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Prologue

Prologue

In the back of a musty concrete classroom sat a young girl, blending into the crowd of students. Choppy brown hair, cut in a rebellious phase years ago, cascaded down her face. It was impossible to know what she looked like, for a simple black mask sat on her face. An assignment slowly crumpled in her hands. A harsh poke resonated in her shoulder.

"Can I take a picture?"

It was a ball of paper then. Even if they got their eyes on the assignment, it wouldn't help the student. She hadn't written anything down. Her eyes crinkled above her mask in a false smile before she mumbled. "Fetch."

The miserable middle school teacher whipped her whole body around after the paper hit her. Taken aback, the student sunk into their seat. Amused, the girl with the choppy hair gasped, and a facade of shame fell upon her face. "Sorry, my hand slipped."

"Oasis..." The teacher took a breath and grunted only two words. "Get out."

The girl with the choppy hair, Oasis, shrugged on her bag and weaved her way through the maze of desks. She didn't like history class. She didn't care for learning what Earth once was. She didn't like Earth.

***

The past inhabitants of Earth, a now-dead planet with no clean air, failed to save it. Oasis' ancestors consumed, polluted, and moved on, but it's hard to move on now. When every day is spent suffering through thick masks, worn in hopes of breathing slightly clean air, It's hard to forgive.

Lucky for Oasis, she had no intentions of forgiving. She wasn't going to move on. Although she couldn't take back what had already happened, she would try to right it.

Shuffling through the streets, Oasis seethed her hatred from behind her mask. The mass of people covering the streets swallowed the young girl. Getting anywhere without paying an arm and a leg is absolute hell. Because her mom, Ashton, didn't have the money for the train, Oasis was one of the lucky millions who suffered through the never-ending crowd. Her mom had gone through the same thing, albeit with significantly fewer people and on the sidewalk. Growing up hearing her mom's stories, she longed for a better life. A life without coughing up smog. A life of swimming in salty water, eyes burning and mouth souring from the sheer amount of salt. A life with wild animals thriving in nature. She treasures the stories passed through generations of her family. The further back the stories go, the more she admires them. The older stories tell of a healthier Earth.

History makes Earth seem like a paradise. She was named "Oasis" after her mom's hopes of a paradise. However, Oasis thought the only place humans would find paradise was in heaven. Fortunately for her, humans won't survive much longer. Every day some new disease, war, flood, or horrid disaster is announced to the general public.

***

Although Oasis' mother didn't wish for a life of low wages and student loans for her only daughter, her infatuation with saving Earth grew. The girl, fresh out of high school, went to study for a marine biologist Ph.D. Studying became her pastime, and free time became unimaginable. The library became her home, and the librarians were her friends. The knowledge was a black hole she never wanted to escape from.

Becoming notorious around campus for being the asshole with the book up her nose, she studied her ass off. Oasis wasn't going to waste the opportunity to save Earth, no matter how much it hurt to know what she could have had. She could have had seals, whales (the not-beached kind), dolphins, fish, sting rays, and other long-extinct animals. Because she was such an unlikeable person, no one would befriend Oasis. The feeling was mutual. She had no time for friends. Meaning she also had no time to converse with her professors.