In Search of a New Planet

—Mission log in search of a new planet. Date: May 6, 2727 according to the ancient Earth calendar. Mission leader: Aqua Elemen, a female member of the Elementalis alien race —says Aqua, an alien girl belonging to the Elementalis alien race, a race that has a humanoid appearance very similar to the human race, with the difference that their eyes and hair look different depending on the natural element that each member of this race represents, while recording her mission log.

During the recording, she narrates an event that she faced on her home planet Elementarium. While narrating, she remembers that a year ago her planet was hit by a strange natural phenomenon called Elemental Imbalance, which began with small, short-duration earthquakes that occurred from time to time. Months later, a city on her planet faced a powerful earthquake. Many aliens ran in fear to escape the disaster, as it destroyed the city by collapsing buildings and cracking the earth, thus altering its terrain. Catastrophic damage. It also tells how extinct volcanoes on their planet have awakened due to the Elemental Imbalance, and how their planet gradually became a chaotic and hostile place to live.

—Because of this, my race had to abandon the planet, and look for a new one to survive. That is the objective of our mission— Aqua continues—. The mission consists of studying the resources of the new planet in detail, and finding out if they meet the requirements to terraform it and adapt it to our race.

She mentions that thanks to the recommendation of a human being who had been living on the planet Elementarium for the last five years, her race chose Earth as their new home. A decision that surprises her, because that planet suffered an unknown event fifty-five years ago, which extinguished 90% of its living beings, and half of the few human beings who survived were forced to abandon it. It was an event that had never been seen in the universe, and that also altered the rotation cycle of the Earth.

While continuing to record her log, Aqua remembers how five years ago, she and her brother Pyro saw how in the sky of their planet they observed multiple spaceships made by humans traveling in the vast universe, looking for a new planet to survive. Pyro, who has a humanoid appearance with a campfire flame on his head, eyes similar to orange sapphires and reddened skin in a constant boiling process, tells her about the event that Earth faced, and how this affected the human race in the Universal Classification of Intelligence of Alien Races, a ranking that evaluates and rates all intelligent races in the universe according to their level of intelligence, survival and prosperity.

—This ranking changes every time a phenomenon affects those three parameters of an alien race —Pyro mentions while getting up from the ground next to Aqua—. Our race is among the top five of that classification.

Pyro, explaining that his planet is forty light years from Earth, wonders why the human race has decided to go so far from their home planet and not stay on a star that was in a habitable zone near them.

—You probably know about the Centaurians, a primitive and savage alien race living in the Proxima Centauri solar system. If humans lived with them, they wouldn't have much chance of surviving — explains Georia, another of Aqua's brothers, who has skin as hard as rock, a sparse head of hair with small tufts similar to plant roots sticking out of the ground, and eyes that look like golden beryl, as he approaches them —. It's a race in constant war. They're not so stupid after all.

Later, the three of them hear that a human spaceship has landed on their planet. They run to the place, where many aliens of the Elementalis race observe the ship and several humans leaving it.

—It was the first time we saw a real human being —Aqua continues recording her log—. They all lived on our planet for the last five years. One of them helped my dad in the preparation phase of my mission. When she saw our humanoid appearance, she suggested the planet Earth as our new home.

Aqua finishes recording her log and leaves her ship, which looks like an orange fighter plane. She wears ordinary human clothes, a transparent and invisible suit for protection against the toxic air of Earth and a briefcase on her back. When she touches the ground, she sees a sandy soil under her feet and touches it with her hands. Then she looks around, coming across a vast and inhospitable desert that covers the entire place.

She activates an artificial intelligence installed in a smart bracelet on her left wrist to analyze the area as she walks on arid, cracked and infertile soil, her only company being the light breath of the wind. As she walks she also observes a completely clear sky without any clouds around her.

During her journey to the west of the place, she realizes that no matter which direction she looks in, there is not a single drop of surface water around in the inhospitable desert wasteland where she is, which seems disconcerting to her because she should be in an area covered in sea water according to the map shown on her bracelet.

After a long walk she finds a city in ruins and dominated by desert sand, with destroyed buildings, abandoned cars and sandy and deteriorated streets. Upon reaching that city, Aqua activates a resource analysis and scanning system on her bracelet and analyzes the entire place. She continues walking and takes out of her briefcase a strange device that connects to her bracelet. This device creates a kind of balloon by absorbing some of the toxic air of the Earth. The balloon closes by itself to contain the air inside so that it can be analyzed by the bracelet system.

—The air is unbreathable due to the composition of toxic chemicals that it is made of— says the bracelet's artificial intelligence out loud—. Inhalation caution is required.

Aqua is glad that she is wearing her protective suit. The AI ​​tells her that, due to these chemical elements, fire is unable to manifest itself in a flaming state, and the atmospheric pressure is heavy and suffocating. In addition, it mentions that there is no ozone layer, which does not prevent the sun's rays from reflecting on the ground, making the temperature of the place much higher than sixty degrees Celsius. It also tells her the deplorable state of the ground, and the absence of humans and animals in the city. Aqua is disappointed to hear these regrettable data. She then comes across a dry tree with a small leaf on one of its stems, which she picks up and holds in her hand before turning into dust in the blink of an eye. The tree also fades away.

After seeing the death of that tree and the current state of the planet, Aqua becomes very depressed by the current appearance of the planet Earth and is unable to believe the poor condition it is in, and wonders what the unknown phenomenon was that caused all of this. Aqua deactivates the resource analysis system and releases the air contained in the balloon. She then disconnects the device from her bracelet and sadly sits on the ground with her legs drawn up, her arms resting on her knees and with her head down. A small tear comes out of one of her eyes.

