug it off and go back and do their painfully mediocre jobs. I swear, the only thing that I heard at the dinner table every night was “So, Koby. How’s your overly obsessive, underperforming, not-so-great paying job?” only to have the entire family laugh at me for the rest of dinner. The phrase has been permanently jackhammered into my brain. Like, why is it funny to laugh at a teenager that just got a job as an electronics expert. I mean, yes, the pay was incredibly lacking, but the job was something that I was good at. But that wasn’t their vision for me. Their perception was me failing at everything I did, breaking everything I touched, and forgetting everything I heard. Even when I was forced to quit because the company had gone bankrupt due to financial quarrels, they still asked the same question. Over. And over. And over again, until I had had enough. When I was old enough to live on my own, I finally grew the balls to pack up my belongings, open the door, look back one last time, and say the words: “Go f**k yourselves and go to hell.”. And I remember, in that moment, my mom had changed the look on her disgusting, demented, horrible face. It was more of a worried, concerned, oh-crap-what-have-I-done look. I remembered when she grabbed my arm and tried to forcefully drag me back into our house, and I also remembered turning around and punching her in the gut, fleeing the scene afterwards. I heard the sounds of little footsteps rushing towards my mom, who was crying. My siblings heard what was going on and rushed to her side. They didn’t know any better, so I didn’t blame them. That was the last time I saw anyone in my family.

Ever since then, I have received a dozen emails and messages from my siblings, my mother, and even my deadbeat (well he’s not really a deadbeat; it just makes me feel better when I label him as a deadbeat) father. All of them are summed up to “Please come back so that we can know you’re safe.” but all I read was “Please come back so that we can use you as a punching bag again.”. They will never change, and yet they keep resending the same damn emails that I now don’t have the time nor the patience to read. They are pathetic attempts of sympathetic and comforting words compacted into a single, messy paragraph. They have even sent me threats, too. Because that makes a lot of sense. Threatening your son by sending him death threats and jail time is a great way to convince him to come back home. In all honesty, I hope they blow up with the rest of the world. And that they go to hell. The cherry on top is if they actually do have sex with themselves. It’s funny to think about.

Regardless, I still brought the courage to stuff it in the farthest corner of my bag. I put on my uniform that was shoved in the small closet. It read “TRUH Member #059” with my name on it. As I was getting my bag, Alex came out of the bathroom, and she was not only ready, but she had her stuff packed neatly and securely in her bag, whilst I looked like a mess with random stuff tightly compacted in random areas of my survival backpack.

“Jeez, Koby.” Alex piped up, “You look like you ran a marathon and threw up an hour later.”

“That’s a cute insult.” I shot back, “Can we just go or are you just so entrenched in insulting my intelligence and the way I look?”

Alex smiled, and gave me a devilish look. “OK, alright! If you’re ready to leave, then let’s go.” She giggled.

I rolled my eyes again and giggled with her. I opened the door to the hallway. Man, I am not going to miss this place one bit. Especially those dumbass party people that pissed me off and made me feel like an insomniac. We headed down the rickety stairs. The stairs that always creaked a certain way to know if someone was coming. It was loud and long enough for us to know who was coming up, so we could hide just in time before the manager caught us. Curfew was just so unfair. We couldn’t wait until morning.

“If we get paired up, that would be the best thing in the world.” Alex chirped as we walked into the main lobby area. I smiled. That would be fantastic, considering that she is the only friend I managed to make ever since I got to California.

As we opened the doors to the apartment building, we were met with a huge marching line of other enlistees. They were all walking right next to a red brick wall with a pair of train tracks overhead. You could see some billboards with either some dull advertising or a message for TRUH enlistees, but all of them were old and had parts that were falling apart or getting ripped off. The sky was pretty cloudy, and the temperature was pretty cold for having a black and grey jumpsuit on. I looked down the line and saw that we had a pretty far walk.

“You ready?” Alex asked as she turned to face me.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” I replied.

Then a surge of anxiety kicked in. My heart started pounding like crazy, and my body was sweating profusely. But why? I’m fine! I’m going on a journey of a lifetime with a small team of adults that absolutely know what they’re doing! Right? S**t, I’m making it worse. My body feels like quicksand thrown in a smoothie… that doesn’t help, and that wasn’t even slightly funny. OK, then just don’t do anything! Saying nothing and doing nothing except walking with everybody else. Maybe look around and see your surroundings and maybe something will make things ease up a little.

