Mars: A Chronicle
From Create Your Own Story
Buildings burning. People screaming. The sky is a deep, hellish red. Lightning cackles and thunder booms overhead. You are looking out of a window, terrified, at a huge, swarming crowd of people far below. Like ants, they jostle and scream and yell, and you can barely make it out, even from here. But then, something else catches your attention. Something looms in the sky. A shadow that falls over the dim sun. The shadow gets larger, falling over the crowd and tattered skyscrapers. The screaming is louder now, more frantic. Instead of dispersing, however, the crowd surges forward, towards you. There's crackling and flashes, too dim to be the storm. Gunfire. But it's too late, the shadow has blotted out all light now, and suddenly you feel yourself falling, blind, grasping at anything-
You scream, thrashing about in your tiny cot as you awake. Breathing fast, you scramble to undo the straps of the hood over your bed, pulling it back. The blaring, fluorescent lights overhead greet you, already causing you to grit your teeth. You start to float upwards, and grab clumsily onto the sides of the cot, halting your forward movement as you calm down and remember, slowly and unbelievably, where you are. On board the Vigil IV. Space. En route to the planet Mars. Distance to go: 20 million kilometers. You are one of 48,782 people that make up the remnants of the human race, aboard one of the fifteen ships carrying its creators from the completely destroyed remnants of planet Earth, far behind.
You look down, noticing your body is slick with sweat. You also notice you smell horrible; water has been rationed carefully out amongst it's passengers, and is strictly for drinking.
Looking around, you confirm that everyone else is fast asleep, all the other cots zipped up and unmoving, apart from the occasional snore or murmur. You check your watch. 0500. Everyone else in your ward; a room housing twenty others of the same gender, won't be up for another hour.
What gender are you?
