It was unbelievable.

The ground was light and sandy. I was tempted to bend down and touch it. Beyond that was an endless, vast expanse of nothing...just a blue horizon, tinted indigo at its very edge.

More unusually, a giant orange sun glared down at us....with a massive planet waiting behind it . It was difficult to see it past the clouds, but it felt like a peaceful goddess watching from far above.

My eyes closed as I sucked in air, allowing the oxygen to flow through me, igniting my bones, and making me feel more alive than ever. Something about this air felt more real. It was pure -- my lungs weren't always yearning for more oxygen as they had on Earth.

As I began walking around, the rest of the group ventured out onto the land. They took my survival as a sign that they could breathe, too. Somehow, the planet wasn't toxic.

"Hey! Look what I found!" shouted a boy from behind me. I turned around to find him pointing down at a small green shoot sticking up from the ground, less than an inch tall. He stared in wonder. Immediately, five or six other people gathered around to look at it. The only place any of us could remember seeing any plants was in our textbooks.

I saw the sandy-haired boy and stepped towards him. "Hey."

"...So what do you think?" he asked, gesturing in amazement at the rest of the group still mesmerized by the new land.

"It's...amazing. A miracle," I replied, feeling giddy. We were on another world. This was historic...miraculous. I didn't understand it but...

Wow. Just wow.

"I just...I don't understand. One second we were...I think we were strapping into seats on that ship...and now...," I mumbled. Inside, I knew exactly what had happened, but I couldn't wrap my mind around it or believe it.

He just let out a sad sigh, putting his hands on his hips. "I know. I guess the government had been working on a lot more than just keeping us alive."

"And we know it was the government? Is this even real? This can't be, can it?" I felt as though I were in shock. None of this could be real. I had to be dead.

But I felt alive. I felt more alive than I'd ever felt in my life.

"I remember what I was told about it. And...it seems surreal...but it makes sense. Our world was dead. What choice did they have? I guess this was plan B...if things hit the limit before any of us could stop it..."

I nodded, although I was still trying to comprehend. My eyes were drawn once more to the planet in the sky. "I just wish..."

"That nobody had been left behind? I wish someone was here...someone to guide us at least," he replied. 

"Exactly. I'm trying not to think about all of the people back there...," I responded. I expected myself to feel horrible, and for my throat to close up as I thought of my family. But nothing really happened. I could barely remember them and that part of me. "Is it weird...I feel like that was some past life?"

"No, not weird at all. Me too," he said softly. "I don't know...it's difficult to remember my family. I remember their names...and some long-term memories...but all of the smaller details are gone."

"And that, my friends, is because we just so happen to have been sedated for quite possibly a couple hundred million years." With a start, I turned to find a short black-haired girl walking towards us, arms crossed. Her hands were covered in grease and strands of her hair had fallen from her loose ponytail. "Nice to meet you even though I guess we've been living together forever. I'm Nell."

I raised my eyebrows. The boy was the one to actually respond. "How do you know?"

She grinned, like she hadn't just said something that would imply that all of us had been in a comatose state for millions of years. "I'm into technology. All kinds of it. And I happen to be somewhat good at it." She winced as she said the last sentence. "But yea, I kind of maybe just hacked into the computer system that controls this entire space ship we rode in and funnily enough the people who made this actually left a message for us. This whole official thing saying 'Do not be afraid' and 'Btw, we left you on a ship for hundreds of millions of years sailing through the vacuum of space while getting high on sedatives, just to save your lives, blah, blah, blah'. So yeah, it's been a while."

I just continued staring at her, my mind practically whirring in its effort to understand. It was obvious we were on another planet. We'd already figured that out. But hundreds of millions of years? I shuddered. I was over a hundred million years old. Everything back home...all of Earth...it was gone. It had to be gone. Everything. And I was here, alive, and everybody else I ever knew...my parents, friends who hadn't made it, everyone....

Even if it was far in the past, some things were better not to think about.

Before our conversation could continue, a dark splotch suddenly appeared in the distance, immediately grabbing my attention. I stared at it in confusion as it slowly neared, becoming easier and easier to see. "....What is that....?" I muttered under my breath, a mix of curiosity and fear lacing my voice.

At my words, both Nell and the boy looked in the same direction. "Some sort of human-alien being come to take us away?" Nell suggested sarcastically.

I hoped not. Things were weird enough already.

The figure continued moving closer until I was easily able to make out what it was. Sharp pieces of metal painted over in different colors, but still retaining the ability to reflect a blinding glare of light. It was shaped like a human, with a small round sphere as a head and a rectangular body. No arms or legs were visible, and rather than walking, it floated an inch or two above the ground. The thing came close and then stopped, exactly five feet in front of us.

There was a panel on the front of the rectangular body with a strange symbols inscribed. Even weirder, it looked completely new, like it had just been manufactured and sent out here to greet us or whatever it was doing.

The three of us stared at it, none of us daring to speak.

"Hello," the robot said, in a high pitched, barely intelligible squeal. The only way I could describe it, was like imagining a three-year-old talking, but then having that kid's voice edited so much that it sounded robotic and somewhat like it was trying to be adorable. Except for some reason, it did come out sounding adorable. And made me feel bad for feeling so afraid of it.

"Woah.....," Nell whispered, staring intently at the robot's face and body. The robot moved a couple tentative inches forward, like it was shy and didn't want to come near us. "You think this is also from our relatives back on Earth?"

I just frowned. That was the only feasible explanation...unless aliens actually existed and we were on someone else's homeland.

That couldn't be true though, right?

"I'm HAS-358! It's wonderful to meet you!" the robot continued, tilting its head slightly to the side like a dog. It spoke English? "What are your names?"

"Tara," I replied. Something about it made me want to open up and be honest. It didn't seem harmful. If anything, it seemed like it wanted to help us. I could almost believe that it really did come from the ship somehow. Maybe it planned on guiding us?

"I'm Nell...," Nell stated, smiling with her face still in an expression of disbelief.

The boy standing next to me paused for a moment before also responding. "Daren."

At least now I finally knew his name.

"Do you want to play a game?" the robot suddenly said, and it began moving up and down, as if it were jumping up and down in excitement. I was tempted to smile. Why was this machine oddly adorable?

"Sure," I said warmly, not caring that much that I still had no clue where it had come from.

The robot suddenly stopped jumping and looked instead like it was smiling. "Yay!" it said in excitement. "Let's play!!!!!" It began jumping up and down once more, except this time it started to bounce in circles like it was cheering. I glanced to my right to find the boy, or apparently Daren, looking nervous, like something bad would happen. I wasn't sure what he was worried about, but it placed a seed of doubt in my comfort. Nell, on the other hand, looked completely delighted, but I wasn't sure if that was because of the game or due to watching the miraculous machine in action.

"I loooooove games!" the robot screamed again and stopped moving. It moved even closer than it was before, stopping two feet in front of the three of us. "It's called hide and seek," the robot said and my mind brought flashbacks of when I was a kid and used to play hide and seek in school. We always had to play inside, since outside was a desolate wasteland. "Let's start!"

Before I could even move to hide, the robot exploded.