It's been ten weeks so far and the group has mostly been sleeping, talking, eating, sleeping and making up mindless games to entertain themselves with the whole duration of the journey.

For example, Riley and Anna came up with a game called "M for Meteorite." Where whenever a person spots a Meteor, he/she has to punch whoever's closest to them in the arm after yelling "M!". Unfortunately, Nila didn't listen much in her Constellations, Galaxies and Occurrences classes and her arms now feel like they are going to drop off any minute now.

"Entering Earth's atmosphere in approximately one minute," the ship's A.I warns, in the same robotic female voice as the one Nila would wake up everyday to on Mars, however, no one gives her any notice of recognition. They're far too busy sitting and chatting away as they play "I Spy". 

The ship's temperature noticeably starts to suddenly increase and Nila notices that tongues of flame begin to engulf the sides of the spacecraft. There's a sudden lurch and Riley, who was not sitting in his seat, buckled up responsibly at the time is thrown toward the front of the pod. Everyone hears a loud smack and the group goes silent to hear if Riley is hurt or not.

"Riley?! Are you okay?" asks Nila.

"Ow, uh..yeah. I'm fine...wait! Guys, you might want to see this!" Riley yells breathlessly, his voice full of surprise and wonder.

The rest of the group throw worried glances around the room and cautiously unbuckle the many seat belts that hold them in place and get out of their seats. Due to space having next to no gravity, everyone floats and they slowly make their way to the front of the pod which has a large window for people to look out of.

"Is something wrong? Oh wow," Kaitlyn starts but when she rounds the corner her eyes turn into the size of boulders.

Everyone else pretty much holds the same expression.

Directly in front of them, is Earth. In all of it's peculiar beauty and glory. It's atmosphere is a blurry mixture of gold, red and brown but it is still enchanting. They seem to be heading directly into what used to be called "America" but half of it seems to have been flooded off the face of the Earth, hiding under the ocean's surface. All that remains is North America but it's looks out of shape. Probably because the continent of Australia shifted and merged right into America causing the country to now look like a messed up blob. Places like Antartica are non existent due to the heat and after effects that the nuke had caused which explains why Greenland now looks like a miserable, barren wasteland. Oh well, at least it fits in with the rest of the world.

But amongst all the rot and ruin, there is supposed to be a place that has been not affected by the disasters of global warming and radiation. Supposedly, it's called paradise. It's called "Eden"

Africa now sits at the bottom of the world, claiming what used to be Antartica's spot. Most islands and smaller countries like New Zealand, Malaysia, Philippines, Hawaii and hundreds of the smaller countries in Europe have vanished into thin air. Europe is still Europe, to an extent but many countries have been lost. Oddly enough, there's one place in this miserable world much greener and lively than the rest and that's where the pod seems to be heading to.

Eden.

The front of the pod starts to catch fire and the glass gets unbearably hot to stand by.

"We've entered the Earth's atmosphere. We should get in our seats. It's gonna be a bumpy ride," insists Brice and the group pull themselves back into their seats against the great force of gravity pushing them towards the ground.

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As Nila looks out the small, circular window beside her as they descend to Eden, she gets a big surprise. The pod is close enough for her to see the buildings and infrastructure of Eden. And there's a lot.

It looks like four high end cities have been pushed together to make a huge one. There are hundreds of glossy, Andursite skyscrapers, beautifully cut green trees and grass placed around buildings and even on them. Several train tracks float in the air for ridiculously fast bullet trains to blaze across them. This is odd, they've got so much. How come they haven't sent everyone from Mars down yet? Nila is a bit confused but decides that they must have a good reason why they haven't. Suddenly, the murky, disgusting atmosphere changes into a marvellous blue.

'Wait, what?' Nila thinks, confused. 'Where's the radiation gone?'

That's when she realises, around the whole city of Eden are huge, solar panel looking things that seem to have created a barrier around Eden. Have they found out a way to get rid of the radiation, or at least block it out? It's a miracle! Nila can't wait to meet the people of Eden and whoever created this magnificent machine.

Nila looks over at Kaitlyn who's squirming in her seat.

"Oh, I feel sick~" she complains whilst holding her stomach.

