The Experiments

Chapter 20

They led us to the room we first arrived in. The one with circles on the ground and had the lights surround us. Simon, Harriet, and Ty were already there.

"Stand in the circles," Ryan informed us. We all walked to a circle and stood inside it.

The weird lights surrounded us again and in a blink of an eye, we were on a rocky surface. I took a deep breath. Fresh air. It had been forever since I had gotten any. The rest of the kids gasped, their eyes locked on something in front of them. I followed their gazes and gasped myself.

It was a huge... what were they called again? "That's a tree," Ryan said. Right. Tree.

The tree was huge and looked as though it had been there for a while. Ryan was telling us more about trees. The long brown part, before it gave way to the green, was called the trunk. The arm-like limbs holding the green things were called branches. The green wavy things were called leaves.

The tree's trunk looked like it was twisted from the ground up. Some of the branches were skinny and some were thick. The leaves were the brightest green I had ever seen. And they swayed with the branches in the light wind.

Subconsciously, I had walked up to the tree and put a hand on the trunk. The trunk was rough, but cool to the touch. I ran my hand over the trunk. I could feel each and every sway moving the tree. I could feel the organisms moving inside it. I pulled my hand back. I had never been able to feel each and every organism before.

"Hey, Reagan!" Harriet called. "You coming?"

I turned around to see the rest of the group was walking up a small incline. I rushed back over to the group, not wanting to miss any other discoveries.

"This is called a hill," Ty was saying when I caught up. "They come in all shapes and sizes. This one is small thankfully."

At the top of the hill, I gasped again. In the distance, maybe a could hundred miles away, were really big hills. They were so big they penetrated the white, fluffy things in the sky.

"But those," Ryan began, pointing at the huge hills. "Are mountains. They tend to run on the larger size of things."

"What are those puffy things in the sky?" Claire asked. I was glad I wasn't the only one who didn't know what they were.

"Clouds," Ryan said. I looked up at the clouds. Some were big and same were small. One of them was grey instead of white.

"Why is that one grey?" Emilee asked, pointing to the grey cloud.

"It's full of water," Ty said. "Meaning it could rain or snow. More than likely, rain, but it could snow. This is an alien planet."

At that moment, a though struck me. "Is this what Earth is like?" I asked as we started walking again.

"No," Ryan said. My smile faltered. "Earth's better." He added, turning around to give me a smile. I smiled back. I couldn't wait to got to Earth one day.

We were heading down the hill, when Johnny slowed down to walk with me. "Is this better than working?" He asked playfully.

"100%," I said. I was about to ask him about Earth, but stopped short when I saw a blue thing.

It was growing in a group of other blue things. It had a green like trunk growing out of the ground. It connected to a blue object after a couple of inches. I stared at it. Johnny noticed I stopped walking and turned around. He saw me staring at the object and chuckled.

"It's called a flower." He answered my unasked question. "The green thing is called a stem and the blue part is called petals. Here." He bent down and plucked it from the ground. My eyes widened. "It's okay. There's plenty more. The blue even matches your eyes." He handed me the flower and I took it gingerly.

He was right. The bright blue matched my eyes. He grabbed my free hand and nodded his head toward the rest of the group, which was gaining ground. I followed Johnny, holding the flower like it was going to break.

After a couple of hours of being on the planet, we returned to the ship. I was sad to go, but Ryan said there were other planets we could go to. He also said we could go again the next day. They needed to get some samples from the planet anyway.

I fell asleep with the flower on my bedside table.