It's my first day at my new job. I am supposed to be excited, supposed to be skipping down the street like people my age. But I’m not. I am walking calmly down the road watching the other 16-year-olds pass a ball around before school in the morning. I long to drop my bag and join the game, but as my mother says: I am different. I am expected to live a life that I never asked for, a life I never wanted. I look down at the patterned brown pathway with bricks that are placed perfectly and the ground feels smooth and even. The concrete road has been repainted recently and the bright yellow lines glow in the electric lights that fill our colony. In our own bubble, everything seems perfect. People like to call us advanced because we are a colony surviving in space. But in reality, we are alone. Alone in our 'perfect world'. 

Most people are ok with the strict rules that come with a perfect world. The lights that turn on and off at the same time each night and morning. Okay with living in the same place with the same things. Never changing. Never being able to travel or see new things. I am not. Our government thinks change is dangerous. They believe that pattern makes people happy. But the way I see it everything is always the same, and I want change. 

I long for exploration and travel. I long to see new things from closer than hundreds of miles away through inches and inches of glass. I have photos of cities, of earth before we left. Even through the faded pictures from old disposable cameras, I see a world filled with color, light, and happiness. It is a world that I have always wanted to see and a world that I miss with all my heart. But most of all, I long to be a teenager. To play on the field before school with my friends. To throw a ball in the morning and sit by a fence reading my favorite book. Worst of all, I could have that. I could turn right into the school and catch the ball right before it hits the ground. But instead of turning right and walking into the familiar schoolyard with the worn-out field and the kids my age, I turn left, and I hear the ball hit the ground with a thump. 

I turn left into the sterile white hallways of the lab building and tightly wound scientists that analyze me like they would analyze a slide under a microscope. They think I am too young to be here. They don’t think I’m smart enough and that is one of the reasons I am here. One of the reasons I graduated at 15. Why I got my Ph.D. four months before I turned 16. It's because I always feel like I have something to prove like I am not good enough to be where I am, like I should have been one of the people left behind. I turn into my office. It is tidy, clean, and filled with scientific equipment that can do almost anything. I place my bag down next to my desk and for a moment I don’t move and just look at the tiled floor. My mind flashes to the school with the walls painted with vibrant colors, the cheerful banter that hits your ears whenever you enter, the friends, the joy and the tears, and all the memories that belong in its walls. But now I am here and there is no turning back now.

I look up and notice that the entire back wall of my office is glass. I walk to the window and I reach my hand to the window and spread my fingers out on the glass. Space floats around me and the stars illuminate my small room as thousands of bright lights engulf me. People say space is completely black, but I see it as a darkened blue or purple like the color of an ink stain on a white cloth. Planets twirl gracefully in the distance and looking at them reminds me of my room back home, on earth, with the solar system twirling on the baby mobile above my head and how every night I would fall asleep while staring at the stars dancing around my room. I wonder what is left on earth. What survived the wipeout. Did the animals survive? Houses? All the things I left behind? No. There is no way. The wipeout destroyed everything. We were put in the pods to protect us from space because we couldn’t live on earth anymore. We ran, like cowards, instead of stopping the terrorists from activating the wipeout. Instead of protecting our home, we ran. And now… It’s all gone. Everything. But in my heart, I believe that is not possible. I believe we are stronger than that and I should know. Because surviving is what I focus on each day. Despite how much pain it causes me to stay silent, to keep my thoughts inside of me. For if I even suggest the possibilities I will arouse suspicion and even a drop of suspicion can turn everyone against you. So, I stay silent and I survive. 

I am snapped out of my daze by the automatic lights in my office. I step back slowly and try to ground myself and begin to focus. I sit down behind the white desk and flip open the laptop waiting for me. The laptop is a standard laptop. Silver and black, simple and boring. The keys click dully and the shine of the laptop looks faded and depressed. I know, as I have always known, that the world wants something different from me than what I want. But I also know that I am not brave enough to do something about it. A cold tear slithers softly down my cheek and as if in slow motion falls through the air and hits a key on the computer in front of me. I stare down at it and it reminds me how trapped I feel. Like a bird in a cage. But there is no door out to this cage because the only place that door would go is the middle of nothing. I blink and quickly wipe my cheek and dab softly at the tiny puddle on my computer. A rush of defiances fills me and I click the computer and change the wallpaper. I know in my brain that it isn't doing much, but in my heart, I am conquering the world. 

