I wake up the next morning, feeling only slightly better. I can feel the crushing anxiety still lingering on the edge of my mind.
Feeling stressed and worried, I stare out my porthole window towards Etia. Watching the watery planet float in space has never failed to calm me, ever after my worst attacks. I let myself stare for a moment longer, before continuing to my workroom.
The aftermath of last night is spread over the entire room. Books are scattered everywhere and a couple of small tables are lying on their side. I sigh and begin to clean.
As I work, I think back to my first few days working at the lie center.
The day I started at the lie center was filled with disappointment... and sadness. I left my family home very early that morning to get to the deployment area on time. That morning had been a tear-filled one, for sure. Everyone in my family had cried, including me, because we knew it would be years before we saw each other face to face again.
At the deployment area, there were more tears as kids who had been friends since kindergarten if not since birth. We had been trained for years and years together and now we were separating forever. The kids who had hated each other for years were now hugging and crying together. Slowly, groups of us started to pull ourselves together and go to the assigned areas.
The terror I felt as I stepped into the space elevator for the first time is incomparable. The panic in my chest at the doors closed and we began to rise was nearly enough to cause a panic attack. Once we reached the top, some of us boarded space shuttles to far-off planets, others simply hopped on a satellite bus to nearby space centers.
I didn't do either of those things, I boarded a one person pod that would take me just outside of Etia's gravity to enter the lie center I would spend the next twenty years of my life at.
As I docked the space pod at the center, I could see a robot inside of the building, waving...
I snapped out of my mind as I looked down at the book in my hands with amazement. It was titled "Alaska Hess". How I had lost it or how I found it wasn't important right not, it was more important that I had it now.
There were two opinions now. I could alert the Elders and tell them about my mistake. Or I could venture down from my comfortable center to Etia and find Alaska Hess myself.
