PURE, by Mimi

The silence was deafening. Tears trickled down peoples’ faces. Desperate citizens crossed their fingers and stood on the tips of their toes. The head of NASA gulped and slowly removed a small slip of paper from the lottery box. I never thought I would ever enter a lottery, but this was life or death. The situation had gone from bad to worse. The main supply of water had already been transported to Mars. As had 75% of the food. We were running out and the weather was almost impossible to live with. By 2055, Earth would be unable to survive. It is 2054 now. We only have a few days ‘til the end starts. This is the last lottery. This is the last chance at survival. The head of NASA unfolds the paper and his voice rings clearly through the microphone. “Laura Agnes…”  I feel faint. That was my last chance at survival. And I got it…

The whoosh of the preservation station makes me jump. I’m nervous that something may go wrong. After all, dad told me not to trust technology. That was before one of them saved his life. Now he’s probably at home, on his TurnTab, waiting for the end to start. The voice of my station jolts me back to reality: “Miss Agnes, please prepare to be preserved”, its robotic tone says, “you have already been briefed about what you should do when you reach Mars in 7 months. This machine is here to keep you alive for the journey…”. It drones on and on but I’m not really listening. I know all about the ship’s food shortages. We won’t be fed for 7 months so the station will keep us in a coma-like state. As soon as we wake up, there will be food waiting in a small fridge to the side of our stations. There! Easy enough. I see the other lottery winners enter their stations, so I follow their lead. I hold my breath as the lid slides over my head. I feel like I’m trapped in a coffin. The last thing I hear is a hissing sound as ParalyGas (sleeping gas) surrounds my body.

The faint beeping noises of the ship ring in my head. As I open my eyes, I’m blinded by a bright light. It takes me a moment to remember where I am but when I do, a horrible pain explodes inside of me. Hunger. The lid’s open to my coffin so I leap out of it and yank open the fridge. I snatch a chicken sandwich from a rack and ram it into my mouth.

After finishing my feast I noticed no one else was in the room with me. Their lids were shut and my heart dropped. Did I wake up too early? Did we crash and I’m a ghost? Are we even on Mars? I shakily walk over to the first station and knock on the lid. “Hello? Are you in there?” I try to pull the lid open but it’s sealed shut. Then a light-bulb goes off in my mind. The vital screen! It has a button on it in case the lid gets stuck. If I press it, the lids will open. I walk to the end of the rows of the stations and found the screen containing vital information. At the top of the list was a man called Michael Fandacho. I checked his levels and saw a bright red mark on the life support section and my breathing stopped. I checked the next woman down: Mandi Norsan. The red mark was there too. All of them had red marks. All of them apart from mine. My mind was racing and I lift my hands up to my face. I feel a trickle of water as tears spill from my eyes. What the heck is going on?! Then those words aren’t just in my mind “What the heck is going on?! WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?!” I sprint to the door and slam my fist against it, screaming to be let out. The door opens suddenly and I’m thrown to the ground. A woman is standing in front of me and she looks down disdainfully at my tear-streaked face. She sighs and speaks in a posh voice: “you have a lot to learn”.

I wake up in some sort of hospital and the first thing I see is people staring down at me. I sit bolt upright and my immediate question tumbles out of my cracked lips: “what happened to everyone? Why were their life support sections red?” The woman I saw earlier rolls her eyes: “you ask a lot of questions.” I glare at her and prop myself up against the head of the hospital bed: “well what do you expect me to do? In case you hadn’t realised, I’m supposed to be on Mars…”. Then the reality hits me “Wait. Where am I? Did the plan fail or something?” The woman sighs irritably. She looks around cautiously and I realise  that the other people who were in the dull room had disappeared. “Look, I'm gonna explain all of it to you but only once. No questions about any of it when I'm done. Got it?” I nod innocently and I open my mouth to ask a question. She narrows her eyes and I quickly shut it before any sound comes out. The woman drags an old, wooden chair next to my bed and perches on the very edge of it. “To answer your first question, your 'friends' are all dead.” I feel a sinking feeling in my stomach but I don't try to to speak. “We, meaning our government, have made it a mandatory requirement that whoever wants to cross our borders and enter our perfect civilisation needs to have pure genes.” I feel my eyes widening and my head nearly explodes because of all of the questions swimming around. “Your comrades that came up here with you did not have the 'mandatory requirement' that was needed. You, however, do. And to answer the question of where you are: we are currently residing in The Dome. A civilisation created to give humans a final chance to survive. You're on Mars, yes, but not the Mars that NASA intended to send you to. You are on the new planet Earth, a place where we can survive without having to worry about things running out.” She didn't explain anything else, she simply turned on her bright red high heels and tottered off out of the room. I closed my eyes and hid under the covers. I don't remember anything after that...