Out in the vast void of the infinite universe, beyond the constellations floating in the bottomless sky – mankind found their last shot at survival. The ozone layer was reduced into a thin thread of vapor dissolving exponentially into nothingness. With the rise in UV exposure, the very fabric of our DNA started mutating at a rate faster than humans could fathom. This led to mass deaths, cancer, new diseases and caused some to transform into zombie-like creatures giving off radiation until their flesh dissolved away. We called these creatures flarants – the aftermath of the ultra-solar flares, that reduced almost half of the population to carcasses and forced the other half to live in survival pods.

“Do you think we can make it to Orion, it has been 100 years since humans settled on Orion,” said Batu.

“Waited for 15 years for this my love, we need to make it up there,” I said as we shared a kiss through the glass covering of our pod suits. My mind felt like a supernova of happiness at that moment.

On March 11, 4022, at 00:00, planet Orion was at the shortest distance to Earth, made possible by its oblong orbit around the sun.  We would have to travel within that window of time to enter the planet’s atmosphere and land safely on its soil.  Batu and I boarded the rocket that night piercing through the boundless somber skies. With geotag implants and memory chips registering every detail of our cosmic journey, we set off into the unknown, trusting that the gravity of Orion would pull us towards its surface.

Weeks later, in an unfamiliar place. My heart clenched. I was all alone.

The next memory I had was turquoise. Bright turquoise, like a stellar explosion in the Orion skies. Wait? Where am I? Where is Batu? My mind searched for answers that didn’t exist as I tried to make sense of the pod I was captured in; a purple liquid drip was being injected into my body. I searched the records in my memory implant. It was wiped clean.

“This is not a drill. You have been recruited to take part in an experiment to find the cure for a new strain of ORO-Virus brought by meteors, you must remain calm and in your designated pods,” an ominous voice announced. Echoes of those words were throbbing in my mind. For the first few seconds I thought I was delusional, a side-effect of the long journey to Orion. But it wasn’t. Orion’s well-kept dark secrets were never exposed to Earthlings.

I came to the sudden realization that Orion was not a haven after all. It was an experimental hub run by the first human settlers who were considered as the ‘elite founders’ on Orion. Ordinary humans captured from Earth faced excruciating pain while being experimented on to battle the various new Orion diseases that had no known cure. Orion was compromised, and it was too late to escape the menace.