"How can the door just disappear?" Leo asked, puzzled. It's been a couple of hours since these people threw us into this hell hole and things were worse than ever. "I didn't know an hour ago, Leo, I don't know now." I replied. It indeed was weird. There was absolutely no sign of a door anywhere in the walls. Probably some jacked up technology the aliens had. "How's your wonderful plan going, eh boss?" Leo said. "You wanted to take them down from the inside. We can't even find the freaking door which was in front of us just a couple of hours ago." He was right. This wasn't what I expected. "This isn't what I thought it would be like." I replied. "I thought we could find a key or something and then try something." " You thought they were going to look us up like they locked up thieves back on Earth? Behind iron bars? Anyways, it's no use arguing now. We are in this together. " he said, ending the conversation.
Almost half a day went by. At one point Leo totally lost it. He went up near the walls and started hitting them with his bare fists. He screamed his lungs out cursing and threatening the aliens. "Dude, they're probably laughing their butts off at you right now. Just pull yourself together and wait for whatever is coming." I said, trying to talk some sense into him. We then sat down in a corner and started talking, mainly about the aliens and their weird room. He started atacking me with questions.
"Where is the cool air coming from?"
"I don't have an idea."
"What about the lights?"
"Not a clue."
"They're going to starve us to death?"
"I don't think so. They said they're going to use us for something sinister they're planning."
"I'm thirsty and hungry."
"Good for you."
"I'm sleepy too. I'm tired as hell."
"Go sleep, Leo. We've had a rough day."
"No kidding boss! You should have some rest too."
"Got it, Leo."
"Go to sleep."
"Sure, will"
Leo curled up right next to me and in no time started snoring. On the other hand, sleep didn't come to me easily. I started thinking about the order of things all over again. Things were pretty much hopeless. Earth was doomed. That was for sure. We were probably the last humans who would come out to space and explore. The last astronauts and as Konrad likes to call us, Cosmonauts. He's Russian and I guess we're still called cosmonauts there. Since Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in the Apollo Eleven Mission to his ever famous quote, which is still written in all its glory at the USRA headquarters :
"That's one small step for a man, one giant step for mankind."
We've come a long way. And this was indeed a pathetic way to end our journey. But yes, we've had nobody to blame but ourselves. Not many people know this. Not even my own crewmates except Reneesh know this. The solar flares, which wrecked havoc on the Earth, eventually hammering the final nail onto any possibility of Earth recovering, was indeed caused by human actions. A top-secret government mission, named Mission Solaris, was launched to exploit the core of the sun for more energy. The helium and hydrogen could fuel up our next generation space engines. But the scientists messed up, big time. Most people thought that mother nature had decided that it was time for us to go. But it's a fact that we had started the process of destroying our home, along with an entire solar system. The Mission Head was actually executed, a first in fifty years. He was killed, along with a few other top scientists who worked on the project. The governments involved in the project took out their anger and rage on the scientists and jailed all those who were in anyway involved in it. By then, the sun had become unstable and solar flares became a routine part of our lives. First Wave hit us and half the population near the equators were almost fried to death. The rich countries near the equators like India, South Africa and Mexico where the first to build underground bunkers for their remaining population. As these flares got worse, poor countries collapsed and the rich countries followed suit. Horrible days those were. But humanity deserved another chance. In spite of our mistakes, we learnt lessons from them. We deserve another chance to prosper and develop keeping our mistakes in mind. Mistakes are what makes us better people than we were. But here we were, in the hands of another advanced civilisation, which probably found fun and glee in destroying an entire civilisation. We were witnessing Darwin's Law of Survival of the fittest in play now. They were the fittest, no contest. But then my mind shifted to a whole 'another topic. The alien's appearance. They looked exactly like humans. They spoke the same language except that the way they speak and their accent makes it seem like they've mixed up English with some other language. All they knew about us, it made me wonder. They have had to have spies amongst us. They look almost the same we do and the spies would not have to work hard to fit into the society with the similarities between the two civilizations. If they indeed had spies amongst us, it made me wonder how they got here without anyone raising an alarm at all? How did they manage to have a two-way communication? All these questions made my head hurt.
I kept pondering over the points and looked at Leo. He was in a deep sleep. He was young, energetic and trustworthy. As I'd thought earlier, if there were three people on whom I could trust my life upon, they would be Leo, Reneesh and Anna. I've only known Leo for a very short time but that was just enough. I kept reminding myself. I would do anything for these guys, even if it meant my life. Just then Leo woke up.
"Didn't grab a nap, did you?" He asked, rubbing his eyes. "Nah man. Just caught up in old memories." I replied, forcing a smile on my face. "Miss your girlfriend, eh?" He asked, winking at me. "Shut up. She ain't my girlfriend." I replied, embarrassed. "Aye! Lovebird is lying!" He said, chuckling. I punched him lightly on his shoulder. "She kissed you man! What else do you need?" He asked, still laughing. I started laughing too. "This stress is cracking my head." I thought. We both started laughing hysterically, without any particular reason. Suddenly there was a grinding sound and the sound of gears spinning. "What now?" Leo asked, his eyes wide open. Obviously, we both had stopped laughing and looked up to our roof, the place where the sound was coming from. Just as we were watching, a part of the roof started breaking away from the rest and came floating down, in a controlled manner. It brought down a cardboard box down with it. I grabbed it as soon as I could and ripped the cover apart. I then picked up another box inside and read what was written on it. "What's written on it? What is it?" Leo asked. "Your bloody wish has come true." I replied, grinning. "Those morons have sent us food."
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Note: People may dispute about the addition of 'a' before 'man' in the Neil Armstrong quote but there is considerable evidence that Neil Armstrong did indeed say the word 'a' before 'man' but this was not recorded in the official transcripts. It is in my opinion that the addition of 'a' gives meaning to the quote which otherwise would end up in such a way that both 'man' and 'mankind' would mean the same. Feel free to discuss this in the comments below.