It never rained in Runethon. No one could quiet understood why, but someone once told me that the clouds didn’t want to. It has been 400 years since the human race departed from what we knew as earth. However, that is only what I have heard. We could no longer remain on earth because the sun was expanding too rapidly. The fleeing people said that the sun looked as if it were to consume the earth the next day. Everyone says we have a much better life here though, where we can control our future better. When the sun expanded, Runethon, a moon of Jupiter started to orbit the sun and we have colonized here. We have tried our hardest to make it seem as close to earth as possible. We planted trees and made large groups of water, but the Spirits said that Runethon would never be the same as Earth. I never really trusted what the Spirits said. When someone surpasses the age of 100 then their mind tends to decay every second of every day. Yes, they proceed with their chores, go to the shops, and buy food, but they seemed to be ignorant of anything that didn’t involve them.

My mama said to me every night, “Never ask a Spirit a question that you don’t know the answer to because your answer is as good as theirs.”

Anyway, I am a young growing child. I have no business involving myself in old people’s matters. I must cherish my life here on this tiny ball of water that we call our home. I set out to go fishing. This is the most common activity to do amongst children because after all, when we got here, all that remained here was water. Everywhere you look, you can always see a body of water near by. One of the few perks of being on this ice ball is when the hot summer days roll in; one can cool of very quickly. During the winter is a different story. The majority of us take cover in our houses hoping that the winter will not freeze their houses so cold that the heat will turn off. When the heat turns off, anyone is just as good as dead. Smart people have tried generators, but the truth is that cold is a force that is rarely conquered easily. Because our moon is composed mostly of water, people here find it hard to fight the cold. Countless lives have been lost due to the harsh cold that sneaks up from under use and freezes the house in minutes. Nevertheless, winter can only last so long and when spring arrives everyone on Runethon is exuberant. Most of this joy is turned into work with long hours. No one complained because we all knew in the depths of our hearts that we would not be working if it were not totally necessary. Everyone from the ages of 20 to 90 had to work their hardest in order to provide a safe winter and a better moon.

It is not like we are forced to work. There is no tyrant ruling over us because the human race has finally realized that having a high power than themselves always leads to trouble. I was surprised that a race this advanced could not understand that concept. Our people like to give the old ten years as a human because after work that hard they deserve a long time before they get turn into spirits. Once you have become a spirit, you live, but no one considers you as human because you are so old. The aspect I hate most about being a Spirit is that you have to choose when to die. Because when you are a Spirit, you do not age, but some people truly believe that your mind does. There is one person that has not chosen to die quietly yet, Grandfather Arthur. He led us to Runethon and gave it its name. Now all he does is sit in his palace reading about ways to improve the future of our moon. I guess one brain got lucky. It is as if this man is blessed with immortality. No one would ever say that though. Any person who every ponder something involving one human having more power than another is punished by having to work on Saturday. In our modern society, we believe that everyone we can work, should work as hard as they can Monday through Friday and then take the weekends off. It is know to be a curse to be told to work on Saturdays.

I heard the bell. My break was over and it was time for me to go back to work. Of course a 17-year-old boy isn’t working seriously yet, but my parents make me do everyday tasks for a little while just to make me see how hard life will get. It looks like I have a lot to look forward to: a life of work. However, there is a way to prevent the ways of this life’s slavery. The way is to become a biologist: biologists are the closest things to a higher power, even if no one admits it. They are the people who make the calls about what to build and to plant. They tell us how to raise our children and where we will go if we have to leave. They have more knowledge than anyone. And though they work on-call at any hours, they rarely work more than 3 hours a day. Everyone strives to become one, but few make it.

As my dad says, “the lucky ones.” But I will not leave this to luck. I will work my hardest and beat those other biologists to make our moon the strongest of the strongest five. When earth was evacuated, all the people split up into their own space ships and went to a moon. The best survived, while the rest did not. After years of evolution, the five-moon system has been very beneficial. We can depend on each other and when one of our planets is not able to survive, the other moons welcome us into their community. The only problem is that two out of the five moons are tyrannies. At one point these tyrannies almost broke up the system. But after a while, we could not manage without each other and needed to join back together only for survival. The only reason that we are in a group is to survive.

Today I asked my dad about becoming a biologist. He laughed and then continued eating his dinner. I was not very surprised because people who want to become one have to start practicing at the age of 10 or younger. This remark angered me. I stormed out of our house and jogged to the biologist center. This building was the biggest structure in all of Runethon. It was the most important product of our new society. I peered inside the thick class windows to see if I could spot a worker. And there they were. Walking around with their white uniforms, clipboards, and high-tech glasses. The glasses were meant to see life up-close or very far away. I slipped in through the front door. As I attempted to examine one of the tray tables that was set up for one of the workers, a tall man with a yellow hat came over and grabbed my hand. He seemed like one of the oldest workers here, and maybe that was the meaning of the yellow hat.