Nila can't blame her, they're free falling at around 1000 kilometres per hour. Nila can feel the parachute coming out as her heart leaps into her throat.

"We're going to land..well, crash land. Hold on everyone!" Anna yells and shuts her eyes.

Just a split second later the pod crashes into Earth.

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"Nila~ Nila, wake up!" shouts a faraway voice, Nila can feel herself being shaken by her shoulders.

Suddenly, there's a painful stinging in her right cheek and Nila's eyes open immediately.

"Ow!" Nila blinks a few times to gain back her composure. "Did you just slap me?"

"Oh, Nila! You had me worried there for a second," Anna puts a hand on her forehead with a distressed looks on her face, completely disregarding her question.

Nila must've hit her head and blacked out upon impact. Oh well, everything feels okay. Apart from her right cheek and a painfully consistent feeling of vertigo. Nila rubs her cheek and refuses Anna's helping hand with a polite shake of her head.

Nila complains, "Ugh, I'm just gonna rest for a few. I don't feel too well."

"Hey, come over here!" yells Riley, who is looking out a small window next to Brice.

Kaitlyn, and Anna walk over curiously. Meanwhile, Nila stumbles as she attempts to get on her feet. It's unfair, the rest probably had a while to recover from being weightless for a few good weeks whilst she was out cold. But eventually, she finally regains the ability to walk again. The group try to jam all their heads together to all get a good view out the window.

"Ow! You stepped on my toe!" Kaitlyn complains to Brice.

"Sorry..." mutters Bruce and he points to something in the distance. "There's a car coming towards us."

About half a mile away, speeding towards the pod is the same white, four wheel drive that the group saw in their intelligence tests.

"They must be coming to collect us," says Nila and she walks over to a large, red lever that opens the pod's hatch. Nila uses all of her strength but the lever still won't budge. She grimaces as she pulls down on the mechanism, her hands hurting from the friction. "Could someone help me with this?"

Anna nods and starts to help immediately, they groan as they pull down on the lever but they seem to be making progress. Eventually, they get the lever all the way down and hear a loud click. Soon accompanied by the noisy crash of the pod's hatch popping off of it's hinges.

Suddenly there's immense light and warmth in the room. The smell of dirt, grass and fresh air intoxicates everyone in the room. They all stare out at the world in wonder, none of them dare say a word.

A few moments pass until Anna says, "So, who's going to step out first?"

There's a few greedy looks exchanged until Riley finally speaks up, "We all will," he says with a smile on his face.

The rest of the group nod at the reasonable idea and they all hold hands, count to three and jump on to the ground.

Nila laughs, "Well that felt amazing."

Nila bends down and digs her fingers into some rich, dark brown dirt on the ground and picks it up. "Look! Dirt! And it's not red!" she jokes as she blows the fistful of dirt off her hand and into Riley's face. Riley scrunched up his nose and closes his eyes whil he tries to wipe the dirt off. He looks at Nila with disapproval.

"What was that for?!" Riley asks in shock, afterwards he grabs his own handful of dirt and chucks it back at her.

But he unfortunately misses and hits the back of Kaitlyn's head instead. There's a bunch of 'ooo's' and 'uh oh's' coming from Anna and Brice as Kaitlyn turns around angrily. This eventually turns into an all out brawl which somehow Anna and Brice got involved in, though Nila thinks that they just joined in for the heck of it.

There's the loud rumble of an engine and the screech of tires coming to a stop that reminds the group about the white car that was driving towards them. They realise quickly that having a dirt fight probably isn't the best first impression and stop immediately, stand up straight and turn to face the car.

A beautiful woman climbs out, she looks to be in her early 30's. She has long, luscious locks of blonde hair cascading down her shoulders and piercing hazel eyes. The woman smiles, showing off her blindingly white and perfectly positioned teeth. She is wearing a white blouse with a white jacket over the top, a black pencil skirt and responsible black heels. The woman towers over the group menacingly. This must've been the woman they saw in that video.

"Hello, children. Having fun?" the woman asks and everyone holds a guilty look on their face. "It's okay, perfectly fine. I am Miss Chaucer, the first in command of Earth. Though, you can all just call me Earleen. Hop on, I have lots to show you," Earleen smiles the brightest of smiles and gestures towards the car.