“Galactic Five. This is your captain speaking. We’ll arrive at our destination in a few moments. So please remain seated in your seat during landing. Thank you!”

There it was! The words that I had been dying to hear since the moment I had been aboard. Moments later I would feast my eyes on our destination. Countless of training had prepared me for this moment. Now there was no going back. One set-back and I would regret this for my entire life.

“Galactic Five. Again this is your captain speaking. We’ll be entering the earth surface in exactly 180 seconds. I advise you not to get up from your seats. Thank you!” The captain’s voice came through the speakers again. Regardless of what he had said, I couldn't help but peek out through glass window. I knew I would only have a moment’s glance to see it

That was when I saw it. The Earth! Never in my life had I been lost for words to say. But this was like nothing I had ever witnessed. I was speechless and dumbfounded. I found it simply difficult to describe the sight before me. Any words that I could have used to describe it would have been an understatement.

I had heard stories about the Earth, the birthplace of humans. I had always been mesmerized by the stories that the elders would tell about our home-planet. The third planet from the Solar System’s sun was famous for its abundance of life. It was a paradise of water and land for all living creatures, whether it is a sentient race or not.

But the sight before me was simply dreadful. It did no justice to what the elder’s back at ‘Orbis’ had told us. The lush-green lands that had been described were replaced by ash-gray dirt and dust. The sparkly deep blue water that had previously occupied the planet was now looking like mud. It looked hardly inhabitable for any form of life.

“… In T-5 seconds, T-4 seconds….” I had been so engrossed at the sight of the wasted planet before me that I had not realized that the countdown had already started. Knowing that in three seconds I would be hurled into the earth’s atmosphere at light-speed, I quickly strapped myself to the seat. I felt the spaceship; Galactic Five, warm up a bit and vibrate very slowly before it moved in the speed of light.

Less than a second later we had safely landed on the surface of the withered away Earth. The terrible shake that was always experienced when travelling in light-speed had ended as soon as it had begun. But it still left us quite shaken and feeling kind of sick. The first ones to recover were the pilots and the head of the science team that I was a part of.

“Are you okay, Alex?” The head of the science team who had been sitting beside me, asked looking at my face. I suspected that I was still pale after that rigid hurl, but I gave him the thumbs-up nevertheless. He slapped a hand over my back before moving around the seats to check up on each and every one of his apprentices. From the looks of it all of my fellow companions were fine, except for the one who had vomited.

“Well, he can’t be in a worse condition than the Earth!” I exclaimed after taking another peek out of the window. If I had thought the outer-space view was worse, than the close up view was even worst. No wonder the land had been more rigid than usual. The place was worse than an industrial dump, and a thick smoky gray fog clouded up the worst of it. I looked back at Professor Norwood, who stopped behind me and gave a solemn nod at my claim.

“It’s a dreadful shame. The planet was said to be so beautiful…” He murmured lost in his own thoughts as he glanced out of the window as well. Even I had heard what had exactly happened to the Earth. A century ago, the Earth had technologically developed far beyond what the people of the second millennium had expected. But the people had disregarded the environment through this development leaving the Earth’s environment to cope with the increasing problems. These problems had gone out of hand and finally brought the prolonged environmental destruction that had been impossible to stop.

In what we now call the ‘Earth Eco-suicide’, most of the human race had been extinguished from the surface of the earth. Today the word ‘animal’ is more of a scientific term and is absent from regular dictionaries as all species of animals had gone extinct. The few people, who had been able to board one of the finest spaceships the scientists had created, managed to survive and escape the Earth. But that had only been a few hundreds of people. Compared to the billions of people, the people who survived were like a handful of sand from a vast desert.

“Get into your protective gear!” The professor announced shaking me from my thoughts and bringing me back to reality. I remembered what our objective had been in the first place and knew the responsibilities that we carried. Our objective had been to see it Earth could ever become habitable again.
The planet we now lived on, Orbis wasn't as perfect as Earth had been. It wasn't as beautiful and friendly as Mother Earth had been. The weather was very hazardous on Orbis, and if not for the technological facilities, the human race would have perished long ago. What worries us most is the lifespan of the planet. Unlike Earth, Orbis was a dying planet which was close to its destruction. Give or take 100 years and the planet is predicted to self-destruct. This is where the necessity of a planet such as Earth arises.

However from the looks of things, I wasn't very hopeful. A few hours of walking through ash, dirt and dump, made my assumptions worse and possibly true. From the looks of things the fog that had formed in the air was very toxic to the human body. One whiff and we would have died if not for our suit. The land itself corroded any organic material it touched.

“Look out!” I heard the warning too late and nearly slipped of the edge. But before I fell, tumbling down towards what looked like a poisonous pit with sharp pointy rocks, I managed to grab something which was jutting out of the earth. I breathed a long sigh of relief which only made my view cloudy.

One of my companions, who had seen it, but had been too far away to help immediately, helped me up. He too took a look at what would have been my fate, before recoiling at the sight and backing away from the edge.

“I don’t think this place can be made habitable. It’s too damaged!” My rescuer told me, looking around. “I can’t believe that humans actually used to live here thousands of years ago!” He added. I didn't reply to him, because I was lost for words. A second ago, I had nearly plummeted to my death on the planet that my ancestors lived, and I had wished to live. It was too much of a shock that I found it difficult to recover from.

Minutes later Professor Norwood, shaking his head in dismay and a grim face on his face, gathered us back at our ship. From the looks on everyone’s face, they too didn't have anything good to say about Earth. There was no hope, no miraculous way of changing everything back on Earth to what it used to look like back in its glory days. The Earth was no longer the paradise from the stories we've heard. Our only option was to make the best out of our lives on Orbis, and somehow miraculously find another planet we can live.

“Guess, it’s time we turn back and give up on Mother Earth!” Professor Norwood exclaimed, looking over at the sullen faces of everyone there.

“Yeah!” I agreed as well. My dream of making Earth habitable was not possible. We humans had destroyed it with our own hands. There was no changing that fact.