Author: Kavya Pandey, Class VII B
The year is 2030. Humanity has made a lot of technological advancements in the past decade. For one, the first few astronauts have landed on Mars, achieving what was hitherto thought to be impossible. The landing was telecasted all over the world, with mission control on their toes. As the rocket touched down on mars, the whole world took a sigh of relief. The four astronauts, Elbert Riley, Ruth Barlow, Harry Parks and Simone Holt had landed safely! Once in their spacesuits, the astronauts stepped out on the rough terrain. Guided by a flashlight held by each of them, the astronauts made their way into a cave they could see at a distance. Once they were inside, Ruth let out a gasp. As the remaining three turned around, a horrifying sight met their eyes. A human skeleton lay there, with four words over it, written in blood. “Run. They are coming.”
At that very moment, the astronauts heard a loud, thumping noise as it grew closer. All of them slowly turned around to the dark entrance to the deeper parts of the cave. A gigantic creature, almost 20 feet tall emerged. The creature had 3 eyes, and it looked quite furious. Four similar creatures emerged, making the astronauts fear for their lives. The gigantic creatures’ voices boomed in the cave like electronic thunder. ”Leave and don’t come back.” The inbuilt translators translated. The astronauts rushed out from the cave, and hid behind the wall of a gigantic crater. “We can’t immediately take off, we need to prepare the rocket”, said Simone. The astronauts slowly crept to the rocket, made the necessary preparations, climbed into the rocket and blasted off mars.
In the following few decades, multiple such excursions were sent to Venus and other planets. On every planet, the results were the same. The creatures turned out to be the guardians of each planet, and they chased the humans away every time as they didn’t want the humans to hurt and destroy their planet.
As time passed, Earth started becoming uninhabitable. We ran out of water, food was scarce and oxygen was rare. We urgently needed a new home. This home could be another planet. Due to this, humans signed an intergalactic treaty with all other life forms. The terms said that we could live on any habitable planet we wanted and no other life form than humans could visit the earth. But there was a catch. We could not hurt the planet in any way. If we did, we would have to leave immediately and find a new home planet. Earth had now become a pilgrimage spot. Every few decades, humans would visit their mother planet with pure reverence in their heart.
On one of these trips, the pilgrims got off the space shuttle and were flabbergasted to find a lush, green and thriving forest staring back at them! Long extinct birds, mammoths and other animals now roamed our once barren planet! Our dear Earth had recovered. Our civilization was now allowed to live on our home planet on the same terms as the intergalactic treaty: No harming the planet! If you do, you’re forced to leave! Good luck finding another welcoming alien species!
Our once planetary civilization was now an interstellar one. Space shuttles roamed around in space and, never thought I would say this, we had to come up with a galactic traffic management system!
The Mars landing in 2030 was indeed one step for man and a giant leap for mankind.
