Page 8 of A Million Stars and Shadows

“Your DNA from your handprint opened this message I left for you, Evie,” Mom’s hologram said. “I assume if you find this place, you would have left the Shelter looking for me. I wished you did not have to until I get back. If you are here, know that you are safe for now. I had prepared this ship to produce what you will need to sustain yourself for at least half a year to a year or two, depending on the fruit and vegetable processing center. I had fixed the center before leaving.”

“Leaving?” I asked. “Where did you go?”

“You may be asking where I went,” Mom said. “That is a long story, and I will let you read about the reason I took on this mission itself.”

“Mission?”

“The Red Genesis,” Mom said. “It’s bigger than just the ship…the one you are on is 1 or 3 Red Genesis ships.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“In the red journal you have,” Mom said. “It’s my journal where I wrote down everything I felt and went through from Day 1. Read it. It’ll explain why I did what I had to do.”

“Mom?” I asked. “What did you do?”

“Evie,” Mom’s image faded in and out, flickering like a lightbulb about to burst. “I trust you will know what to do. If you are here, you must have Sally with you. I programmed her to help you. She is a first generation Shelter Suit, which I had been working on so she may not be perfect…”

Mom’s voice faded off.

“Mom? Sally, what’s going on? Why is there so much glitching?”

“The hologram was syncing with me, updating herself with messages downloading to this ship,” Sally said. “Your mother programmed me to provide the latest information to this ship if I arrive.”

“Smart,” I said.

The hologram flashed back on again. Mom’s face flash in front of me, looking like the way she did when I last saw her. “I love you, my daughter.”

Then the hologram burst apart, leaving the air I was staring into where Mom had stood, empty.

For a while, I felt all alone. I felt hollow and empty, as though Mom had left me again.

“Then I heard Sally’s bright voice said, “What’s in the red journal?”

“Do we have time?” I asked Sally.

“Of course, Evie,” Sally said, suddenly sympathetic. “Your mother wanted you to find this journal that you have to read it. You have to read it before you can find her. Perhaps there are clues to where she has gone.”

“At least it will make me feel like she’s here with me,” I said, opening the journal to the first pages and started reading.

“You are safe in here for now,” Sally said. “I do not detect anything else around us in this ship, at least at this part. But outside…they’ve caught up.”

“The Monsters?” I asked.

“Yes, they’ve surrounded the ship. But they could not get in. Being on this ship is the best option for now.”

I remembered what Mom had taught me about the Monsters. They fed on fear. “Reading,” I told Sally. “Reading has always helped me escape to another world. To keep my mind at peace or at least distracted. I can’t wait to read all about Mom and what happened to everyone on Red Genesis.”

THREE – JANA’S JOURNAL

JANA

First, they came without warning. They came out of nowhere suddenly. Unremarkable and unassuming. No one knew about them until it was too late. There wasn’t time for humankind to even give them a name…so they were just called, “The Monsters.”

My name is Jana Gee, as in “G” and I am one of the last humans on Earth. When the Monsters first came, we were too busy to notice, caught in our own bickering over now trivial things. Our leaders on Earth didn’t notice. Our so-called “experts” didn’t notice. No one noticed, until it was too late. Now I am on an evacuation mission to land on a planet barely inhabitable for humans, called New Earth. It is a barren place, which we need to colonize. I have a group of survivors with me, brought on board the Red Genesis to help make this place habitable. There is no turning back. The Monsters on old Earth or Vintage Earth would kill us, but so could anything else on New Earth.

Dear Journal,

I didn’t know what I was getting into when I joined the leadership team onboard the magnificent spacecraft called the Red Genesis. By the time I actually boarded Red Genesis, which was the marvel of our space program, the elder scientists and engineers who had worked on the spaceship had already perished, and The Monsters, that came swiftly onto Earth, had already decimated most of humanity.

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