I sit there, watching as all my friends and family get taken away. Being a banana turtle is harder than it looks, you’re forced to stay in place, with little movement for your life, then when you are of age, they come, humans I mean. To pick you, and you’ll eventually die, it’s all because the humans craved us. It’s strange and scary to think about, but right now I’m terrified, the humans decided to come and harvest us sooner than expected, and I’m terrified because I’m of age. I don’t wanna die, not today, or tomorrow, or ever! All my friends and family have accepted our kinds fate, but I won’t and never will.
Yeah we’re just a species of turtle, or banana? It’s confusing, everything’s confusing! Life and it’s meaning is confusing, why are we here? Why were we created to live like this? Just to be chewed up and spit out, literally. I’m not going to sit here and die, I’m going to find a way out.

***
“Hey Tyler! They left the turtle tree! Can we get one, pleasssssssse.” Tylers little brother Joshua begs.
A sigh escapes Tyler’s lips, “I’ll get you one, but I need you to stay here and be ready when I get back. I don’t know when the ship will leave, and we need to be on it.” Tyler turns around to face him.
Joshua hops onto a log, “Do we haaavvvvee to be on the ship? Can’t we just stay here? Here has everything!” He throws his hands in the air
Gently Tyler sets her hands on his shoulders, and crouches down. Josh stares at her with his big blue eyes, “Bear, we have to be on that ship, so we can see space and planets and stars!” Tyler exaggerates, she can only hope he falls for it.
“Yay! Space! I can fight off aliens and monsters. And protect my big sister,” Josh exclaims, smiling like an idiot. He hops off the log doing some ‘karate’ kicks.
Tyler’s fingers laced into his hair messing it up, before she stands completely, “Stay here alright, Bear? I’ll be back soon.”
Josh smiles his gap toothed smile, “Alright Tyjo.” A smile clouds Tyler’s face before she turns heading to the abandoned tree.
Strong gusts of wind blows the hair off her shoulders, tiny pelts begin to fall from the darkened clouds. Without anytime to waste she makes a dash towards the banana turtle thing tree. The tree itself has got a strangely smooth surface and a strange green tint, there’s definitely something wrong with this tree. Looking up, Tyler is able to quickly spot a branch just barely in reach, out stretching her arm, then clamping her hand around the stable wood.
Using all the strength Tyler can muster up, she hoists herself up onto the timber. Branch after branch, every leaf that smacks her face, the H2O smacking against the pale skin of hers, finally after sometime Tyler comes face to face with squirming little creatures.
“Poor little things” She quietly whispers. Another sigh escapes Tyler’s lips, then she plunges her arm into the middle of the animal plant things, and grabs one.
Stepping back forgetting she’s still balanced on one of the thin branches, Tyler screams and tumbles down towards the menacing earth below. “AHHH!” Tyler shrieks echos throughout the forest. As quickly as Tyler fell, she hits the stiff ground, with a strong blow to the head, her world goes black.
“Tyler! Tyler!” Josh shakes Tyler viscously, “Tyler wake up!”
Her brown eyes flutter open, Josh’s whining fills her ears, “Josh?” she mumbles out.
“Tyler! You said you’d hurry back, why were you napping in the dirt?” His six year old mind starts trailing off, “And why do you have scratches all over your face?”
Tyler groans in pain as she sits up, “Josh please tell me you still have some healing spray, or lotion, or something left?” She craned her neck hearing multiply pops.
Josh’s tiny hands quickly fumble throughout his backpack, “Here you go,” He thrusts his hand towards his older sister.
Tyler snaches up the bottle immediately, stripping her body of her hoodie, lifting her shirt her shirt up part way exposing her belly button, then spraying a bit on her stomach. The spray smells of bubblegum and disinfectant, to put it plainly, it smells terrible. Tyler sighs, sets the spray down and spreads the healing disinfectant all over her cuts and bruises she received from the fall. Joshua’s little hand gently took the spray from the ground next to Tyler. He softly sprayed it onto her forehead rubbing it in, Tyler winced but eventually go tused to the burning sensation invading her skin.
“There all better!” Josh exclaimed leaning back to admire his work.
Her shirt slipped from her grip falling over her stomach once more, she stands up resting all her weight onto her right leg, Tyler snaches up the discarded clothing handing it to Josh. “Put this on and come on, we have to get on the ship” Tyler gently grabs Josh’s hand once he slipped on the oversized jacket,before limping forwards.
“Wait! The turtle!” Josh turns around and grabs the banana turtle that fell along with Tyler. “Hi buddy!” Josh brings the little creature to his face.
“Bear come on, we’ve got to go.” Tyler grunts in pain her face showing clear discomfort.
Josh runs up to Tyler, grabbing her hand with his, “I’m gonna name him Yellow,” his bright blue eyes focus on the little yellow creature.
