“Planet Hopper” by Quincy
A boy is sleeping when he somehow falls onto his bed, bounces off of it, and tumbles to the ground. He starts wondering how that’s even possible when he looks around and realizes this isn’t even his room. Scared, he dashes to the window and looks outside. But there aren’t people walking on sidewalks or buildings everywhere. Instead, it’s wastelands as far as the eye can see.
He starts hyperventilating and rummaging through stuff, trying to find anything that will give him answers. He eventually stumbles upon a phone that looks exactly like his. But the second he presses the power button, cosmic lights start flashing in his face and he starts feeling himself getting pulled into the phone. And then, everything goes black.
When his vision comes back, he sees that he’s on his back. But no, he’s not on top of a bed or anything, he’s FLOATING THROUGH SPACE. He begins to think about how he’s even breathing right now, but he decides to ignore it and look around. Beside him are Mars and Earth. Beside Mars is Jupiter, and beside Jupiter is Saturn. Beside Saturn is Uranus, and beside Uranus is Neptune.
“Well at least everything else is normal,” Calvin thinks to himself.
He spots a satellite being dragged towards Earth and grabs onto it, wanting to go back home. He takes one last look at the rest of the planets and notices a completely unfamiliar planet. Just when he’s about to start theorizing on how it got there, the satellite slams into a force field and they start floating in the direction of Mars.
He floats, and he floats until he hits Mars and somehow loses 10 pounds out of nowhere.
“WHY IS THERE A FORCE FIELD ON EARTH?!” he screams, falling to his knees.
“FORCE FIELD?” an alien asks, smiling. When Calvin looks up, he sees a 6 feet tall alien with red skin and more muscles than he could ever get. Normally he would bolt away the second he saw it, but he was calm. For some reason, the alien looks oddly human and sounds younger than him.
“Um, how old are you?” Calvin asks the alien.
“I’m 7 years old. NOW WHERE’S THE FORCE FIELD?” the alien screams, looking around.
“I’ll tell ya soon. But for now I need to look for—WOAH,” Calvin says, cutting himself off after seeing what was ahead of him.
There is building after building, each one exceeding 50 feet. I guess Mars was already inhabited. Calvin trudges through the dusty planet to the massive buildings while the 6 foot tall 7 year old follows after him. But the 7 year old isn’t the only tall one. There are 5 foot babies, 6 foot kids, 7 and 8 foot teens, and then 8 foot adults. Calvin was normally happy that he was 5’10” in grade 9, but even the KIDS make him look tiny.
He expects them to gossip about him not having red skin, but they all seem to know he is from Earth.
“Uh, when did humans come to Mars?” Calvin asks a girl.
“Stop acting stupid,” the girl says. Calvin makes a confused face and then walks away.
“Wait, you actually don’t know?” the girl asks. “We came to Mars in 2026.”
“2026?! I THOUGHT IT WAS 2023!!” Calvin shouts as sweat rolls down his cheeks.
Calvin then explains to the girl how he got there, but she just shakes her head and walks away. Because he just lost 10 pounds, Calvin rushes to a restaurant. There, they have all sorts of exotic foods like Dust Chicken, Red Rice, Dry Ice Cola, and much more. Eventually he decides to settle on a hamburger since it is really the only normal food there.
“I want a BLUE STEAK!” the 7 year old says. Calvin reluctantly takes out extra money for the 7 year old, but then the cashier tells him it’s not nearly enough. Turns out, 10 dollars in Earth money is just a dollar on Mars. He tosses all the money he has at the cashier and sulks. And he sulks. And he sulks.
Eventually he notices a poster that reads “The Raid of Granthor! To learn more, come to Jupiter” with a picture of the same planet he was on earlier. He’s about to sprint out the door when a question comes to his mind.
“Why is everyone ignoring this? Surely it’s important.” But he also stays because he obviously needs to eat. Once the food comes, he scarfs it down his throat and heads out the door. He shoves his hands into his pockets looking around for his phone while running when—
*CLANG!*
—a metal pole sends him to the ground.
