Oasis

Light blue drained from the sky as darkness fell, only to be replaced by brilliant shades of purple and pink interlocking streaks snaking across the sky. There was a full moon so large it encompassed at least a third of the sky. Unfortunately,—for now at least, it would be irrelevant, if they survived long enough to call the planet home—it was much dimmer than Earth's moon. As the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, the surface of the planet was left with only a faint glow about as bright as a quarter moon.

Landon gestured at the stars beginning to twinkle in the backdrop. "I wonder how many of those stars are the same ones we watched at home."

"You worry about that," Giles said gruffly. "I'll worry about where we're going to sleep and when the next meal is."

Landon waved off Giles' pessimism with a flick of the wrist. "We'll sleep under the stars of course."

"And the food?" Giles continued. "Perhaps Anaya was right. We should have at least taken supplies from the ship."

Dennis pointed behind them at the plume of smoke rising from the rocky terrain. It was faint now, barely visible, but each of them had seen it earlier; they knew what he was referencing. "Too late now. Landon must have really gotten under her skin. Looks like they set the ship on fire."

"That so petty," Landon quipped. "Mankind's fate is left in our hands, we don't have time or the resources to fight each other."

Theo shrugged. "What if it isn't petty at all. What if its an SOS?"

As the others pondered Theo's hypothesis, Landon shook his head adamantly. "Why would they send out an SOS? The ship already crashed. They have the food."

"Maybe someone's sick..." Dennis offered. "The SOS could be to signal other survivors too. To lead them to a central location."

Landon rolled his eyes. "To lead them to the desert when they should be looking for water? That's smart. Anaya might have done that." He shrugged apathetically. "None of us have any medical experience so I don't see no cause to go back."

"Food." Giles said gently, causing the others to erupt in laughter.

"It's gonna be ok, Giles," Sebastian offered. "We'll find food soon."

While Giles and Sebastian continued to discuss the possibilities for food, Landon decided to call another vote. "How much longer should we keep walking? The farther we push, the closer we are to finding something, but we can't walk all night."

No one disagreed, but no one was willing to be the one to admit he was tired either. So they kept walking, making small talk about how far they'd already traveled. Ten minutes later, they were overjoyed that no one had spoken up about fatigue. Growing out of the clay like sand was a sprinkling of short blue plants. They were solid and round with penny-sized yellow berries sprouting from the surface.

Giles was the first to run toward the plant. His hands waved in the air wildly, like a little body on a playground, but he wasn't concerned with what the others thought. "Food!" He exclaimed.

"Wait! What if its poison—" Landon's concern was too late. Giles was already swallowing a plucked berry and raiding the tree for more.

"They're sweet—like blueberries—and velvety like honey," Giles reported.

Sebastian shrugged. "There's nothing else to eat, might as well give it a try."

He joined Giles, rapidly plucking off the berries until they had cleared a whole side of the plant. They grinned at each other sheepishly. Sebastian lifted his hand to his face to wipe the juice from his mouth but was shocked to find his hand dripping wet.

"The tree! It's like a cactus. It stores water!" Giles called out to the others.

Sebastian's eyes went wide. "Looks like we hit the jackpot."

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The five of them slept in a circle, with their heads in the center. Sleep hadn't come easy, but eventually, all but Theo were sinking into REM. Landon was convinced they didn't need to post a guard to stand watch, but Theo didn't feel safe, and he couldn't sleep if he wasn't sure of his safety.

He tried to distract himself by watching the stars for familiar constellations. Astronomy had never been his subject of choice, but he was certain if he could find one star he remembered, he would feel more at ease. As he scanned the sky unsuccessfully, an orange light caught his eye. It was a small light—about the size of the smallest star he could see‐but it was moving across the surface of the moon.

If it hadn't been for the sound of other people, Gabrielle might have stayed in her pod until she wasted away. One thousand years may have passed, but it felt like only minutes had passed since her son and husband had been sucked into the mob of angry people and sentenced to death. Before boarding the Ark, she'd felt nothing sympathy for those being left behind—who were they to condemn these people to certain death while saving themselves? Now, she felt no remorse; they deserved to die, but she didn't feel better. Starting over without her family had never been part of the deal.

