The Girl On the Moon [#Watty2015]

Chapter 4: Rowan Lost

I wake up to sunlight in my face, streaming through the hole in my wall. It is my version of an alarm, so muscle memory automatically makes arise. Then, my brain catches up, and down I go again. Father and I had argued. I sigh, and then sit back up, my mind churning with questions. Most of them about that village. From my point of view, everything leads back there. Father lying, never letting me visit the light side of the moon, all the small side comments to himself I always ignored. And then the big one, the way we had our first argument about me going to the light side of the moon and maybe looking for a village.

On an impulse, I leap up and grab my bag, stuffing it with an extra pair of clothes, a spare oxygen mask, and some food I have lying around from a snack. I slowly creep over to the door as my mind screams at me ROWAN LOST, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Not paying attention to the question I asked to myself, I simply think how I don't even know my middle name, I don't even know if I have one. Another lie in the web my Father has spun. Tonight the web comes crashing down around him, tonight I find out the truth. Tonight, I will go to the light side of the moon.

If I find there's nothing there, I'll return to Father and never leave again, but if there is a village... I don't know what I'll do, but it will not be good when I confront Father about it. As I creep down the corridor, I hear Father's repetitive snores, telling me it's safe to go on. As I open the front door carefully, and gaze out onto the barren land, I notice the stars. Smiling at their twinkling beauty, I begin to feel better. However, I am still determined, so I take a step outside and began to run as well as anyone truly could run in zero gravity. So basically huge leaps as I glide through the air and land with soft thuds. Roughly thirty minutes pass before I see the end of the shadow that defines the dark side of the moon. I increase my speed, and then take on final bound into the light side. I look up to see the new stars, the ones I can't see from back home, and almost faint. There's a huge blue ball in the sky, with green blobs scattered across it, white streaked all around. Earth. I've always known that humans aren't originally from the moon, that we came from a planet called Earth, that the moon orbits somewhere else, and Father and myself were 'Americans'. But seeing this planet is so much different than knowing about it. I give a small gasp, and stare for awhile, completely forgetting my surroundings.

When my gaze returns to the terrain ahead, I finally notice it. A gigantic orange bubble, just like the one in my dream, encompassing a small collection of buildings. It must be the village. My heart aches at the sight, wanting me to return. The only thing wrong with that, is I don't believe I've ever been here to begin with, so how could I return? I shake my head, clearing my mind, and then start off towards the village.

I pass through the orange bubble, marveling at the easiness of it, and onto what is obviously supposed to be a street. Looking around, everything seems abandoned, and the only noise, what I think is laughter, is coming from some sort of park to my left that I can't quite see through the houses. I decide to head over, see if people can be found there. It would be terrible to have come all this way only to find no one here.

As I head towards the noise intensifies, and I realize it's not laughter at all, but crying. There are around twenty grownups and twenty-five or more children of varying ages, most of them crying as a man reads from a paper up on a stage. I gaze around at the first human life besides my Father I've seen. They seem to be discussing the lunar colony before them, how it failed and everyone died. Wait. Everyone died? I wonder what happened.

Now they are talking about the dead and I tune out for a while and look at the people around me. My ears prick up at the end of the man's speech, just in time to hear him say, "Though she was not part of this colony, we would like to honor Rowan Izzabelle Smith, who went missing, and is certainly dead, as of ten years ago." Everything stands still. Rowan. That's my name. Ten years ago, I would have been four.

The little voice that's been whispering at the back of my head since I began this trip grows louder. Is Father really my father? Are we even related? What about a mother? Why don't I have one? I squeeze my eyes as realizations descend upon me, trying not to cry. I can't stand the sobbing of those around me, who think I'm dead, and flee the crowd. Two of these people are my parents is the last thought to go through my head as I stumble out of the crowd and onto the street.