I open the app that I am supposed to use and images of planets flash across the screen. Each one is a file that has been investigated and each one has been marked in bright red letters inhabitable. I sigh. I knew what I got myself into when I took this job, but I wasn't quite ready for it to actually happen. But I am here, so I begin. There is a planet in front of me. Through the window. I have a perfect view and I know, before I even open its file, that it will not be our new earth. But of course, I still have to check. I double-click the file and it pops up in front of me. I scan the information, frown, and click the '3d' button. A 3d hologram of the planet spins in the middle of the room and I reach my hand out to make it still. As I touch it I think of how incredible this technology might have appeared to someone on earth. But living as a small isolated community has given everyone much time to think, improve, and create. The planet is a barren red desert with sand dunes and craters along its surface. I circle the planet and flip to many angles to search for water, or at the very least important resources. This planet is completely desolate. There is absolutely nothing on it. I frown at my first assigned planet being entirely barren and flick the model away angrily. I return to my laptop ready to hit the red button and save the file, never to look at it again, when something catches my eye. I turn around slowly and see a small mark on the model planet. Something that shouldn't be there. I zoom in and it is so small that I almost missed it. Morse code etched onto the surface of the planet. ​'​ --. --- / .... --- -- .' Home. It says Go Home.

My feet are frozen to the spot and the only thing I hear is the sound of my heart thumping loudly in my chest. Feelings and thoughts race faster and faster through my head like race cars on a track speeding past before you can see the numbers and all that's left when they are gone are blurred lines of color. The thoughts are moving so fast I can almost hear the whoosh as they pass. I feel my face burning up and I feel the blood rush to my cheeks filling them with a warm red glow. All because, right there, in plain sight, is a message. A message I'm pretty sure is for us. For me. 

I rush back to the laptop and frantically click keys and hit the mouse. I open the last planet file and I look for what I know will be there. Well, what I hope will be there. I move the diagram with my mouse and find the code. I open the next file, and the next. I check each closed file, each inhospitable planet until I find one without morse code inscribed on it. It is from 8th months ago when I got my Ph.D. I check the ones before it and there is no code. I have found all the inscriptions. I exit the file and open the first planet file that has code on it. It is a water planet with many islands scattered around it. It is small and round and kind of looks like the Caribbean if it were its own planet. At first glance, you would think it would be our new home, but the atmosphere is weak and the ground is hard and could not sustain resources. There is no sign of life upon the planet. However, there is the first code, '-.-. --- -- . / .... --- -- .' 'Come Home' it says. My heart races faster as I begin to understand what the messages are asking. I check the next and the next as my heartbeat gets even louder in my head. The messages are relatively consistent from the beginning. Come Home, Go Home, Home. Then they start to change. One says 'We Are Waiting', one says 'This Way'. The most recent one, from yesterday, says 'Earth is Still Our Home. Come Back. Everyone is Waiting'. Then I came across a long one. It is not very detailed, yet it answers almost all the questions I have had about our home since I started wondering. It reads 'Earth is Still Safe. Nothing Is Wrong With it. We Were Chased Away From Our Home by Lies. Now We Must Come Back. Not Many of Us Survived, But We Are Waiting. Come Home'.

The next thing I know, my chair is spinning across the room behind me and my laptop is about halfway in my bag. The door to my office is swinging open and I am running. Running through the white hallways that hold so much judgment and the people who are frozen to the spot, doing absolutely nothing but staring. As I run, I realize that I have no idea where I am going. I just let my feet carry me. I know we have been here for 11 years and that a couple of minutes won't cost us anything but I am running so fast I can hardly breathe. Then I just stop running. Abruptly. As if my subconscious knows exactly what to do and when. It takes me a couple of seconds to realize where I am, and as I do I know exactly why I came here and what to do. I reach forward slowly and push the up button. It lights up brightly and there is a loud ding as the elevator opens. I step into it and I reach out to hit the button for my floor. The glass walls reflect me and reflect a bright golden light from the metal bars that surround me. The doors close behind me and I feel the elevator rising slowly. A smile softly creeps onto my face as I turn toward the front of the elevator and I brace myself for whatever comes next. As soon as I step through those doors, the world as I know it will change forever. Normally I would think it out. But, right now it doesn’t feel like I have time for that even though it seems like a rash decision. But, I know that it is the right one. The doors begin to open and a bright light flows in, engulfing me fully. I close my eyes and the smile on my face grows bigger until it is brighter than the sun. I know now that my world has been put right. Even if it is just for this one small moment. I take a deep breath and open my eyes.