Shengliver’s Note: In this entry, Pan the Chinese teen shares with us his fantastic tour through time and space. He is the author of the fiction.

One day when I woke up, I was astonished. I found myself in a metal (a misspelling of mental?) cell. Through the window pane I was able to see a starry universe. A deathly grey planet was floating somewhere in the distance. Arising, I saw a robot in the shape of a human standing at the door, staring at me.

“Who are you? And where am I?” I asked in a shaky voice. So alarmed was I that I could hardly believe my own eyes.

“Don’t worry, Master. I am your servant, Android. We are in New Eden, the last human settlement in the whole universe,” the robot replied.

“What? Eh … What’s the date today?” I asked sheepishly.

“It’s 13th September, 3024, Terrestrial Time,” he answered meekly.

What? I shook my head to make sure that my hearing was all right. Had I travelled through time and reached the future? But why and how? In order to get a better picture of the circumstances, I instantly started to question the robot. My servant Android answered patiently.

According to Android, great changes had taken place in the past millennium back on Earth. With tech advancing by leaps and bounds, humans had become greedy and reckless, and worse still selfish. Most human nations thought there were irreconcilable disagreements between them. Soon the Third World War broke out. During the war, nuclear technology leaked out and unfortunately fell into the hands of some hardcore extremists. The conflict soon escalated into chaotic world-scale nuclear warfare. By the time fighting came to an end, the Earth had been severely damaged. Only then did humans realise that they should have got united to protect the Earth instead of tearing it apart. But it was too late. Most forests and green fields had turned into desert land. And most water resources were polluted by radioactive fallout left over from the battles. Over 96% of the human population died of hunger and disease. Those who had happened to survive spent the following 150 years building four space stations in outer space. When the stations were ready, they deserted Earth and relocated to their new homes in here. Many humans tried to explore the universe further from their new habitat New Eden, but in vain. Humans combed the entire cosmos but they could find nowhere as comfortable to live as the Earth. There was simply not another Earth in the whole universe. In despair, they decided to find a way to go back to the Earth someday whatever the cost, which by now had become a grey and ghastly planet.

After hearing the narration from Andy the robot, I felt sad. I stayed silent for a long time. Later, I broke the silence by asking, “Where are the other three space stations that we humans have built?”

“Two of them fell into oblivion for no reason soon after they were constructed. The fourth one is on the other side of the Earth,” Andy said, pointing at a speck far out in the distance.

I could do nothing but stay on in this space station. The houses here in New Eden resembled honeycomb cells. I rode in a teleporter to go anywhere I wanted inside the manmade homeland. But I was forbidden to overstep the boundaries. There was an artificial garden at the centre of the colony. Green and lush, the garden somehow made me feel a bit at home. That was why the human space colony was called New Eden.

It took me ages to adapt myself to life in the Space Station. It was not the same as Earth. It was better than nothing, anyway. However, from time to time, I could not help but think long and hard about how to backtrack to 1000 years ago. I could not have missed the old Earth home more!

A couple of weeks later, while I was eating, I heard a series of explosions out there. I saw a huge UFO looming somewhere in the distance. ET fighters in it were attacking New Eden. Laser beams were coming upon our habitat like severe storms. Andy rushed into my cell, yelling, “The main structure has been nearly destroyed by the aliens. We must evacuate now, Master. Now!”

So, we embarked on an escape pod and flew away from the space station in no time. Moments after our departure, I turned my head and saw through the back window New Eden being torn into pieces. The engine of New Eden blew up and went up in flames. The central garden was turning into dust. Debris was floating everywhere.

Two aliens flew through the ruins towards us and started to set upon my pod. Unluckily, my pod, struck by their laser weapon, was sent crashing down to the Earth. I was falling fast when suddenly something caught my eye. I saw that YYHS, at one time the best high school in the human world, now covered in grey ashes, was directly under me. I was dropping right into its Yifu Teaching Building.

Then my head was knocked on a desk. Bang! I woke up and opened my eyes, only to find that Mr Yu, my dear class director, was standing there, glaring at me.

Oh Lord, I must have dozed off in his class. I bet he would not let me off this time.

To my greatest relief, however, I was in a classroom on Earth, rather than in a torn space station called New Eden.