I decided to go smack dab in the middle, so I can see what everybody else was wearing. Well, that would have been lovely, but I totally forgot that everyone was wearing the same thing. The only difference from my clothes to their clothes was that mine was orange because I was a male, and the others had green if they were a female. Why not just blue and pink? That would make more sense, but I guess it doesn’t matter because there’s only so much time to pick a color when the world is ending in a few months and something like that wouldn’t be worrying to them because that problem is so much more important than my nit-pick, and holy s**t I am making it even worse. I was breathing incredibly heavy. The sounds that were right next to me were getting muffled and all I heard was my heartbeat. I might just have a heart attack right on the spot.

Someone in front of me decided to go to the left lane, and then tried to make a mad dash through the alleyway to escape. Luckily, the SCI actually has a higher intelligence quotient than the average second grader and stationed a group of guards and security personnel at every place that could pose an escape plan, like an alleyway. The guy actually slipped past the guards with his quick moves, but was stopped by a chain-linked fence. You could hear his fists banging on it and him shouting for help from the others, but we ignored him.

“NO!” He screamed. “I CAN’T GO! I CAN’T GO! THEY’RE COMING! I CAN’T GO! THEY’LL KILL US ALL! WHY WON’T YOU BELIEVE ME?!”

…

Whoa. Wait, what? “They’re coming.” and “They’ll kill us all.”? As if my anxiety wasn’t already through the atmosphere (not the roof, the atmosphere), but now I have to listen to that play inside my head again and again. Move over “So, Koby. How’s your overly obsessive, underperforming, not-so-great paying job?”. There’s a new kid in town, and he’s a deranged sentence coming out of a deranged man.

They’re coming.

Oh, great, here we go.

They’ll kill us all.

Now I couldn’t hear anything except a high pitched ringing noise. It wouldn’t stop. I slowed down and put my hands over my ears. I was crying. Tears streamed from my face, and I couldn’t stop them either. My vision got all foggy and I couldn’t see anything but a thick white fog for what seemed to be miles on end. Then, a silhouette of a person started coming towards me. Whispering my name.

Koby.

Koby?

“KOBY?!”

I was jolted back into reality by Alex, who was now with me at the end of the line with all the other enlistees. She was staring into my eyes, and she looked worried.

“What?!” I sniffed. I was still trying to hold back the tears I had earlier. The ringing had stopped and my vision was intact.

“You were crying! Are you OK? I asked you, like, a couple minutes ago if you were ready and you said yes! Are you sure you're ready?” Alex barked at me. You know, it seems weird, but her yelling at me actually calms me down. It shows me that she cares, and if she didn’t, she would've just left me there like the defenseless four year old I was acting like. I nod, and she nods back. She grabs my hand and runs up to the rest of the group.

The place that we were held up in was actually quite nice, despite our surroundings making it seem like it was a planet that was specifically used to dump trash in. The plaza is circular, with a crossroads vibe; there’s four large roads that connect to the circle. It’s surrounded by a red brick wall that’s about two feet high. The center was packed with program officials, more SCI guards, and even the CEO himself: Mr. George Smithly. George just kind of seems like a person that was just looped in this whole fiasco without even being told what he was supposed to do. He’s always looking at his cue cards, and tapping them on the little table next to him to line up all the cards into one neat stack. You can tell he’s sweating from, like, a mile away, which is why he always avoids the press. Even though he says that he doesn’t have time for cameras and microphones shoved in his face, in reality it’s because he can only keep himself together for thirty seconds. He knows that if he says anything wrong or gives out false or misleading information, then he loses his job, not that that would be a huge sacrifice considering that he doesn’t even know who to do his job properly in the first place. Oh, and he’s standing on two muddy pallets. These idiots have all the money in the world, but can’t be bothered to bring in a simple stage or even a f*****g soap box. How fitting.

There are several space shuttles in front of us, but they are really... tiny. They only look like they fit two people inside. What’s the point? Why not make a massive space shuttle. The spacecraft world isn’t exactly endless, but I felt like having a space shuttle would have been a great opportunity to succeed in this task they’ve drummed up. Even if we don’t find any planets that are viable to live on, the shuttle would be our crutch until we find one. But no. No, no, no, no, hell no. If they can’t create a professional presence at this event then why would I expect something of that magnitude. The SCI interns just scrambled around on all fours to try and find a solution and came up with this. Once again, how fitting.