The eldest sighs, wrapping her free arm around her stomach, all she could think about was if they had missed the ship. There will be no other way to get off this doomed planet once the last ship heads off into the dark nothingness of space.
Josh’s quiet voice fills the air around them, his mindless six year old rambles, Tyler faintly smiles at him. “Halfway there,” she murmurs.
Her leg felt like it was ready to snap off, the strong stinging sensation returns to her stomach, who knew tumbling out of a tree would hurt this bad. She glances down at her body, it’s caked with mud and blood from cuts. Glancing over at her little brother, he’s also covered in mud but that’s mainly from her hoodie. Rain pelts drop from the gray/blackish sky, they increase in size, lightning flashes, thunder roars, Tyler grips Joshua’s hand tighter and tries to runs. The ship can be seen through the pouring rain, it’s getting ready to leave, she can tell.
“Bear, run ahead of me, you need to be on that ship!” Tyler yells over the rain showering over them, pushing her brother in front of her. The ships lights blind them in the rainstorm, it’s about to leave, Tyler ignores the pain in her leg and picks Josh up, trying her best to run faster.
“Last chance to board ship 846, last ship departing planet 278. Last chance to board ship 846, last ship departing planet 278.” A loud speaker shouts throughout the area. She runs faster, the more pain that invades her leg only pushes her to run faster through the trees. More and more of the massive ship came into view, before they knew it the siblings came face to face with the metal transportation.
“Tickets,” An angsty teen asks, more like demands, them. Tyler sets Josh back onto solid ground, then digs through his pack.
“Here you are,” Tyler politely hands him the pieces of useless papers.
He snatches them up glancing at them before ripping it in two, “Go ahead.” He snaps his gum.
Tyler gulps grabbing Josh’s hand, “come on” she whispers limping forward, feeling pain grow in her leg.
Tyler grips Joshua’s hand tightly, as they step through the metal door, “Ship 846 departing from planet 278, ship 846 departing from planet 278.” The intercoms pierces the unsettling silence, following up with the door slamming shut.
Josh jumps in fear, wrapping his arms around Tyler’s waist causing her to stumble a bit, “So you finally made it.” Dark whispers surround them. “We’ve been watching, and waiting for the perfect moment,” Tyler protectively wraps an arm around Josh, her eyes darting around the darkened room, sliding backwards into the metal door. “Your parents are too overprotective of you two,” The voice hisses. The ship jolts forwards, resulting in Tyler and Josh to fall over.
Tyler latches onto Josh, using her good leg to push them away from the voice. Her breathing increased, she starts to panic, her eyes darting around trying to find the source of the voice.
“Why so scared? We don’t bite,” They whisper, sounding closer than before.
Tyler’s back hits a different wall, she pushed them into the corner, “Who are you guys! Why are you after us? What did we do?” She sputters out, her voice is shaky and small, yet she’s confident.
The sound of shoes on metal, echoing off the walls, “Oh Tyler, sweet Tyler, you ask too many questions. All you have to do is come with us, we won’t hurt you,” Someone comes into view, a man waltz's towards them.
As he got closer, Tyler tried to push them away, “How do I know that, that you’re not going to hurt us.” She snaps. He steps closer to them, and without thinking Tyler stands up pushing Josh behind her. “Leave us alone, we’re only on this ship because our planet is dying.” Tyler stands on her hurt leg wincing.
He pulls out a plasmo gun, roughly grabbing onto Tyler’s arm putting against her head, “You’re coming with me, darling.”
She struggles to get away from his grip, “Let me go, let us go, we’re just kids.” He pulls her along, pushing the weapon closer to her head.
“You’re not a kid anymore you’re 15. And we just need a little help from you.” He tightens his grip on her arm, dragging her away from Josh.
“For what?” She holds her breath, waiting for an answer.

***

Josh was terrified. Mainly he was scared of what would happen to Tyler. His mind raced of endless possibilities of what could happen. He sniffles and brings the tiny creature still clutched gently in his hands up to his face examining it; the creature was a normal looking turtle, but with a bright yellow tint.
“Hi!” Josh excitedly says to the creature, “I’m gonna name you yellow! Because you’re bright and yellow. Do you like that name yellow?” As if yellow could hear, his little head bobbed up and down, seemingly if he was trying to nod yes. “Oh! And my name is Josh. Nice to meet you Yellow!” Josh set Yellow onto the floor, and waved at him.
Feet pounding against metal began to echo off the walls, Josh looked up and around to trying to find the source of the noise. “JOSH!” Tyler’s voice rang throughout the ship.
He scrambles to get up, “Tyler?” Josh’s little voice called out, before he was plunged into darkness.