Thatthisis Orions secret. Its not that the ship isnt working, that were never going to make it.Its that the ship has already arrived.Were already here! Therethereis the planet that will be our home!It floats, so bright that it hurts my eyes. Giant green landmasses spread out across blue water, with swirls and wisps of clouds twirling over top. At the edge of the planet, where it turns away from the suns and starts to darken, I can see bright flashes of lightbursts of whiteness in the darknessand I think: Is that lightning? In the center, where the light of the suns makes the planet seem to glow from within, I can see, very distinctly, a continent. A continent. On one edge, its cracked and broken like an egg, dark lines snaking deep into the landmass. Rivers. Lots of them. Maybe something too big to be rivers if I can see it from here. Fingers of land stretch out into the sea, and dots of islands are just out of their grasp. That area will be cool all the time, I think. Boats can go along the rivers, up and down. We can swim in the water.Because already, I can see myself living there. Being there.On a planet that looks up at a million suns every night, and at two every day.I want to scream, shout with joy. But the air is so thin now.Too thin.Ive spent too long looking at Orions secret.The boop . . . boop . . . boop . . . fades away. Theres nothing to warn about now.Because theres no air left.My sight is rimmed with black. My head pulses with my heartbeat, which sounds as loud to me as the alarm once did. I turn from the planetmy planetand start pulling, hand over hand, against the tether, toward the hatch. The ship bobs in and out of my vision as my whole body jerks. Im panicked now and fighting to stay awake. I try to suck in air, but theres nothing there to suck. Im drowning in nothing.
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About Beth Revis, A Million Suns
Beth Revis, A Million Suns.