Leaving Home

• Heidi O'Shea, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2022

I gazed down at the gently carved patterns encasing my father's wand, my fingers wrapped around them. Slowly, a shallow tear fell from my cheek, knowing that this was it, I would never be coming back, not for family, not for anyone. I pushed myself up and out of my seat, placing my hand onto the cold window of the space capsule, bowing my head… A silent goodbye. Soon enough, the ship had peacefully retreated from Percentine's atmosphere, to see the light shown from above Perithia, nevermore.

After I had muttered my farewells, I disappeared back into the shadows of the capsule, furthering into the darkness of infinite space… BOOM! Everything went numb. I scrunched my face, hoping desperately that nothing had happened, even though, inside, I knew I was being dishonest to myself. My hand quickly rushed to my mouth, anxiously biting away at my freshly grown nails. Slowly, my chair began to spin…
"NO!" I screamed through the numbing pain. I began to splutter out words to myself, my throat closing up as I went.
"T-this can't be! No! No! No! No!" Out of anger and confusion, my head began to bang against the small table stretched out in front of me… My home was gone.

I looked up, my head spinning in circles. My mind felt blank, wiped of all the previous occurrences. My eyes rummaged the room in search of information, when they suddenly focused on the closed door, the bathroom light casting from beneath it. In the centre, the light was disrupted by a small figure… My face as pale as snow, I slowly approached the entry-way, turning the doorknob.
"Gaaaa!" The thing happily squealed as I creaked the door open slightly. Its complexion resembled me; dark scruffy hair, pale blue skin, but what, and who was this. In my heart, I felt a strong connection towards this thing, but my head wasn't telling me anything. I reached for the young creature, lifting it up from under the arms, making it giggle uncontrollably. In the moment, my eyes began to tear up, blurring my vision and leaving a salty taste from droplets falling into my mouth.

What was this feeling? It wasn’t me doing this. As more and more tears trickled down my damp face, the engine slowly gave out a screeching noise… This wouldn’t be good. CREAK! The engine noise grew louder and louder, until… All there was to hear was the deafening silence of infinite nothingness. My eyes widened both out of curiosity and worry… BANG! In an instant, the walls inverted, collapsing in on us. I could feel as my breath quickly shortened, clinging onto the creature tight, despite the shaky ship disagreeing. Tap! Tap! Tap! Hurriedly, my fingers ran up and down the control panel in desperate search of an escape route. It was then that a pale green button caught my eye. Quickly, I observed the fine print of the button, reading ‘escape pod’…