“Stop!”

He clearly wanted to gain everyone’s attention. Instantly I had 500 eyes on me, and I got nervous very quickly. I turned toward the elder and posed a question in a very quiet voice,

“Where does one go for training?”

He stared at me with his dark green eyes, and then pointed at the doorway to my left. Gradually the eyes went back to their original jobs. This place was different from how people had said it would be like. It had less of life-changing activities and more tasks repeated over and over until the end of the day. It seemed like a factory minus the people. I realized that I was getting distracted. When I do become one of these people I will be too busy figuring out our moon’s future. I entered the room that the old man thought was the training room. I took a couple of steps and then gazed at all the people attempting to become biologists. It saddened me that only a select few of this group would actually get what they wanted. The rest would continue on with their bored, boring lives. I walked up to the closest person who I thought had some authority.

“Where do I begin?”

“Go through the door to right and you will run into a person named Richard. He will tell you the steps that follow.”

So I did what I was told and went into another room, which was unknown to me. As I stumbled through the electric door, I saw a slim man waiting there for me.

He gave me a look and then immediately he began speaking, “Biologists are the future of this moon. The people will have you believe that their jobs are just as relevant as ours. Let me assure you, they are not. Becoming a biologist means hard work. It is as simple as that. There are no short cuts. There are no different parts to it. If you want to succeed in becoming one of us, you have to take the path that all of us took. Once you are at our level, you can choose what field you want to improve on this moon. There are four steps in this process. The first step is knowledge. You need to know anything about becoming a biologist, what biologist do, and what are the different fields that people work in. You should know anything involving biologists. Second, you must know your tools and how to use them. You will have to do several practice experiments, but I will not enforce this if it weren’t totally necessary. Third, be sure to converse with the other trainees because you have to remember they are going through the same thing, and they need your help even though they may not being asking for it. Last and by far the most essential of the four, never ever mention to the people of this moon that you are a high rank or level than them because that would require us to exile you, and we would not like to go to the trouble. Plus, one statement that has any indication of a person having more power than another will result to complete chaos.”

He paused. He was clearly out of breath, and I could tell from his facial expressions that he had made this speech various time to hundreds of want-to-be biologists.

“Have I made myself perfectly clear? If you have any questions, you are required to ask.”

“Only one…”

“What is it?” I could tell he wanted to speed this process up.

“Why did you become a biologist?” He gave me this look. A look like, shouldn’t you be asking me something complicated, not something to do with my personal life? I loved this question. It showed him that I was unique and took this job seriously. He took several deep breaths and begun,

“I was born power-hungry. I wanted power more than anything in the moon and once this opportunity was presented to me, I knew that this was the closest thing I was going to get to total power. Everyone is under the impression that we are all equal, with equal tasks, but everyone in this building knows the truth. We are lucky for the normal citizen’s ignorance because it is what reserves our jobs. Our only risk, that we cannot prevent, is the one and only Grandfather Arthur. He is a god, or an angel, or whatever your higher power is. He oversees the whole entire moon; the second he looks in our direction, we’re gone. Our goal is to one day collect enough power to overthrow him because he makes sure that everyone is created equal except himself. He keeps everyone dumb so he can proceed with his plans. But he can’t fool us.”

There was a knock at the door. I figured that this session had been going on longer than expected and that the other workers were getting suspicions.

“Are you done?”

“Yep.” Richard opened the door to greet the next trainee. I slipped through the doorway and walked briskly toward a experiment table to try out my first experiment. The tall man in the yellow hat grabbed my arm tightly.

“It’s not that easy John.” How did he know my name? I tried not to think about it and focus more on learning how to become a biologist. He led to a room filled with books, from the floor to the poorly assembled roof. As I leafed through a couple of the books that were on the shelf, I noticed that most of them were journals of beginners, but there was one vital detail that all of them lacked, if they became a biologist.

I checked my digital watch. I realized that it was getting late and that I must return home soon. However, my knowledge seemed like it didn’t have limits. I stumbled out of the room. I would now look at the center as a more realistic place, rather than a fairy tale moon. I stared at the workers as with a look of indifference, instead of my usual look of amazement. During my everlasting walk home, I realized that my image of the moon had been completely distorted. We were not all equal. Of course, that would be way too challenging for the human race to realize.

My mood turned negative when I realized that I was home. I flung open the door and collapsed on my bed. I hadn’t realized how hard I’d been working. When I woke up, my eyes were crystal clear.