JUNE 12th, 2050
The Arrival

Whispering winds carried dust and gravel from the floor bed. The sun had blazed over the desert land, fading willow leaves off of trees that shaded the area’s occupants. The planet was almost was almost lifeless, destroyed from human activity, and most of the wild nature was wiped away.
Iija and Lark, the youngest Martians, stayed on the porch of their glass house peering from the sky, like many others were doing. They witnessed the daylight darkening from a large object suddenly blocking the sun.
The thing was coming toward the Martian land, slowly with blazing fire coming out of its end. The metallic shine of the object had shown the engraved letters “USA” on it, which made the Martians distant. It seems as if they’d seen this a dozen times, but were still curious of what was happening.
Soon, the object landed on the surface, but every Martian kept far away from it.
“What is it?”, Iija asked.
“I’m not sure”, her older brother Lark replied.
The metal had some kind of opening, because the most unlikely creature in white stepped out of it.
The creature looked like a male, with blue eyes, black hair, and light skin complexion. He was completely different from the planet’s inhabitants.
Three other males with the same light complexion soon followed him out of the flyable object.
“WE COME FROM EARTH”, yelled the blue-eyed male. He waited for a reaction from the aliens, but all he could see were mask wearers with dark-skin. Their masks were gold, blue or silver, with happy faces or sad faces, based on the Martians’ disposition.

Iija, being the youngest and friendliest between her and Lark, came up to the man and raised her hand.
“Do speak Earthling?”, asked the man.
“Yes.”, Iija shyly replied.
“Do you know who we are or why we’re here?”, he asked.

Iija simply shook her head.
“We’re Earth Men, and we’re here because of another atomic war on the 3rd planet. We plan to civilize again.”
“Will you take what’s ours once more?,” she asked again.
The man thought of the past, when humans from Earth colonized Mars because of the atomic war. The Earthlings took over everything, even renaming Martian landmarks and territories. He and his crew, like most astronauts, were secretly scouting out for more human settlement, just in case the 3rd Planet were likely to be destroyed.


“No”, he lied, “We’re here to help you build some more things for survival, such as water supply, more fire pits instead of volcanos to cook food, and stronger homes!”
Iija smiled from what she heard. I hope so, she thought.
Once the Martians heard this, they began to murmur.
Lark quickly came over. “I’m Lark, and this is my sister Iija. We hope that things will go well this time, unlike what has happened between humans and Martians in the past.”
The man nodded in agreement, earning even more comments from the watching crowd.
“I’m Captain John, and these three men are accompanying me in this expedition. Winston, Harold, Mel and I are going to repair Mars.”
Lots of Martians took off their masks to show their real feelings, joy and happiness. The wiser ones didn’t budge or cheer, because they knew what Mars’ future might hold.

When the captain and his men got settled, the Martians followed them around to see what they were going to do for them.
“...Then we’ll place metal grills right here,” Harold said, pointing to a small volcano a few feet away. Iija and Lark were cautiously watching the men prepare to install cookware by the volcanoes, because the fire pits that Martians cooked food with tainted lava. Iija and Lark were careful about the Earth Men since they’d heard about what they’d done to the aliens in the past.
“Do you think they’ll help us with our problems, or make them worse?”, asked Lark. His sister only shrugged.
“They don’t have anything with them, like supplies to build anything for us,” she observed. It was true, Captain and his men only brought a clipboard and a pencil with them to write down their plans and ideas, along with oxygen tanks to breathe easily (the thin atmosphere and carbon-dioxide smog of Mars wasn’t sustainable for humans).
The two siblings weren’t born around the first time Earth Men had affected Mars. It occurred 50 years ago, when the humans gave the Martians chickenpox, almost killing the whole population.
They both knew that something wasn’t right with the Earth Men.

September 9th, 2050
The Happening
Months passed, and no progress was made. The Martians grew tired of waiting for their planet to be repaired. Their leader, Yeer, who was also grandfather to Iija and Lark, decided to confront the Earth Men about their slacking. He went down in the rocket to see the men chatting.
“Gentlemen, I’m afraid to ask, but...what seems to be the hold-up for the betterment of our planet?”, Yeer asked.

“We’re working on it,” replied Winston. “It’s going to take some time for us to help, though.”
Yeer sighed and said, “We should’ve banished you humans a long time ago.”
All four men turned their heads toward him. Then, Captain John got up from his seat after reviewing his “notes” again.
“We’re getting things done Yeer”, the Captain spoke in an even and stern voice, “just give us some time.”
“That’s not good enough!”, Yeer yelled impatiently.
Harold, Winston, and Mel jumped from his outburst. But the Captain stood completely still.
“We’ve been at this for decades. What’s wrong with changing the environment for us Earthlings to live on?”, John questioned.
“Everything! It wasn’t meant for you all to live here! You’re breathing through oxygen tanks! What if all humans would run out of it?”
By the time his finished yelling, Yeer was gasping for breath.
“You ignorant fool,”John said under his breath, “we’re trying to help you live in a better place.”
“No, you’re not,”Yeer simply said. “Your world is becoming overpopulated, so you need an extra storage place.”
Captain John kicked his oxygen tank in anger, regretting the next thing he’d done.
The nozzle of his tank had bursted with great force, releasing the man’s need to survive in the thin atmosphere. Mar’s was a planet of carbon dioxide.
The Captain immediately clung onto his throat, gasping for air.
“Cap’n!”, Harold yelled, springing over to John’s aid. The others were panicking, trying to save the man. Yeer just stayed in the back, watching. The oxygen was releasing into the air with a hiss.
“Help us!”, the men cried to Yeer. The Captain was losing breath, on the floor shaking...and slowly dying.
“This...planet...will be ours,” John whispered. He slowly moved, and his breathing had stopped.
“He’s dead”, Mel softly spoke, “That means we shall return to Earth.”
“Why?”, Yeer asked.
“No human settlements can be done here without him, so we’ll simply leave,” Winston said.
“What about his body?,” Yeer asked, pointing to the man who was lifeless on the rocket floor.
“Burn it in the volcano pit,” Winston scowled. Yeer was confused by the crew’s sudden callousness for their leader’s sudden death. Perhaps Iija and Lark were right about these Earthlings. Something wasn’t right.






