The Future Project

6: Preparation

It was clear Eric disliked the idea; he wasn't one for long, dangerous trips. Jenna knew it would be dangerous, but she wasn’t afraid, Dylan was treating it like a game. A game that involved an alien race trying to destroy them.

Dylan was all cleaned up, she wore black clothes, just the way she liked, and had her hair pulled back. She was practicing the raid she had planned in her head, running on the spot, pretending to fire her guns while making her own sound effects, “pew, pew, pow!” Then diving around imaginary obstacles. Jenna stopped her after about five repeats.

“I think you’ve got this.”

Dylan smiled and nodded. “I’ve never been on a real adventure!”

It was time to prepare the supplies for the ‘real adventure.' Between three backpacks, they emptied about half of their fridge, bad time to run out of food when you’re trying to save the world. Dylan insisted on carrying all of the sweeter foods. Eric prepared quietly. Along with the food they brought four water bottles, one extra, and all of the bottles had built in filters so they could fill them up at lakes and rivers. They each had extra clothes in the bottom of their bags. Jenna wasn’t sure why they brought guns if they couldn’t harm the Ridhel, but she didn’t complain when they packed those up. They decided they would leave in the morning so they could get a good night’s rest before leaving. But a good night’s sleep was hard to come by.

 Jenna was tossing and turning in bed, she had never done anything like this in her life. The aliens could kill all of them. They would only make it with a lot of luck, and maybe a little insanity. No sane person would do this, but they had no desire to sit around and wait to die. Jenna hadn’t felt nervous or afraid until now, she finally realised what they were doing. There was nothing she could do to prepare for this, so it would go the way it went. She thought of her world as a twelve year old and, quietly hoping to be back there soon, she drifted to sleep with her memories. The horror was still to come, but for that night, Jenna had good dreams.