Terra Human

I felt a rough hand grab my upper arm in a vice-like grip.

“Move it, Terra.” I grit my teeth but obediently walked a half step behind the Terran Recruitment Officer with his ample assortment of guns. He was still half dragging me but the hallway we were in was dark with flickering dull yellow lights. We got to an armored door at the end of the hall. Without another word the TR Officer pushed me inside, making me stumble on my way in. As I righted myself, the heavy door was closed and locked behind me. I glanced around at the new prison cell I was in.

As to be expected in any prison cell, it was a small room with grey concrete walls. In addition, there was a window too high to reach with bars over the windows. Depression seemed to emanate from the walls. As for furniture there was a small cot and one bucket to use. I wrinkled my nose but then sat on the edge of the cot.

The adrenaline wore off and exhaustion set in. The exhaustion was accompanied by despair. I replayed this morning in my head several times from the time the TR Officer walked into my house to where I’d been taken and told I was one of the newest volunteers. The country appreciated ‘my sacrifice’ and they congratulated me on my bravery for volunteering.

The TR Officer with the gun and cattle prod led me to believe I didn’t have a choice.

The town chose who to cast away and they chose me.

It’s no real surprise. I was always the outsider in my closely knit community. Most of them were despondent people, not wanting to upset the status quo. My parents were very much against that mentality. They had been a key part of the resistance movement- major activists in fighting against the government’s mandatory volunteers. If no one volunteers, the government starts something similar to a draft. My parents and their parents before them had been leaders of a ‘radical’ group with the sole purpose of an end to forced volunteerism.

The group had gained enough attention and were loud enough to be a thorn in the government’s side. As with many inconveniences, my parents were swept away in the night. I woke up one morning when I was twelve to an empty house. Taken from my home to this small neighborhood of backwards people was almost more of a shock than my parents being gone.

I quickly became the orphaned outcast. In an Earth with nothing around but scorched rock and desert as far as the eye could see. I’d been told that the whole world was like this. Nothing but humans left on a lifeless rock.

Things apparently hadn’t always been like this. There wasn’t always rain that burned you, and nothing but cracked earth for miles around. When the world turned on us, in my grandparents generation, I was told that the Earth was at war with the sea and the sky. Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Tsunamis, and freak wildfires spread across the Earth. During the same time as nature being at war with itself, crops started failing. Animals and people both were quickly starving and a mass extinction of most wildlife- plants included- plagued the Earth.

Those who were considered Upper Class- were paid in more than money for supplying food to the marginal Earth Humans. The government that had sprung several decades ago from a fractured country had taken over and made a deal with several different ruling members of the Upper Class. The Upper Class would send food as long as they were paid monetarily as well as with workers. The workers were ‘strictly volunteer’. These lucky volunteers, like myself, get locked in a containment cell until they put us in a rocket and blast us off into space.

I was one of ten who ‘volunteered’ today. We all got the same treatment- rough handling accompanied by slurs like Terra used. Terra was short for ‘terrestrial’ which meant we were lesser beings for having only lived on Earth. With humans colonizing several other planets there was a class system that had to be followed. All that was really important was that I was on the bottom class. I was a human that still lived on Earth- the barren wasteland that it had become- that relied on food from those wealthy enough to own something akin to a greenhouse in a space station.

Goodbye Earth.

We get to go be slaves on some foreign planet to someone lucky enough to have been born into a family with money. I was in the exact situation my parents had fought so hard against. Their angst for the government signed my ticket off earth.

Some time passed. It allowed me to sort through some of my initial emotions until I settled on anger. It went from early morning to late evening before I heard the heavy footsteps. The door screeched in protest as two guards were at my door. I was quickly hand cuffed and shuffled outside to where I was shoved with the other nine volunteers into a prison transport truck. It seemed fitting.

Getting out of the van, I lost my balance and fell forward. I managed to just barely keep myself upright but my gold locket that my dad had bought for me when I was born bounced out from under my shirt. It was the only pictures I had of my parents- both inside that locket. It’s all I have left of them. After I had caught myself, the guard closest to me grabbed the collar of my shirt. He yanked me towards him, while his other hand wrapped around the locket. With a firm tug the guard easily snapped the chain.

“Won’t be needing this.” He told me, dropping the locket to the ground before smashing it with the heel of his boot. I felt myself crumple to the ground, trying to reach for the locket. The guard hauled me up with a smirk on his face and sent my locket flying with his boot. I didn’t see where it went or how many pieces it broke into.

We were led to the front of the building. We were told to form a line and wait patiently. Most of the guards backed away from us, giving us a wide berth but still having a loose semi-circle around us. The way they chit chatted in pairs made it apparent that they weren’t afraid of any of us. They were heavily armed, and we were defenseless. A blonde boy around my age, one of the other volunteers, walked up close to me.

“I have your locket. I’ll give it to you once we’re off the planet.” He told me in a low voice but his tone serious.

“I thought he smashed it.” I responded back skeptically but he shook his head, discreetly pulling out the dainty gold chain from his pocket. Hidden in his hand was the heart shaped trinket I loved so much.

It looked dirty and dented, slightly off centered but not completely destroyed. My locket was now like me, dirty and dented but still surviving. I nodded my head in understanding as he watched me while he tucked the locket back away.

None of the guards seem to acknowledge us and honestly, I knew they didn’t really care.

“You’re Charlotte Owens, aren’t you?” The boy questioned and I nodded my head again. “I’m Rowan West. Your parents were great people.” He supplied and I glanced at the few guards that were there that were also making small talk. There was a low hum of hushed conversations going on. I looked back to Rowan. I felt tears prickle at my eyes but blinked them back as I stubbornly refused to let myself cry.

“They were.” I replied quietly. I looked up and caught a glimpse of the guard that had smashed my locket with a smile. Just from seeing him I felt my blood boil before something made my anger change. My anger quickly turned to resolve. I would finish what my parents started. I would put an end to the forced volunteerism. I would make them all pay. My anger and need for vengeance would fuel me. Decided on my path, I took a deep breath and smiled. An idea was forming in my head when I made eye contact with Rowan. “We will be too.” I told him and a look of understanding passed in his eyes, and he nodded.

We were going to lead a revolution of Terra humans on an Upper-Class planet.