December 16, 2050
The Discovery
Iija
The blizzard is coming. Ever since Captain John and his men came here, everything on Mars has been very out of order. Maybe his oxygen tank had made our atmosphere change. We’ve never had a Martian winter, because it’s mostly summer around this time .
Lark said that we should go to the same volcano pit where Captain John’s body was cremated 3 months ago. “Maybe we could find out something that we don’t know, like he had something with him that was a secret,” he said. It was a very peculiar plan, but even Grandpa Yeer thought it was a good idea.
The blizzard wildly flew snow everywhere, like a tree swaying in windy weather. Lark and I were inside the glass house, making a plan to see if we could find anything about Captain John. There could possibly be some kind of evidence that wasn’t burned with his body. If so, that could help curb our prying wonder about the man’s wrongful and greedy idea for humans to take over Mars.
Half a sol passed and the blizzard ended. The sun finally came out, so Lark and I began our investigation.
The volcano was about 7 feet tall, where John was cremated. We both searched its surroundings to see if anything had fallen out the man’s space suit.
“Something must be around here,” Lark sighed.
It felt like minutes had passed until I stepped on the red soil, still wet from the blizzard, and found a long shiny silver tubed object. I slowly picked it up and saw those same letters from the rocket engraved on it. USA.
“It’s his,” was all I could say.
“Let me see it,” Lark swiped the heavy thing away from me to get a closer look.
After taking a glance at it for a few moments, Lark surprisingly said, “It opens in the middle.” He twisted the middle of the rod, and soon enough, a purple strobe light had beamed out of it!
The whole planet was covered in the strobe light with a sharpening sound. Out of shock, Lark dropped the glowing object. Seconds later, it lifted itself off of the ground and pirouetted in one place. As if by magic, the tube had removed the vegetation and left-over nature of the land. Lark and I were still standing on the soil. The thing had said, in monotone voice, “BLOCKING NEXT INHABITANTS”. Then, it automatically whirred around and disappeared into thin air.
“What just happened?”, I yelled, “That awful man had brought along some kind of device to ruin the looks our planet even more, but why? If he said he was going to make Mars better by repairing it, then why would he make things worse?”
“Iija”, my brother responded, “Look.”
I expected to be disappointed by seeing no beautiful land surface.
Captain John’s cursed instrument had made everything vanish, in one blink of an eye. The whole planet was just dull with red dust. Before, there were small trees with patches of grass. Now there were no plants, greenery, lakes, or needed supplies for survival. It seems as if there was very little growing on this planet in the first place, because of humans making things unbalanced, along with making us sick.
Once I had faced the direction where Lark had pointed, I was speechless. My thoughts of how Mars would look was wrong. What I had seen was beautiful.
There were plants and trees with patches of grass around them. There were even new fire pits to cook with, and lakes were spotted from here to there.
Apparently, Captain John had brought the electronic device to assist him with his plan. To make this planet appealing, and beautiful for human settlements. He hadn’t wanted to help us Martians, but to help his kind.
Maybe the Captain and his men would’ve tried to help to kill us off again. I tried to get this thought out of my mind.
“I know why it said ‘BLOCKING NEXT INHABITANTS’, Iija”, Lark said, “When John wanted to bring all of the humans here, he didn’t want any enemies of another atomic war coming to the Mars hideout.”
“Earth does have a lot of atomic wars”, I added, “John did seem like he would’ve waited to use that thing, after he and his crew would try to kill the Martians off.”
After a moment of silence, Lark asked, “Do you know what this means?”
I shook my head, confused.
“If we just unlocked John’s secret, and “blocked our next inhabitants”, then we no longer have to face humans,” he smiled.
He was right!! No more humans invading Mars?! We must tell Yeer and all of the others!

February 7th 2051
The Conclusion
Lark
It had been weeks after Iija and I had found the reason why we had feelings of evil towards Captain John. The Martians were still on Mars when his device had erupted, taking the last bits of greenery, but then changed it to the beautiful planet our Grandfather Yeer had remembered.
Knowing that we can live here without ever worrying about Earthlings coming without warning, and that Mars is our growing “Earth”, nothing can be taken away from us.
“I’m so proud of you”, Grandfather Yeer said. He was wearing more smiling masks now.
Iija and I are proud, too.
Martians can be seen wearing masks, cooking meat with untainted lava, drinking clean water, planting trees and flowers, and living in glass houses with no worry. We were all free.










PRONUNCIATIONS

Iija (E-juh)

Lark(Lark)

Yeer(Year)