The Days We Lost
By: Andrew M

“They’re coming, they’re coming, the aliens are coming!”  a man screamed while running down the street frantically.
“How many nutjobs are out here today?” I asked.
“I don’t know, that must be the third person to run down the street screaming!” Jenny stated.
“C’mon guys, let’s just interview that old man and go home,” Carmon said in a weak voice.  As we continued to walk, we saw a few more people running through the street; one even said he was told through his dreams or something like that.
“Hey Carmen, do you still want to go into that house?” Jenny teased.  We all stared at the house in horror: the house was a tall building with massive windows.  Paintings were visible from the inside; they were full of ominous clowns or frowning children.  The mansion was painted black with a brown roof.  Carmon started shivering and edging farther and farther away from the house.

I stopped Carmen quickly and said to him, “GET IN THERE NOW!” Then, Carmen ran through the door as fast as he could.  When Carmen got inside, he tripped on a carpet and got knocked out for two hours.  Once we followed Carmen into the house, we saw an old man standing angrily over Carmen.  We knew we were in for quite the interview.
When Carmen finally woke up, I told him to come over and to help finish the interview at least.
Carmen, then without thinking, said, “Guys, let’s get out of here. This place is creeping me out.”  Then Carmen realized that the old man was standing right next to him.
“I guess you don’t like my house; figures I haven’t liked you since you
came running in here like a maniac,” the old man said disapprovingly.  After about another painful 30 minutes, we were asking the final question to the old man when we heard a weird noise.  The noise seemed to have come from the attic and everyone but the old man jumped as soon as we heard it. 
The old man then said, “What is the problem with all of you, can’t you at least sit in my house for two hours.” 
“Didn't you hear that weird noise?” Jenny inquired.  The old man then started sweating in a nervous fashion.
“I think it would be best for you to leave,” the old man said suspiciously. 
“I told you guys this house was creepy when we got our assignment, but did you listen?”  Carmon asked, judgingly.
“Just stop talking and let’s work on this paper,” I said, somewhat annoyed.  Soon, we finished our story and went home for a good night’s rest.  Except I had some sort of a nightmare.  I had a thought of the earth destroyed and in ruins, with the old man yelling at me saying it was all my fault.  I abruptly woke up after that; I then got my crew all up and told them what had happened.  When we got to the old man’s house the door was locked, but I brought a rope to get up.  Once we all got up the rope we started to investigate.  Carmen checked around the bedrooms but only found some old people stuff.  Jenny went to the basement, but she said she found nothing (she probably just got scared and didn’t check though).  I then decided to check the attic.  Once I got up to the attic, one door was locked.  I looked around the living room and eventually found the key in a box under the couch.  I knew this was a bad idea, but I had to know what the old man was hiding in the attic.  Once I got in there, nobody else would come so I had to do it all by myself.  I then entered the attic where I saw what the old man was hiding; it was some sort of secret laboratory.  I was amazed at how the place looked and how futuristic it was.
Then, at the center of the room was a spaceship; it had flashy lights and buttons all over the outer coat.  It stood on four mechanical legs and appeared to be in the shape of a ball.  There was a small outer rim with rockets on them.  Jenny entered the room next.  She was fascinated by all the gizmos; then she did something pretty bad, she must have thought it would be funny to pull the lever with a skull over it.  I tried to stop her at the time but it was too late.  A green beam fired from the ship and made a crashing sound as soon as it hit the roof and flew into space.  Then the old man came running at a surprising speed to the attic.  He took Carmen and threw him into the room with the rest of us. 
“You don't know what you have done, do you?” the old man screeched at me.  Then he took my head and, with an unknown strength, threw me out of the window.  I must have been blacked out for at least five hours; then when I did wake up the first face I saw was the old man’s face right over mine.  I leaped right up and tried to run, but Carmen tripped me.  The old man walked up to me and spoke:  “I’m sorry I threw you out the window, but the rage built up and I could not stop myself.  An alien invasion will be coming to earth soon; it has almost arrived.  Jenny fired a laser into the sky which let them pinpoint our location.  I discovered this ship 349 years ago.  I was given the gift of eternal youth after I accidentally got covered in the blood of the alien pilot.  I can tell you the rest of my story another time but now we must leave before the aliens arrive,” the old man stated.
We all were all running to the attic when we heard an explosion.  I looked back and the house had been half exploded and the staircase had set on fire.  We all quickly ran up the staircase but giant robots came from the mother ship.  They shot lasers at us as we ran up.  Once we entered the attic, another blast fired at us.  It almost destroyed the ship, but we all got on board and flew away before another could hit us.  The ship that was firing at us before did not hesitate to continue fire, but we hit it with a beam before it could fire at us again.  As the ship was going down strange objects were flying out. The old man pressed a button and some sort of robotic arm came out and retrieved the other ship’s supplies.  It then analyzed the object and said it was a star map.  The old man gazed at the map for a long time and said that it would take a long time to reach our destination.

