The Sanctuary (A Virgin Society)

822 Days Until Comedown:

It is dark outside. All the time. And we're, I think. We're old enough now, old enough to rip the feeding tubes out of our arms just as the umbilical chord is separated from a mommy and her baby. A boy told us that today. He knew because he was 10 when we got sent up here, he had a really good memory. I'm only 8, but that's all I know, hopefully all the kids here will remember something about themselves with me, like the ten year old boy. Maybe we could all be friends.

820 Days Until Comedown:

Today the 10 year old boy found a whole bunch of movies in the back of the ship. He put them on and there is a lady who calls herself the 'mother' of all of us. I don't know if it's true but she has a bunch of pictures of us, and next to them, she said our names, so here's mine.

Hello. My name is Samuel.

267 Days Until Comedown:

There are so many things to learn today. Mother has taught us all our vocabulary and customs of culture. She says she can't tell us everything, because she wants us all to experience things for ourselves. She keeps crying in all of her videos. Nobody knows why. All we do all day is sit and look forward to more videos of her, take notes, learn everything possible. This is how we will come to fine an explanation to being in space. And by the way, she has revealed that we're in space.

Samuel

128 Days Until Comedown

Study Study Study, a constant staple in our day. After that though, we eat our food and say hello to our friends. I have a few friends here but I remain closest to the boy who first revealed to me what an umbilical cord was. His name is Daniel and he knows most of the things that we learned earlier, like writing, but still we sit and wonder, why had mother cry? What had upset our mother in every single lesson she recorded, no matter what it was about? He tells me has memories of adults talking behind closed doors, shipping us off into space. We learned about what a family was today and what boys and girls do to make babies. Our ship was disgusted and for the whole day girls and boys remained separated from each other, until dinner that was. But thinking of everything, it really made me wonder, did my mom and dad care about me?

77 Days Until Comedown

And so all is revealed. Mother, she cries because she had to let go of us. She actually tells us its because she's crying for all of the women here. All of the mom's and dad's who've had to give up their children. Its hard aging from 8 to 10 on a spaceship with no concept of what life is really supposed to be like. Boys don't know how to treat girls; we don't know the concepts of society. All we know is mother. On the bright side, we're learning more and more about this thing called the comedown. Mother has changed her focus from World History to recent history. We don't know what it is yet, but hopefully it means us getting out of here.

Samuel

60 Days Until Comedown

Daniel steadily is learning on his own. Much older, he's learning how to operate a craft such as the one we're on currently. He's learning about the great societies of time, like Mayans and Incans and people such as that. He told me of pilgrims and all things through history. I stay interested, but I fear he's become engulfed in this work. Constantly studying, he doesn't even play the games as we all do. Instead he sits and reads.

Samuel

28 Days Until Comedown

Our history lesson in class: 2 years ago a different species invaded our planet. It took over our bodies and altered a mind. A closed- door- group of scientist decided there was only one way to prevent the spread- by bombing everything. A few parents were told the truth and that's where we came in. We were sent up into space when they dropped the bomb that would kill most of the species. They said themselves, the chemicals were made to make sure that no human lived, but where we should be landing, and that there'd be a safe house full of canned goods. We were given mom to learn to cook and clean and live without adults. We were supposed to come down, she says. Come down and hit the earth with the hard built top of the ship. She tells us that if we land and there's knocking, not to open the door.

Samuel

The Comedown

We hit the ground, hard. In an odd form of synchronization, the last video played and she told us to wait for noises. Nothing. The boys and girls filed out accordingly to what they saw as a safe house. The ground resembled ash, almost like a thing called snow that we learned about, but more pale. The air smelled harsh and hurt my lungs a bit. I couldn't wait until we got into the house. And when we finally did, as promised, cans of food remained everywhere from our ancestors. Because we had learned to cook food on the ship, such variety made it exhilarating for us. Daniel stayed in the ship uneasy though and as we all gathered happily, he remained paranoid.

We went inside and saw magazines. The magazine had a bunch of older women and dresses and muscular men. They almost looked like gods and I wondered if they were to the men and women who died before us. But my thoughts were thrown aside to the knocking, no, the rapping at the door. Quickly one of us locked it and we saw it was not a child as we were. Quickly, we ran upstairs for cover, and then found a weapon. We heard a large noise, which I thought was the window breaking, but when we looked out we saw that it was Daniel outside, making the noise. He was igniting the spacecraft, trying to launch off again. Against the ship, adults bleeding from the fingernails clawed at it, making a high pitch squealing noise we had never heard of. For a moment, he seemed at peace, launching the ship; I thought all of the hard work, all of the isolation, had gone in his favor. But that glimpse of hope was interrupted by a glimpse of a spark instead, showing the imminent fate of Daniel. The spark turned to a fire, the fire turned to an explosion and he was gone, leaving us alone. The used- to be adults came to us again now, banging on the doors of our little house and we all started crying. And for once, I felt emotions that mother used to teach us. I felt sad, I felt scared, but partly, I felt angry. I took the weapon and went downstairs. The Comedown wasn't what we expected but maybe if I made this land our own, we would find a way to survive.

Samuel

Hey guys, this is my story. Parts of it are unrealistic, like the fact that he has an extensive vocabulary at 10 years old, but I'm just trying to get my thoughts down

-Derrick