Sola walked into the cafeteria and looked for an empty seat. She walked to her usual spot and sat down. The entire table was deserted. She waited for her best friend, Carly, but then she remembered that she had moved out of the country the day before. Never in her life, had Sola felt so alone. No one looked at her with sadness or offered her a seat next to them. They just let her sit in the corner with no one to talk to but her peanut butter sandwich and her pretzel sticks. Finally lunch was over and she could get on with her boring, lonely, life.
People stared at her as she walked down the hallway dragging her feet behind her. The snickered and laughed behind her back. Not a single one had the look of sorrow on their faces. But seconds later, the earth shook and it almost felt like the school was being lifted up by a giant monster. The whole hallway was screaming in terror as they heard a horrifying rip in the Earth’s crust. And in just a couple seconds it was silent. Lockers that were left open had spit out their contents onto the floor. And every student was scattered around the hallway.
Sola simply stood up and walked out the back door. But as soon as she took one step onto the pavement below the stairs, she fell into the deep gash in the Earth. She was able to grab some of the concrete at the edge, but her heavy backpack was weighting her down. With one last breath, that was consumed with just one blood curdling scream, she fell down deep in the trench.
“Where am I?” Sola asked as she landed with a thud. She looked up and she could barely see the light from the surface. It was dark all around her. Her chest hurt from the impact and the air was hard to breathe in. Than suddenly a blue light walked toward her. As the object got closer, Sola stood up. It finally became clearer.
It was a girl. Her body was shaped like a young woman and yet she wore no clothes. She walked with such grace that was like she was walking on air. She smiled at Sola, with not just a smile, but smiling eyes. Her hair was a light blue, and flowed down her chest and back, while her body was a darker turquoise. She put out one of her four-fingered hands and said, in a voice like little twinkling bells,
“I am Vova. Come with me, Sola. I know you are alone. Here you could be happy. There are so many people that you can be friends with. And we can program then to do whatever you want. They will never leave you, like your friend did.”
“But I don’t want fake friends. I want them to like me for who I am! And Carly did not mean to leave. She had too!”
Vova giggled, which was just like her voice, a serenade of bells.
“Sola, I know what you want. You want to be popular and have many friends. I can give you that. We can give you that.”
She spread her arms wide and blue girls and boys appeared all around her. They all looked the same and every single one smiled at Sola. And at the exact same time, they all said,
“Hello Sola. Come and live with us. We will be your friends.”
Sola realized at that moment that she didn’t want a lot of friends, just someone like Carly. She just wanted one good friend. She felt something rub against her arm and looked up. Through the same crack a rope with a harness had come down. She heard some voices coming from the top but could not make them out. She put the harness on her hips, grabbed her backpack (although she was fighting with her conscience.) and tugged the string hard. Then slowly, foot by foot, she was being lifted into the air.
The aliens looked up and yelled,
“You will never find friends up there on the surface world! Come back down and you will live forever!”
The offer was tempting, but how could she get loose from the harness? And she would fall to her death, because she bet that they would not catch her unless they were programmed to. She continued to float up into the air closer and closer to the bright light that was the sun. And as she looked down the small blue colors began to fade one by one until it was as dark as before.
Then Sola turned her head and was shocked with the brightness of the sun. Two hands reached out through the sunlight and grabbed her arm and helped her up. Sola had to blink many times, to get accustomed to the light. But eventually she saw an African American girl helping her to get the harness off.
“Hello? Are you ok?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” Sola managed to say.
The girl swiped her arm across her forehead, which was sweating and said,
“Well, thank the lord, you are all right. You must of fell a hundred feet or more!”
“I’m Sola.”
“I’m Jamala. Just moved here from Egypt. You go to this school too?”
And right then, Sola knew that she had found her new best friend.
“Yea, I do.”