A New Home

Dear diary, we have been writing in books like this to make sure we keep our sanity and record for future generations and all that junk.  Personally I don’t care much about these books, but the others do seem enthusiastic so I guess I will give this a try.  There’s not much to report today so I’ll just stop writing right now.

Day 1

Today I found Carmen looking out of one of the windows; he looked hypnotized so I left him alone.  I did check out the diary in his room while he was distracted though, it was full of poetry.  Carmen must really enjoy being in space; every time I see him he is admiring it.

Day 2

I saw Jenny raiding the fridge of the ship; she was eating an overwhelming amount of food.  The old man then came in and slapped her hand, giving a lecture about saving provisions.  I thought to myself at that moment, “am I prepared to be some sort of hero?”  One thought has been running through my mind as I think: am I prepared to fight the creatures on this alien planet?

Day 3

I decided to talk to the old man today (it was a bad idea to start with).  I just asked some normal stuff most people would ask, but then a new question popped into my head.  I asked him what his name was; he seemed to get upset and told me to leave.  Then he just stared into space after I was gone; I wondered what the big deal with him was.

Day 25

Today I accidently dropped my book into some water and lost a ton of my entries.  I guess it really doesn’t matter that much.  I feel that this journal is starting to grow on me though; maybe it is just because I’ve been alone for so long.

Day 26

We found the planet today but we also ran out of gas.  I can’t write anymore into this book; survival is keen.  One last thing I must say, if we do not find any supplies on this planet I don’t think we will be able to leave.

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Today I just finished my last entry into the book and got ready for the long road ahead. It was the day we would either make history or never be heard of again.  Immediately we went into the deep woods.  While we were trekking through the woods, I felt like grabbing my book and writing an entry; then I remembered I left the book at home
“Daydreaming again?” asked the old man. 
“Yeah I guess my mind has been a little bit funny these past few weeks,” I responded. After a long time of walking we made it into some sort of swamp.  The swamp was dank and dark filled with filthy water; sadly the sun was going down though.  We decided to set up camp and collect firewood.  The old man went on a search to find some stray sticks and went out for about half an hour.  While the old man was out, Carmen was hitting trees and looking at the water.  When I was about to ask him what in the world he was doing I heard the old man scream.  Once we got to him we saw a dog with wings and two feet chasing the old man around.  We all started to throw rocks at the weird creature, but it dodged quickly and was gaining on the old man.  Carmen ran behind a tree, which I guess I should have suspected. 
“Guys come here; the tree is weak,” Carmen said while pushing the tree.  We all ran as fast as we could to get to the tree; the next thing I saw was the tree falling on the beast.  It collapsed on the beast and it stopped moving.  I guess Carmen was looking for weak trees earlier, for once he actually helped us.  After we killed the beast, we used the tree to make a wooden sword and skin the beast.  The old man took the scales and attached them to a wooden shield he had made. 
“When you have lived as long as me you know what to do in these situations,” the old man said with a grin.  The next thing Carmen did was push down a few more weak trees, then we all began to build a base camp.  Thankfully we had finished our camp right before night, and we even started a fire.  As we all gathered around the fire, roots started to move, eyes appeared on trees, and the trees started getting up.  Everyone was in a daze while the trees destroyed our small base camp right before our eyes.  When I snapped out of the daze I jumped into action.  I threw a piece of flaming wood at one of the trees.  It shrieked in horror and burst into flames.  Sparks of fire hit all of the other trees and soon the entire forest was on fire.  Burning pieces of wood came from all sides and Carmen almost went into a fit.  We all ran as fast as we could from the burning forest and found ourselves in a grassy plain.
We walked through the plain and soon saw some ruins of a city.  When we got to the city, what we saw were destroyed buildings covered in vines.  We spent about an hour in that city, wondering who used to live there.  Once we saw the middle of the former city there was a big gaping hole.  As we looked over it, Jenny yelled “echo” into the dark hole.  Then came a loud growl from the hole.  An enormous bat flew out of the chasm.  The bat then screeched and we all fell down.  The bat came down furious at remarkable speeds when we heard some sort of noise.  The bat screeched and returned to its hole.  Then the man in the jacket said, “Hello my name is Tory, I see you're not from around here so let me welcome you to the greatest planet around, Earth.”

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