Mr. Smithly is now deciding to step up and talk now.

“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. Please go to your designated areas. The event is about to begin!”

“Come on, Koby.” Alex says as she grabs me by the hand and drags me over to section A out of seven areas. A guard stepped in front of us and stopped us.

“You too need to split. You both can’t be in the same section.”

“Why not?” Alex asked.

“I’m not answering your question. Just do what you're told, young lady.”

“She’s my friend.” I added.

“I don’t care if you guys are a married couple. Move. Now.”

Alex glanced at me with a worrying look, and continued to go into section A. I’m going to try and sneak into that section through section B. They totally won’t notice.

“Oh no you don’t, shithead.” The guard yelled as he grabbed me by the jumpsuit, spun me around, and pulled on my collar so that I was right up in his face. “I’m not in the mood to play games, young man. In fact, I’m in a pretty bad mood. You know why? Because of you, and your little ‘friend’. You are going to section F, and I’m going to follow you to make sure that you stay there until further notice! Do you understand?!”

I nodded. He pushed me down to the ground and cracked a smile.

“You think you’re something special, moron? That couldn’t be further from the truth. You are nothing. You’re a cockroach right next to a skyscraper. You can’t do s**t.”

Man, for a SCI bouncer, his analogies suck.

I roll my eyes and run over to my section. It’s filled with people that I have never met before, including those idiots that were drinking and listening to 50’s music while I was trying to sleep. How... f*****g fitting. God, I sound like a broken record. I mean, what else am I supposed to say. That sentence just sums up my entire life. I’ve gone through so many unfortunate events that are completely out of my control to the point where I just roll with it.

As I get myself settled, Mr. Smithly turned on his microphone again.

“Greetings, everyone. Welcome to the The Return for Us Humans program created by the Sufficient Control Incorporated. My name is George Smithly-”

“We know what your name is, a*****e!” a kid in the crowd chirped. I giggled.

“Quiet, you!” a guard yelled immediately afterwards.

“Anyway, welcome. Today is one of the most important days for Earth. Today, we will be leaving this dying planet in search of a new one. In a couple months, this planet will be no more. But we are in luck.”

Biggest understatement that has ever come out of this imbeciles’s mouth.

“We now have the technology to send us to places that we have only dreamed of.”

But I still have to stand on some planks of wood slapped together during this event.

“With your help, we can restart our civilization somewhere else. We can start over as a society. We can be reborn.”

What a great line. I bet the employee that wrote that must be really proud of themselves right now to know that they wrote that.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your dreams have come true, and they have come true right in front of your eyes. These space pods will fit two people at maximum. Two people is enough to create a new life is it not?”

No, but go on. I don’t have a choice whether or not I want to continue listening to your script, but please proceed.

As he started to talk about the capabilities of the space pods, I looked up into the sky to see that there was this spaceship that was coming in. OK, so I’m confused. Why is there a spaceship? Are we going in a spaceship or the space pods? What’s the point of the concept of space pods if there is a spaceship? Whatever. It’s getting closer, so it must be something important. Maybe it’s a light show or some other childish surprise like that. Though something like that sounds impossible not because of the nature of it, but because of the SCI don’t giving two s***s.

“As I stand before you today, I am now pleased to announce that the T.R.U.H. program has finally commenced!”

I assumed that people were supposed to clap, but no one is. It’s so quiet, you can hear a pin drop. The spaceship is more interesting than this whole speech. It’s all black and grey and, at least for me, that looks aesthetically pleasing. Though now that it’s closer and I’m finally getting a better look at it, there’s no logo for the SCI. Weird.

“Here is how this will work. We will start with the space pods that stand here. Once they take off, we will haul the rest behind me, and we will do this until everyone is their respectable pod, we will instruct you once we get there-”

A huge shadow consumes the surrounding area. The spaceship is really close now. It’s slowly opening its cargo doors. It’s thrusters exceeded the volume of Mr. Smithly's normal voice. He’s speaking louder now, but all my focus is on the spaceship. Why are the cargo doors opening. Are they dropping some sort of package or something. Wait. Wait, what? What the f**k?!

“Without further ado, we will now proceed with our program. Please ignore the spacecraft above and proceed to the entrances of the spa-”

BOOOOOOOOOOM-!

KSHSHSHSHSHshshshshshshshshshshs…

…

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