The Dark Side of Space

Chapter 12

My head feels foggy. I've been asleep so long it's nighttime. I sit up and push my hair out of my face. My spacesuit is off. All I have on is my black undersuit. I look to my left. Naomi sleeps in a bed on the other side of the room. The entire room is cold and industrial-like, decorated in grays and silvers. There are large, metal doors on one side of the room with crystal doorknobs. Directly in front of us, there's one large, silver door. It doesn't have a doorknob. I can't tell what half the things in the room are, other than the desks and chairs and what's either a TV or a very dark mirror. I wonder if there are more doors behind me. I turn around in the bed. What I see takes my breath away.

A large window takes up most of the wall behind the beds. I turn all the way around and kneel on the bed so I can see better. There's not much to see, but what I do see leaves me in awe. A dark gray, rocky expanse extends as far as my eyes can see. There are small hills, bumps, and contours everywhere. Just above, off in the distance, a large, glowing light hangs above. It's the sun. That means it must be daytime. Even though I can see it easily, it still looks dark outside. The rays pierce through the window like thin, silvery hairs, but it still looks dark outside. I don't know how to explain it. I don't see the earth. I don't know where exactly on the moon we are, but I thought I'd see it. It would have been a small comfort to know that technically, even though I'm hundreds of thousands of miles away, I'm looking at my family and my home.

"Naomi!" I call, like a child on Christmas morning. "Naomi!" Naomi stirs from lying face-down on her bed. She opens her eyes slowly. She looks just as groggy and confused as I felt when I woke up.

"What the hell happened?" Naomi asks, sitting up. She looks around the room, her eyebrows wrinkled.

"We're here," I say. I gesture for her to look out the window. "Look."

Naomi kneels on her bed like me and looks out of the window. Her eyes widen. "Holy shit," she says with a laugh of disbelief. She points out of the window. "Is that the sun?"

"Yeah."

"But it's nighttime. Why's it so dark?"

I try to think back to our lessons. "I think because there's no atmosphere or something like that. But it's daytime right now. Which means when it's night-"

"Can it get darker?" Naomi says under her breath. I'm thinking the same thing. We'll be in the dark for two weeks. I remember one of the teachers saying a full day on the moon is almost a month on earth. I hope we still work on a normal schedule. Losing time will drive me crazy. I'm not ready for days of pitch darkness.

"Eventually." 

Naomi and I stare out of the window. We look at the landscape, and the tiny craters, and take it all in. "They knocked us out?" Naomi asks, even though it's not a question.

I nod. I can't remember any of the last three days, because I'm assuming I was asleep for most of it. I don't even remember waking up once, or using the bathroom. "I just don't get how that's legal or why they wouldn't tell us."

"Maybe they just thought it was easier than hearing us complain and get bored." Naomi sounds like she's trying to convince herself that's the truth.

"Maybe." Our room is cold. I climb down from my bed and flip my suitcase over to unzip it. It looks more raggedy than before compared to the pristine, metal decor. I smile to myself when I see the pictures of Ray and my mom in the net on the inside. I take them out and set them on the cold, metal nightstand. Looking at the pictures puts a smile on my face. I look down at the bracelet Ray gave me. When I go home, I'll have a ring too. I take one of Ray's sweatshirts out of my suitcase and put it on. It smells like him. I miss home so much. I'm not home anymore. I'm not even on the planet anymore. I have to take pictures so I can show them to my family when I get home. They won't believe the view.