Athenia (Prologue)

Inside of the space station Athenia, 5 people sat around a metal table connected to the floor, all looking tense. They'd been on this space station far too long, not to mention they'd lost communication with the ground for 9 months now — a month before they were supposed to be sent back to Earth.

Among the 5 people, the most noticeable was Killian Walker; a blonde boy with azure eyes. But it wasn't his features that made him stand out from the rest. Instead, it was his age.

When Killian was sent here, he was told it'd be a short trip of 4 months—two months shorter than the usual trip.

He was only eighteen back then, famous for being the youngest person sent to space. But now, he was 19. It'd been a year now.

Sat to the left of Killian at the end of the table, a muscular dark skinned man spoke in a heavy but determined tone. "Today marks one year. You all remember the agreement we made. That we'd take things into our own hands if we didn't receive any transmissions by now." Pausing for a moment to take a look at everyone, he continued, "It's time."

David was the one who made most of the decisions onboard, and nobody really objected to that. He was the oldest, and he had the most experience, as well as being former military.

Nobody around the table spoke for a second. They all remembered the conversation they had back then, but none of them actually expected that it would come to pass.

"Can't we wait a bit longer? A year isn't really that long, and what if- what if they contact us in a day or two? We could lose our jobs doing this without confirmation," said Kimmy, an Asian woman with soft eyes. She was shifting around, and drops of sweat were floating off of her face. Killian liked her, she was nice and all, but out of the people onboard, she was the person with the least determination to get back to Earth. She didn't have anything to go back to since she lived alone and her family was nonexistent, so it made sense.

He, on the other hand, had his baby sister, Sarah, and his cat, Scarlet, to go back to. They were being looked after by his distant aunt and her husband until his trip was over.

To Kimmy's question, a man with long hair ginger hair and blue eyes to his right spoke out. "No. It's been too long, and I need to get me and my sister back home. I already brought up wanting to leave a month ago and I was turned down. Been too damn long."

"Where is she by the way, Axel?" Asked a Hispanic man with long black hair and emerald eyes across the table from Killian. He had a smirk on his face, and seeing as how he'd been flirting with Axel's sister for around half of the time they'd been there, it made sense. Unfortunately for him, the raven-haired girl didn't seem to have any interest in anything besides her work.

Axel narrowed his eyes in slight annoyance at Angel's mischevious tone, but he still answered. "Asleep as usual. Since we started rationing the food, she's been sleeping to avoid the hunger pangs."

Everyone nodded their heads, as they themselves were constantly hungry and felt the burning sensation in their stomachs.

"When do we leave?" Killian asked, looking at Dave. He would would prefer to leave as soon as possible. He felt like he was going insane being up here bored constantly. There wasn't much in the way of entertainment.

David cleared his throat. "It's still early, so we can spend the day preparing and leave tomorrow. Axel, make sure to tell Elena."

Axel nodded, and everyone waited a moment to see if anyone else would say anything, but no one did, so they all pushed themselves off of the table and floated to their stations to make sure the space pods were stable and ready to launch.