The air that was released from the balloon rises strongly towards the sky along with the breeze of the wind, creating a whirlpool in the heights of the city. Then it expands in several directions and disappears. That gust of wind is observed through binoculars in the distance of the city, which are held by a thin male human with short hair and black eyes, who looks at the landscape around him on a terrace of a small wooden house located in a small and curious meadow with abundant grass and other multiple types of plants, with lots of water, breathable air and a great variety of animals, all this inside a kind of dome contrasting with the enormous desert outside it.

That human being is curious about the way in which that gust of wind was released, so he connects his smartwatch to a wireless network called Spacenet, a connection similar to the internet that expands throughout the universe. His smartwatch shows him a holographic screen with a small map of the city, where a still red dot shines on it. He presses that red dot, thus showing data from it and a real-time video of Aqua. When observing her, he is surprised by her humanoid appearance, but with interesting physical differences compared to people, sitting on the ground of the city. Seeing this, the human thinks that an alien being is exploring his planet. Suddenly, his smartwatch detects a strong sandstorm approaching the city. Seeing this and learning that Aqua does not seem to have a protective suit on, the human deactivates his smartwatch and runs into the cabin leaving the binoculars on the table. Shortly after, he reaches his garage and grabs two suits of protection against the toxic air of the planet. The human enters an all-terrain vehicle with articulated wheels, puts on his protective suit and starts to leave his dome and go towards the city to pick up Aqua.

Aqua remains still in his lap when suddenly she feels a strong breeze behind her. When she looks back, she notices the huge sandstorm approaching the city. Aqua gets up and runs to escape the storm. Far from the city, the human looks at the city from the passenger window and is whipped by the storm. The human increases the speed of his vehicle.

Meanwhile, Aqua tries to flee while the force of the wind forces her to walk slowly. She looks around and finds shelter inside an abandoned building, which she tries to run to until a piece of debris thrown by the wind hits her from behind. She falls and hits her knee on the ground, causing a small wound that leaves her unable to get up.

Shortly after, the human arrives at the city. When he gets out of his vehicle with the extra protection suit and screams to look for the being he saw on his smartwatch, Aqua hears him and screams to let him know where she is. The human runs in the direction where the scream came from. When he arrives, he crouches down and asks how she is.

—Not very well— she answers.

The human wounds her on her knee. He then looks around for shelter until he finds the building Aqua was walking to. The human asks her if she can walk. She answers with an affirmative, and then the human lifts her up, placing one of his arms behind her neck to help her walk. They both walk slowly to the building.

When they enter the building, they both lean against a wall and let out a sigh of relief as they sit on the floor. Aqua thanks him for rescuing her, then asks him if he is a human.

—That's right. I'm Nate— the human answers.

Aqua also introduces himself. Nate takes a bottle of healing spray out of one of the pockets in his protective suit and sprays it on Aqua's wound. Aqua watches as the wound quickly disappears along with the pain.

—Instant regenerative spray— Aqua tells her.

—That's right— he answers as he puts the spray in her protective suit—. I see you know about the medical technology we humans developed before the catastrophe.

—A human who went to our planet taught us that— Aqua continues.

—By the way, it seems you're not wearing a protective suit against toxic air— Nate says, showing her the extra protective suit.

Aqua tells him that it's not necessary, removing the camouflage system from her protective suit, leaving it in plain view of Nate.

—That explains how you survived and managed to walk— Nate says. He looks outside, where the sandstorm is still present, and tells Aqua that they can't leave until it dissipates.

They both start talking. Nate shows her how he found her.

—You know, with the Spacenet connection, you were able to find out that she had a protective suit on even though she was invisible— Aqua says.

—The connection we humans have is very limited— Nate comments—. We were only able to connect to that universal network for the first time while facing the apocalypse.

—By apocalypse you mean the mess that left your planet in this state, right?— Aqua asks curiously.

Nate answers her affirmatively, and then mentions that when he saw her on the screen of his smartwatch he thought she was a human until he saw her gelatinous-looking hair. He also shows curiosity about how light blue blood was coming out of the wound Aqua had on her knee earlier.

—I am an alien of the Elementalis race, and I come from a planet called Elementarium— Aqua explains—. I am of the Aquaria species, one of the four intelligent races that exist on my planet, made up of the four elements. In my case, I am of the water element. What came out of my wound was pure water, and my hair is gelatinous due to the liquid properties that this element has. And there are also my eyes, which are pieces of light blue ice frozen at absolute zero.

—In fact, your eyes look like precious stones that existed on this planet —says Nate. Hearing that there is now complete silence, Nate stands up and looks outside, learning that the storm has dissipated, and tells Aqua that they should leave. Aqua asks where they will go, and Nate answers that he will take her home. Thinking that their ship would probably be buried under the sand of the storm, she agrees and they both leave the city in Nate's vehicle.

During the trip to Nate's home, Aqua looks at the landscape through the vehicle's window from the back seat, stunned by the enormous desert that is around and asks Nate how he can live on a planet like that.

—You will be surprised when we get there —he answers.

Aqua continues looking outside until she is surprised to see in the distance a huge meadow full of grass and trees. Aqua asks him what that place full of nature is. Nate tells her that this is the place where he lives and that when he arrives he will show her everything he has there.