ELEVEN

EVIE

I closed Mom's journal in time for Sally to say, "We must get out of here. They've broken in."

I grabbed Mom's journal, tucking it into my shirt. Then I opened Sally up from a backpack and into a suit, quickly getting inside. Next, I placed my helmet back on.

"How many Monsters, Sally? How many broke in?"

"A swarm."

"Not helping. Quantities precisely please," I said.

"About five to eight," Sally said.

"Can I fight them off?" I asked.

"The odds are slim," Sally said.

"Create a diversion," I said. "In here. Lead them here."

Sally tapped into the system, and the lights began flashing in the room.

"Evie," Mom's voice suddenly said much louder than before. "Instead of leading them here, escape through the engine room. There's a bag of supplies you can pick up from there.

Touch the wall at the bottom of the ship. It will open and let you out. As soon as you're out, Sally will inflate, and you will be able to leap-glide your way back to the Shelter. I'll buy you some time. Go now!"

"Mom!" I cried out. "Thank you, even if you're not really Mom."

"Good-bye Evie. Forgive me for what I have done and for leaving you here on New Earth. Hopefully you will understand why I had to when you are ready."

With that, the hologram of Mom began running to the door. She turned around and said, "Once I get them chasing me, move quickly to the engine room."

The door opened, and Mom's hologram ran out, "Here am I. Come and get me!" She jumped and leaped from our door, down the hallway and down to another floor, moving as fast as a spotlight. Soon she was at the end of the hallway when dark shadows like a black cloud began flurrying after her into the opposite direction of the engine room. The Monsters.

"Quick!" Sally said in my helmet. "They are all chasing her. The coast is clear as they say."

Instead of taking the elevator or the stairs, I leaped over the railings of our floor down the length of the glass elevator falling rapidly. "Sally, inflate!" I commanded.

Before I became a splattered mess on the ground, my suit inflated into a ball, and I landed on the lobby floor where I first entered with a bounce.

"Sally, deflate."

My suit became a flat, lightweight, and skin tight again where I was able to maneuver through the lobby easily.

"Take that staircase over there to get to the engine room," Sally said. I quickly ran to the staircase hidden behind a wall and climbed down.

A backpack was hanging on a hook near a door. "Mom's backpack," I muttered. I grabbed it and put it on my back. "No time to see what's inside," I said. "How do I get out of here?"

"Take off your gloves, Evie," Sally said. "You need to put your bare hands on the wall so it will open to let us out."

I took off one of my gloves and placed my hand on the wall. Nothing happened.

"Try both hands," Sally said.

I took off the glove from my other hand and placed it on the wall. Nothing happened.

"Is it this wall?" I asked Sally.

I went to the other wall and placed a hand there.

Then another wall.

"Am I in the right room?" I asked.

"Warning! Warning!" Sally yelled. "They're now on this floor. The Monsters. They figured out she's just a hologram. They're gathering at the front. Coming closer."

"Where's the way out?" I said, trying not to panic, but frantically trying to look for a wall.

"Try opening the wall," Sally said.

I tried using a hand. Then both hands.

"Why isn't it working?" I asked.

From behind me, I could hear the sound of roaring wind. Loud and hard like the sound of a train rumbling and shaking the ground as it got closer.

"Ahhh," I cried out. The sound was deafening. I wanted to reach up to my ears to drown the sound out but instead, my hand went straight to the wall in front of me and in a position where my hands had formed a triangle.

I could see their faces. Molten faces with hollowed out eyes in a misty cloud of faces.

It was horrible. The faces…the Monsters.

"Be brave," I heard both Sally and my mother's voices said.

"Do not fear," a gentle voice said from within.

I felt an inner calmness and warmth grow around me.

The faces within the dark cloud froze for a while before backing up.

The wall opened, and before I knew it, I felt a push as I fell to the surface of New Earth right before the wall closed.

"Hurry," Sally said, "Leap! Move! Before you get swallowed up."

"Huh," I said, still unable to shake off what I have seen.

Sally inflated and I felt her take over my suit. "Go!" I felt my legs jumping forward. Another leap.

Then I saw it right in front of my eyes.

The entire ship, as enormous as it was, began sinking down into the sandy dusty surface of New Earth like it was being swallowed up into its belly until nothing was left where it once stood. But it didn't stop there. The weight of the collapsing ground created a vortex that was sinking everything around it.

It was now pulling me into down into that hole.

"Run!" Sally said. "Now!"

I had to use all my force to move, to climb out before I could even crawl and then jump out.

Like molasses, I had to lift my legs up to take another jump. Then another. Then a few more before I was far enough away from the sinkhole.

Sally had inflated the suit back up into the bounciest level, and my boots lifted with a spring-like mechanism. "Whoa, Sally. What have you been keeping secret from me? All this time, my boots had these spring propulsion heels?"

"I didn't know myself," Sally said. "It was when I tapped into the ship that I also received an update. Jana must have built it into the boots but it was activated when I tapped in."

"Well, let's try it out!" I said excitedly. I leaped forward and it propelled me higher and further, moving at a faster pace and distance than before. I kept going and going. "This is great!"

Finally, I was in an area that never felt sweeter than anywhere else in the world to me. My home…the Shelter.

