THE END

Chapter 8

I hadn't thought of it like that, but I suppose it's true. Both sides are at fault.  

"Well, it was good to meet y'all, I best be off. Gots me some important, rebel stuff to do." Allon says with a wink, taking off in the other direction at a fast speed for someone his age.

"I like him." I say.

"He's pretty cool." Natalie agrees. "I'll show you guys to a tent." Natalie leads the way, nodding to a few people as we go. Everyone seems busy, no one sits idly or stops to chat. Everyone has a purpose, something to be doing. I only notice a few children, but then, a war planet is no place for kids.

We pass rows and rows of tents, all exactly identical. They're big enough for more than one person to sleep in comfortably, and they're all brown or red, the color of the dirt above us. She finds an empty one somewhere around the middle of the giant room, and ties a red bandana to the top of it. "That lets people know it's taken." Natalie says. "I'm just a few tents over. Down there, see?" She points to a tent about five to the left.

"Lights out is in about twenty minutes, so I'm gonna go to my tent. See you in the morning!" She says.

"See you in the morning!" Neil says. We pick up our duffels and open the tent. It has two small mattresses laying right next to each other, their sides touching to form basically one large bed. There are two fluffy pillows. Besides that, the tent is empty. We place our duffels at the front of the tent, and pull out our blankets.

"Can you believe it?" I say all of a sudden. "We're on Jupiter. We're literally standing on another planet!" I take my hair out of its ponytail and begin to brush it.

"Yeah. It's insane." Neil breathes. "This has been my goal for so long. To get to Jupiter. Find my family. Decide if I want to stay with the rebels or go to another planet." He paused. "Now that I'm here... I don't know what to do." He said with a choked laugh.

"We'll figure it out." I tell him. "We always do." He gives me a smile. "And hey, we've got Natalie to help us. She's pretty tough for her age. What is she, 15?"

"Wow. I guess she is. I remember when she was seven and I was nine and we ran around the block and played tag. She's fifteen already..." He said in awe. "And what does that make us? Are we seventeen already? What's the month?" Our birthdays are both in August. I saw a sign when we walked into the city that said today is September 4th.

"It's September. We're seventeen." I say. We got so busy we just forgot. "Happy late birthday!"

"Happy late birthday." He says, and with that he collapses on one of the mattresses. I lay down on the other one and pull my blanket around me. After a moment of hesitation Neil reaches across to my mattress and puts an arm around me. I lean into him and he smiles. "You know today's probably the best day of my life. I got back to my family, well what's left of it, plus I didn't have to leave you behind. And we made it to Jupiter." I nod in agreement.

Suddenly a voice comes on the loudspeaker outside, announcing that it's lights out. All the lights outside go out and the tent becomes pitch black. All the chatter of the citizens ceases and it becomes as silent as a ghost town. I lay awake for a while in the silence, before whispering to Neil. "I can't sleep."

"Me neither." He says.

"I guess I'm used to all the background noise that Earth had or something. It's just too quiet here. And it's so dark; I can't see the stars. Not that we really could on Earth..." I tell him.

"What do you say we do some exploring?"

We gather our blankets and open the tent as quietly as possible. We walk past the endless rows of tents and things, until we reach that staircase and begin to climb. Neil pushes open the trap door and we walk out. I gasp.

Jupiter's night sky is so beautiful! There are so, so many stars and constellations everywhere, and they seem closer than they ever had from Earth. I can see moons and suns and nebulas and planets right from where we're standing.

"I bet if we go up on one of those we could see things even better," Neil says, pointing to the Metal Heads. "Come on."

So we run hand in hand to one of the skyscrapers and begin to climb the metal ladder that runs along the side of it. At one point I almost fall, but I regain my balance and force myself not to look down. Once we land safely on the top, I look down and realize just how high we've come. The trap door is just a speck below. The stars seem closer than ever; I could almost reach out and touch them.

"It's beautiful." I say.

"Yeah." Neil says, setting his blanket down on the roof of the Metal Head. He lays down and pats the space next to him. I lay down beside him and pull my blanket over both of us. He puts one arm around me and uses the other to point out all kinds of constellations. Different stars, and moons, and all kinds of things I hadn't dreamed of. It's nothing like Earth.

We've been on the run for two years, never staying somewhere for longer than a few days, and only napping when we can. We're used to not sleeping much, and I'm still running on adrenaline from the insane day we've had. So we stay awake all night, just admiring the sky and talking about nothing. After a life on the run, it's nice to finally settle down somewhere. To have a permanent place to stay. Neil smiles at me, knowing exactly what I'm thinking. He always does.

Only when the sun starts to rise in the unfamiliar sky, do I realize that I'm the happiest I've been since my parents died.