Earth is a relic of the past; a distant memory of long forgotten sights, sounds, and smells, incinerated before our very eyes. Now, drifting to through the void of space--an endless gloom of darkness with pockets of light scattered in every direction--we were the last of human civilization. Awaiting our own slow death amongst the stars, unsure if life existed anywhere outside the hull of our faulty space ship, we cruised through the galaxy in hopeless wonder.
No one was sure what the actual plan had been; it was doubtful the government ever contemplated the thought of making preparations to evacuate the entire population. The labor and resources needed for such a task would have been too vast for consideration, which would undoubtedly lead the powers that be to attempt a smaller scaled rescue. Most likely, in a fashion much like the exercise given to children in school, some committee (perhaps even a computer) analyzed facts and records of each us, eventually deciding we were humanities best hope. Yet still, those who seemed to serve no valuable purpose to humanity, we could assume had bought their way aboard. Most of the refugees were adolescents and young adults, somewhere between ten and thirty years old. The older passengers were mostly crew members, doctors, scientists, or provided a necessary element of wisdom.
However the criteria had been set for our salvation, each of us wrestled between gratitude and regret. We had all watched from projectors and screens as the home we once knew split nearly in half before violently convulsing until it was nothing but shards and crumbs. It was hard to imagine being there, suffering the wrath of Earth's demise full force--breathing in fire and sulfur as gravity increased until pressured crushed each bone--and yet each of us knew someone who had not been permitted on the ship. A face and a name, forever engraved in the scattered debris once known as home. A face that would haunt us forever in our sleep.