My suit deflated, and I opened the latch to the Shelter's opening and climbed down the ladder. At the last rung, I lost my grip and fell, falling to the concrete hard ground where I landed with a thud.

"Ouch!" I groaned as I laid sprawled out on the floor. I felt so heavy, and my legs felt like jelly. "Sally, why do I feel so heavy?"

Silence.

"Sally? Did you hear me?" I asked again. After a beat, I rolled over, despite the pain I felt in my left foot. I got up on my knees and pushed myself up. "Sally? Are you functioning?"

She didn't answer back.

I quickly removed my suit and examined it.

"Sally! No!" I cried out. "No! No! No!"

The computer chip had torn off of Sally. The brain of Sally was missing. And so was all the memories that she held, instructions from my mother, knowledge about Red Genesis.

I looked around. I felt all alone. Sally was gone.

So was the ship, Red Genesis.

"Why? Why? Why?" I wailed. I sat on the floor for a while as I sobbed.

I couldn't find Mom. Nor could I find another person on the ship.

No one. Not even any skeletons.

What had happened to the rest of the passengers on the Red Genesis besides my mother?

Where did they go?

The rooms I found seemed untouched, as though they were waiting for their owners to come back. Did they step out just to abandon what they had in their rooms?

Mom's journal ended with her preparing to fight against the Monsters. I know Mom made it alive and well off the Red Genesis so she can give birth to me. She ended up building the Shelter and then raising me in there with her.

But there were only the two of us. Even Thomas wasn't there.

What happened to the rest of the crew and passengers?

Was I the only living being on New Earth and of Old Earth in the entire universe?

I was exhausted and hungry. I wanted to sleep, but I needed to find out more.

But the ship sank, disappeared into the depth of New Earth. Fortunately, it seemed that Mom had already left the ship long before I found it. But she had left me some clues.

My eyes fell on the backpack I found from the engine room from the ship. Mother's hologram told me to get it and bring it back home.

I went to it and opened it.

Inside were seeds from all kinds of plants, vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers. Freeze-dried snacks, candies, meats, and ice cream. Some tools and a little silver packet.

I couldn't help tearing into the candy and the ice cream before I ate some fruit pieces. When I felt better and stronger, I opened the silver packet.

Tiny microchips fell into my hands.

My eyes lit up. "Microchips!" I yelled. "I can build anything now!"

Then I saw the note inside the silver packet.

Evie, I knew you would make it to this part. I packed what was left from the ship into this backpack from the pantry I went looking for. I did find food, but there was so much more. We first saw signs, and that's when left the Shelter and went looking for people. They weren't on the Red Genesis, at least that ship. Perhaps the other 2 ships. But, I'll keep looking for them until I find them. It is my mission as the surviving leader from the Red Genesis settlement. You must stay put and maintain the Shelter for those people I am bringing back. I am counting on you to keep the Shelter going. The database of humankind is kept there, and now that you have the microchips, we can rebuild New Earth as it once was. I love you, Evie.

Mom.

I felt better knowing Mom had discovered there were more people alive. Humanity has a chance. I also know now how much more capable she was than anyone else. I witnessed how the love and will of a mother can drive Mom to do anything to make her way back to me. Witnessing everything Mom did with the Red Genesis and this Shelter gave me confidence that she would succeed.

Most importantly, having faced and fought the Monsters, then being saved, despite facing them head on, gave me hope that we humans can overcome the Monsters. Every footage and report I've seen of the Monsters from Vintage Earth's archives showed that whenever a human encountered a Monster, the human perishes.

But reading Mom's Journal proved otherwise. We can fight the Monsters. She did. So did Dad. And I did. I should have perished, if I believed the news that were reported back from Vintage Earth. But I lived and was saved. I was saved by a higher power than humans. God. That gentle but strong voice that intervened right when the Monsters reached me.

Mom said to stay put and wait for her while maintaining the Shelter. She's given me enough seeds for me to grow in our Shelter's gardens to last for years, and packets of freeze-dried food that would last up to 25 years. I was set.

As I got up to walked over to the Control Center of the Shelter, I felt a breeze flash by me before a heavy blow to the back of my head. My eyes rolled back as I felled to the ground, spilling everything in my backpack and Mom's journal.

My eyes went blurry before everything went black.

How long was I in this position? How long was I sleeping on the ground?

I looked around me. Everything was in place as it should be. Nothing was amiss. But a suit was missing, the latch cover to the opening of the Shelter was opened, and there was one tiny microchip on the ground.

Where did that chip come from? As long as I inventoried everything in the Shelter, there was no microchip which was incredibly precious.

And the latch door. How did that get opened? The last time I went outside was when I saw Mom leave the Shelter to go look for missing people after receiving a signal. That was a month ago?

"Mom?" I called out. "Mom?" Did she return?

Did something happen when I fell asleep?

Somehow, I couldn't remember. I couldn't remember going outside of the shelter.

I reached up to climb up the ladder to close the latch door, only to feel an intense pain in my shoulder. I walked over to the nearest mirror and looked behind me. There was a large bruise from my neck to the back of my shoulder. I ached all over my body as well. What happened?

Did something happen here? Was there something in here that went missing? I couldn't remember. But I knew something was off. Mom wasn't back. Where did she go?

As I put healing cream on my back, I noticed a movement at the corner of my eye.

God help us. I am not alone in here.