Listen to this while you read | Prologue | Support me on Patreon

Something had to change. 

Captain Reed had just received the Monthly Summary. It included food production rates, areas of concern around the ship, general gripes from the populace and the thing she dreaded most to look at.The crime statistics. 

For the past 8 months, crime rates had steadily risen. Suicide rates, however, had risen exponentially. 21 individuals, 19 of which being second generation inhabitants, had ended their lives this month. 

Something had to change. 

Captain Reed sat at her desk on the bridge, mulling over the report, thinking of what could possibly be done to stop these current trends from continuing. On a deep level she understood why this was happening. She had taken an interest in psychology in her studies as a child. This generation coming of age was a sort of lost one. These people had all been born on the Atlas, and they would all die on the Atlas. Reed was a member of this generation as well. She knew the ache in their souls that would never be able to heal. She was no different than anyone else her age. They would never know land. They would never know a cool fall breeze. They would never know ocean mist or birdsong or rainbows after a hard rain. 

It hurt.

As the captain, she had easy access to all of the archival footage of Earth. She would watch the footage for hours at night when sleep eluded her. Her absolute favorite being a video of a thunderstorm rolling through the plains outside of a city named Pretoria, somewhere in South Africa. She had always longed to be able to visit that field. She had dreams of it often. She wanted to be able to feel the rain and wind on her face. She wanted to hear the thunder rattle her chest.

It was a strange feeling, being homesick for a home she never had. On certain days it nearly drove her to tears. She could only imagine the ache her peers felt. Quite possibly a primal ache, even, for Earth’s ground beneath their feet and the smell of fresh Earth air in their lungs. 

She knew this was why her generation was becoming restless, not that she could blame them. The ship was suffocating them. Sure, the ship was self sustainable, they had access to food and shelter and socialization and everything that should make for a happy human. But it wasn’t enough. There was a missing element that not even their scientists could explain. It was a heartache for something that they had never even experienced. 

Captain Reed did find it quite curious. How could she miss something she never had in the first place? The only answer that came to mind was that humans were creatures that needed the earth. Humans were somehow connected to her in a way she could only assume to be the result of millions of years of evolution, mingling with the Earth’s environment. For her generation to be completely devoid of the touch of Mother Earth had to have been what was plaguing her peers.

Something had to change.