Outside the bubble of misery she allowed to fill the pod, she could hear the sound of chaos. People shouting and screaming as though they had gone mad. It took a few minutes to compose herself,  but eventually, Gabrielle exited the pod to see what the all commotion was.

"What's going on?" she asked the first person she saw, a boy perhaps in his mid-twenties.

"They're trying to agree on what to do next," the boy shrugged. "To bad none of the elected officials made it."

"This is it? All that's left of humanity?" Gabrielle stared wide eyed at the people before her. There was exactly ten of them (including herself), and only one other person was female. "Looks like this is the end of the line for mankind, huh?"

The guy responded with silence. There was nothing left for them to do but survive; he had made peace with the seemly inevitable demise of mankind long ago. Now that it was a reality, he only wished hadn't given up the party lifestyle so soon—what good would a career and good health do for him now?

Most of the people were huddled together ahead of them, although there was a young man standing near his pod surveying the terrain and a teenager, tinkering with some electronic gadget. Gabrielle followed the young man's gaze toward the horizon for a second, then proceeded toward the "crowd." She could worry about the scenery, or lack thereof, later.

"I think we should look for other parts of the ship," one of men was saying. "There could be more survivors, and more supplies."

"And when you get lost on this little expedition?" another sneered. "No thanks, I'm staying here with the food."

"You're going to have to leave this spot eventually," another joined in.

"No need to cross that bridge til' we get there."

"Look I'm probably the oldest person here, so I think I should be in charge," the first man said.

Gabrielle studied his face, he didn't look that old. In fact they all seemed like children to her. She wrinkled her nose at the idea such immature companions. She wasn't going to follow him anywhere.

"And what exactly are you going to be in charge of?" she asked. "There's no way we repopulate this planet with only two women, especially when I am in my mid-thirties and nearly past child-bearing age. We're basically here to pass time until we die. If anything you should be standing here at the ship rationing food."

"Precisely," someone agreed. "We need to be concerned with the basics: food, water, shelter. Right now, not much else matters."

The man who had nominated himself as leader scowled—Gabrielle was now certain she was older. "I say we map the terrain. We can do a little, day by day, circling back to places we know. If we find more survivors we increase the chance of our own survival. Plus the scientists claimed there was vegetation, so there may already be food scattered across the planet."

The other female was the first to respond to the suggestion. "That may be true, but there's no need for all of us to go."

The boy with the large afro shook his head vigorously. "Don't you watch movies? The first rule is never split up. People always die when they split up."

A few people chuckled, but the young girl responded with a serious tone. "We're the only living creatures on the planet. Splitting up is probably the safest thing we can do. There's no chance of someone trying to become The Last Supreme Dictator if we're miles and miles apart."

"Fine. Do what you want." It was obvious in both his tone and the way his lips curled, trying to mask his frown; he was upset that the survivors had not unanimously elected him leader. He continued speaking as though she were there only nay-sayer in the group. "Those of you who agree with me, we can talk about strategy. The rest of you can go die a slow meaningless death."

I rolled my eyes at his melodrama as the crowd began to disperse. After a few moments had passed, half of the crowd had disappeared, following the so-called leader, and the other half had stayed with the pods. None of those who had stayed behind was speaking, until a young man with black hair and Chinese features broke the silence.

"I guess we should introduce ourselves..." He shrugged stretching his hand out for a handshake with no one in particular. "I'm Chao."

The other female returned his handshake and smiled warmly. "Anaya."

"I'm Hamadi," said the tallest man, his long hair swaying as his head bobbed.

"Raphael,"the other guy said.

"Gabrielle."

"Looks like its just us and the food." Chao said enthusiastically.

"Those idiots didn't even take supplies!" Raphael interjected. "Looks like our survivor count just got cut in half."

"Should we try to catch them?" Hamadi offered.

Anaya scoffed. "Landon said he was in charge and that he knew what he was doing. If they're dumb enough to follow him, let 'em." She pointed to the main part of the ship, which was still smoking and covered in scorch marks. "We have more important things to worry about."

"What if there isn't any food left? Did anyone check that it didn't all burn on impact?" Gabrielle watched the gray smoke drift upward and mix with the blue sky.

Perhaps they had split up for nothing.