From Base to Home

By SAW, Switzerland

“Label,” said Name, “Which is that one?” Name pointed up to one of the three glowing spheres in the sky, that were too bright to look straight at.

“Name, I can’t look at it, it’s too bright,” answered Label.

“Sure you can, it only hurts a little.“ Name squinted up at it.

“Children, it’s almost curfew. You mustn’t keep burning your eyes. You may go blind!” yelled a voice from behind the two children, before taking their hands and guiding them back to Base. 

“It won’t be dark outside for a long while more!” cried Name.

“That’s not the point. How long have you kids been awake for?” asked the adult.

Label thought for a while before answering. “I think it might have been twelve hours-”

Name interrupted. “It was six hours.”

The adult dropped their hands. “Oh! Six hours, it was? You children don’t need to go to bed! How silly of me! Go play along then, but remember not to leave our turf!” The adult walked back without them.

“Name!” yelled Label. “What was that?”

“What was what?” smirked Name. “Aren’t you tired of all the rules?”

Label yawned. “No, not real-” 

Name took Label’s hand and ran the opposite direction from Base. “Let’s run away from this horrible place! I want to see new mushrooms and plantimals. Maybe there’s more beautiful water further away, like the blue water on earth Elder Lastname tells us about!”

“Could we not sleep first?” asked Label, not interested in running away just then. 

“We can sleep later. Right now is the perfect time to leave!”

With nothing to lose other than their lives, Name and Label ran away to live in the wild together. They stumbled over sticks and dead leaves. As the leaves crunched under their feet, Name began to wonder why there were leaves and sticks on the ground. Label picked one of them up and ripped it apart, throwing the pieces that were ripped off onto the ground. After a while they saw a large piece of wood lying on the path of leaves and sticks they were following. It looked as if it had been torn off of a huge moving tree.

“Of course!” exclaimed Name. “These are the remains of a sequodile, the biggest treptile on Azrium. I did my plantimal presentation on them for school. I bet if we continue following this path, we’ll get to see its corpse!” Name jumped onto the huge piece of sequoia tree and climbed up the remaining 30 centimetres to stand on the top of it.

“Lovely,” murmured Label sarcastically while he trudged around it. 

Name gasped at the top of the huge piece of sequoia tree. “I can see the sequodile from here! It looks like it’s been half eaten! That means we could probably eat it!” Name jumped down.

They walked for a while until they made it to the half-eaten sequodile corpse. Label fell over, his sleepiness making him clumsy. Name, awed at the sequodile’s size, ran around it before she tripped on an object that was buried in the ground. She got some leaves in her hair and some dirt on her knees and hands, but she was otherwise all right. Name turned around, curious as to what she tripped on, and started digging it out of the ground.

“Woah…Label, look what I found…” Name held a sharp blade up that was made with pure leaves and wood, the leaves so pressed together they became a hard but flexible material, good for a blade. Name swung it around for a while before a wave of exhaustion from their adventure washed over her, forcing her to fall asleep.

Name and Label were woken up by voices under the night sky. The darkness stretched over the landscape seemed to go on forever. Name jumped up with her new blade in front of her.

“Who goes there?” she yelled.

The voices faded.

Label complained, “Name, we should go back… I’m hungry and thirsty…” 

Name groaned. “Label! We’ve only skipped one meal so far! Breakfast! We can’t go back yet…or at least I won’t!”

Label felt torn between two things, should he go back? Stay with Name? He didn’t know. Name had always been Label’s best friend. She was so brave and smart, she always wanted more in her life than just school, where they let you look at pictures taken from the wild by the robots, who came here long before humans dared, or where they made you learn all those symbols and numbers. Name knew them all. Name was the one who “studied” with him, or at least tried to. But Name was the one who dragged him all the way out to the wild, to what? See a giant corpse? Starve to death? Drink unfiltered water, get a parasite, and die? The thought of a parasite made Label feel sick.

Label made a decision: “I’m going back.” 

Name turned away and started picking rocks out of the ground.

“Took you long enough,” she said, under her breath.

Label bit his lip and started walking around the giant sequodile corpse, back to the trail of sticks and leaves, and back home. 

Name sat on the dirt-covered ground. “Warriors don’t cry. Warriors don’t need friends. I can live without him. Who needs Label anyway?” Name wanted to believe the things she was saying, but deep down, she didn’t want to be alone. 

Suddenly Name heard something: footsteps. She drew her weapon, and stood wide. She told herself she wasn’t scared. But she was scared. She was very scared.

A figure emerged from the darkness. It was humanlike.

Name gasped. “Oh, it’s the humima pudica language, or better known as Pudican. We learned it at school. School…school! Where would I be without school! I’ve gotta find Label and get back to Ba– Home.”

Name held her weapon pointing backwards as to not stab herself, and ran back towards the trail of sticks and leaves, all the way back to Label, who was still walking.

“Label! Label! I’m so sorry I dragged you out here. I was so blinded by the unknown that I forgot about the known. And that there’s still way more us humans know about that I still have to learn!” 

Label turned around. “Name! I thought I lost you forever! I’m sorry I left you alone…”

Name hugged Label. “No, you did a perfectly rational thing.”

And they cried and cried and cried.

SAW is an aspiring artist. Sometimes she goes climbing to stop being weak and unsporty. She likes writing science fiction to fantasy and enjoys watching cartoons like “Adventure Time” or “Steven Universe”. She hopes to go to art college sometime.