Returning to earth shortstory

The capsule I was in barely fit me and everything I’ve wanted to take. The captain had told me they could send everything I would need later on, with the promise of weekly food and supply delivery’s directly to the place I had landed on just minutes earlier.

In preparation to leave I had skimmed through a few books on earth I could easily find in the library. Since I had only had three days, before my departure was scheduled, I had to use my time wisely. As I couldn’t know exactly when I would return, I wanted to say goodbye to everyone on the ship, and get a good night’s rest before heading out.

I sat in my capsule, looking out through the dirty, frosted glass, wondering how I had been chosen to go on that mission. I was merely in my thirties, unexperienced with on location research and with little knowledge of earth – other than the stories we’ve been told since childhood.

The ship had been my home, it had been my parents’ home and their parents before them. We, as the humans who managed to escape before earth consumed our lives, had lived on the space ship for centuries, roaming the endless skies for a new planet to inhabit. We hadn’t found anything suitable, which is why the captain had secretly taken course back to our solar system, and made the plan to send someone out to earth to research. But why me?

A beeping noise pulled me out of my thoughts, and looking at my control panel I realized that the pressure in my tiny space ball had dropped low enough to open the door and step foot on earth. I took a deep breath, not understand what I was about to see, and pressed the button to open the door into a forgotten world.

Before I stood up, or walked outside, I looked around. Without the shadowy window screen in front of my eyes, I could see the world around me. The captain had said he would drop me on the continent of Europe, as it had a milder climate than most of the other continents.

The ground I stood on looked like the sandy-grass I had read about, and looking closer I could see tiny stripes of green grass rising to my ankle hight. I was still wearing my space suit, but stepping outside of the capsule, I felt heavier than ever before. The captain had told me to study earths gravity laws, that were harsher than the conditions on board, but I hadn’t spent enough time on that topic.

I took out a small device, meant to measure the saturation of oxygen in the atmosphere, and was surprised to see them at a level that meant I could take my helmet of. Before I did that, though, I changed the settings to look for radiation, of any kind. The test came back negative, or at least low enough for me to tolerate, and I put the device down.

Reaching for the point where my suit connected to my helmet, my hands trembled. @ I wasn’t sure if I was truly ready to experience earth the way my descendants had centuries ago, but part of my mission was to try and live off of earth and its nature for a few days. The captain had given me a few books, that were supposed to help me identify the plants that I could eat. He had also given me containers to bring some of the food back to the spaceship, for intense testing.

As the air from my suit left the helmet, and I pulled it off of my head, the sensation seemed to overwhelm me. It was warm, that was the first thing I felt, and the sun seemed to almost prick my skin. Wind was the next thing I could make out, though I had never felt a natural wind before.

The noises of the world around me slowly crept into my head. The wind made plants move and whisper to me, and I could hear movement behind me. As I turned around, I was a big field of sandy-grass, and on the other side a creature I couldn’t quite make out. As I looked on, the creature fixated on me, before breaking out into a sprint and heading in my direction.

Panic shot through me, as I tried to find a way to identify the creature, while also finding safety to hid in. Since there was nothing other than the capsule I had come in, I squeezed back inside, and pulled it shut just in time. The creature appeared before the dirty glass only moments later, and I let out a first sign of relieve. If the capsule could withstand space, it could withstand earth creatures.

I looked around me and finally found what I had been looking for: Something to identify the creature with. The book was big, and I wasn’t used to skimming through books, but I managed to open it, and quickly flipped through the pages.

A wolf. The creature outside of my capsule was a wolf, or maybe a dog? I couldn’t be sure, I wasn’t an animal expert. But what was I supposed to do? Wolfs and dogs could be dangerous, but dogs could also be peaceful.

After moments of deliberation, I looked through the glass, into his eyes. He seemed friendly enough – though that didn’t always mean anything. But somehow, I knew I could trust him. I opened the door back up, and stepped outside. The wolf, or dog, had sat down in front of me, interestedly looking at me. As I pulled my helmet up, it winced, but recovered fast.

The creature came closer to me, and I reached my hand out to it. It took a few moments of sniffing, before the wolf, or dog, pressed its face into my hand.

While I didn’t know anything else about earth, I knew that I had made a friend on my first day.

Disclamer: this stories has not been edited properly.

Copyright © Author Anne Sophie, All rights reserved