The Day We Left Earth

Government Raids That Couldn't Be Stopped

I don't have a memory chip. If I did, I could just pop Sandrayik's memories into the back of my neck and see everything. Since I don't, the only way I could see everything was if I put it into my table. My family didn't know I had his memory chip. I had to sneak downstairs in the middle of the night and see what really happened.

I made sure everyone was asleep. I even checked their rooms. After I saw with my own eyes that everyone was asleep, I tiptoed down stairs. I got out my chair from the table, and put in the memory chip. A hologram immediately burst from the table, and I quickly turned down the volume.

The first thing Sandrayik saw with the memory chip was the hospital where it got implanted. I skipped ahead a bit. He was out in the field, gun in his hand, waiting for absolutely nothing. I skipped again. There was the two of us, at our school dance. I skipped forward, for longer this time, and stopped when I saw him with me on the hover board, leaving the city. I watched it all. I saw myself eating, me and him kissing. I saw the moment he fell asleep, and heard the soft humming from the hover board as I left him. A few minutes later, he opened his eyes. He looked over to where I should be, then looked around everywhere. He got scared, and I could tell. That's when a big motorcycle came, and he stood up and stopped it.

"Have you seen my girlfriend. She should be here."

The motorcycle man looked at a small screen in his wrist and got out his gun.

"What are you doing?" Sandrayik yelled at him.

The man, still with all his gear on, shot Sandrayik, making him fall to the ground.

For a while, it was just the sky, and I started crying again. Then he went on his side, looked at where I should be, and put his arm out. He tried to say something, but he couldn't. You could here his last breath. I paused it and kept crying. The tears were blurring my vision, but if anything, I was more mad than sad. They just killed him. No reason. He asked for help, and they shot him.

I started to shake as two arms wrapped around me. I dug my face into Asphero's chest, and cried some more. He just kept me there and kept whispering the same five words over again. "It's going to be okay, it's going to be okay..."

Then I got mad. I started banging his chest, but had to stop when I was too weak from all the crying. I managed to stop crying a few minutes after that and asked Asphero how much he saw.

He replied quietly. "All of it."

I shook my head, worried. "You can't tell mom and dad."

"Why would I tell mom and dad? That's not what a big brother is supposed to do."

I hugged him and thanked him, and we both walked back to our rooms and fell asleep.

In the morning, we were all awoken by banging on our front door. Mom answered it and immediately called everyone down to the kitchen.

We all sat around the table, looking at the two military men who stood at the head of the table.

"Last night someone came down and watched the holograph", the taller one spoke.

The shorter one then spoke the rest of the time. "We want to know who it was."

I swallowed all the nervousness and quickly spoke. "I did."

Asphero didn't know what would happen, so he took some of the blame, too. "So did I."

My dad furrowed his brows. "Why is this of any importance to you?"

"That is information we cannot disclose", the taller one spoke up.

The tall one explained to my parents while the little one asked us the questions. "What were you watching?"

"Something stupid", Asphero said.

I added to his lie, looking straight at the man. "It was a comedy."

"Why get up so late just to watch a comedy?"

"Because it was stupid", Asphero spoke. "Dad didn't want us watching something stupid. Said it brought down our IQ's."

"Do you remember the name of it?"

I thought back to all those twenty first century comedies I watched. "It was an old one. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. It was with Tina Fey, Margo Robby and Martin Freeman. It was set in Iraq but it was filmed only in New Mexico. It was---"

I could tell he was annoyed, so he stopped me by putting up his hand. "The title would have been enough."

"Sorry", I shrugged. "I just love old things."

The short man looked at the tall one and nodded, then they both left without a word.

Mom and dad asked about it, so Asphero told them everything while I cried into his chest. They promised to keep a secret, so now everyone in my family knew. We hid the memory chip in a safe, which was placed in a bigger safe, hidden under the floorboards. We didn't need to see it again and we didn't need anyone else to see it.

I wanted to tell Sandrayik's family, but because Sandrayik died, mom thought they would tell everyone to get revenge on the government.

That was my family's little secret. We keep it till the day we die.