The next rocket took off, blotting out the last remaining stars in the sky. It hung precisely in front of the rare sunrays that still dared travel through the blackened air.

Because of that, two whistling hares could no longer find their food.

“I can’t wait until all those humans are gone,” cried Pika. “Nasty creatures who think they’re better than us.”

She stood on her broad hind legs and pointed two brown front paws at the sky. “Yes! Leave then! With your silly steel tubes of fire!”

“Save your energy,” said Prince. His fur was more gray than brown, though just as invisible in the endless darkness. Their short round ears and tiny limbs meant many mistook them for mice, until drawing near and finding the hares much bigger.

They sprinted through the dark. They relied on hearing, for sight only worked near places where humans had left lamps, or yet another forest fire raged. The ground was dry, hard and cracked, littered with dead plants. With each plane taking off, each satellite and especially each rocket, the open air choked and the sun was shut out.

Without sunlight, no plant could live. Without plants, a whistling hare could not live. And without running hard all day and hoping even harder, they would not survive much longer.

Only a few flower species braved the darkness. Especially around Aprania, fluffy dandelions had long sustained the hares. The rest of the world, however, looked like the Scorched Plains of Kran—and even those seemed more peaceful under the then-blue sky.

Pika skidded to a halt again, eyeing the just-fired rocket, illuminated by its own fireball and deafening roar.

“Look! They even draw silly pictures on the outside of their steel tubes. Unnecessary!”

Prince brushed past her, nudging her head. “Dear, we haven’t found a morsel in three days. My belly rumbles like there’s a thunderstorm within. Let those humans be.”

Her stomach grumbled in reply.

“But,” she said softly, “everything will get better once they disappear. We’ve been running for years under this blackened sky and it’s their fault!”

Prince could barely see his partner’s eyes, but felt her paw against his.

“How much longer can we keep this up?” she said. “How long can we endure if nothing changes?”

“As long as it takes,” said Prince through clenched teeth. “We can always go farther north, there—”

“We can’t even see which way is north!”

The rocket was now far above, a small second sun—if the first sun were still visible. Each day now held only night, hovered at the same permanent temperature, and the longer humans pumped gases into the atmosphere, the hotter it grew.

Prince still remembered when this place held sheets of ice. When he had to huddle against his partner in their burrow because of the bitter cold. Now he puffed in the heat, barely growing any fur.

“I feel the air already cooling. We’re going the right way.”

“We can’t outrun the destruction humans bring,” Pika grumbled.

Lacking a choice in the matter, however, they ran on. They had no rocket for finding a new planet. They had only the black-gray mist around them, good hearing, and, if the stench of dead life and human waste wasn’t so strong, a good nose too.

“We’ll reach the Iceplates,” Prince asserted confidently. “And there our children will have a beautiful future.”

“The plates are gone, I’m sure of it. Thanks to those humans who—”

“The world also thought all the gods had vanished. But look what actually proved true!”

His throat felt as dry as the cracked earth, and as painful too. The many fish skeletons betrayed that a sea once lay here. Pika said Gulvi, god of water, had lived here. Of course, just when they needed him, he was nowhere to be seen. Well, Prince thought wryly, if all the water vanishes, a water god can’t exactly do his job, can he?

“Do you think Gulvi still wanders around here?” he asked, running, his voice hoarse. “He must be able to help us.”

Pika laughed and made a whistling sound between her teeth. Prince had always found her laugh endearing, but now he felt belittled.

“What’s he to do here? Wriggle forward like a beached dolphin? He probably rose to the clouds, together with all the water.”

It had been months since it last rained. A heavy rainstorm had to come any day, lasting weeks on end. Prince took the steadily swelling wind as an encouraging sign.

Then he saw it.

A star in the darkness. Sunrays shone on a small tree, ringed by tall grass blades. The gleam on the ground betrayed a puddle of water.

Pika and Prince exchanged glances. She whistled and raced with him toward the star. He yearned to feel grass under his paws again. His body shook and screamed for water.

But he held back and nudged Pika behind his round tail.

“What?” she shrieked.

“Donte’s rule,” he whispered.

Pika shook her whiskers. “Oh come on, you really think anything’s still alive? That a hungry tiger waits weeks in the stifling shade for prey to step into the sun? We’re not waiting like … like … scared bunnies.”

“Every animal thinks like us. Always seeking the next star, because that’s the only place with food. So yes, it could—”

Pika hopped around him and dashed on ahead.

“Stop!”

She didn’t listen. That was why he’d fallen for her. Not because she never listened, of course, but because she always fully embraced her nature. She felt such pure joy upon seeing grass, chewing a tasty leaf, feeling the sun’s rays.

Joy that made her bound ahead before Prince could keep up. After each other, they raced toward the star, licking their teeth.

And they saw the star vanish.

Prince looked up in alarm. The rocket now stood high in the sky, blocking the sunlight. It’ll be gone soon, he thought, everything will be fine.

The hares rolled to a stop against the tree. Pika leapt between the towering blades of grass. Prince’s belly rapidly heaved up and down with each panting breath. He looked around, but his partner was right: no predator emerged to devour them.

“See? Easy as carrot cake.”

Prince didn’t hear her last words, for the sky glowed red and all sound was drowned out by something louder.

The rocket exploded overhead.

Pika nibbled as many plant stalks as she could. Prince nudged her until she turned and fled with him.

Great shards of metal tumbled down, accompanied by flames. Every second, a new crater formed, ripping the earth further apart. At last they had light, but it revealed something they wished stayed in the sky.

A jagged, misshapen chunk of metal fell upon their star, crushing everything. Pika let out a startled whistle. Prince instinctively put his paw before her eyes.

They watched as if turned to stone.

The cheerful picture on the side of the rocket, showing an astronaut grinning with thumb upraised, melted away in the explosion’s searing heat.

To say that several dreams had gone up in smoke was an understatement.

Pika buried her whiskers in Prince’s fur and cried without tears. Once the dangerous rain had stopped and the fires quelled, they went back, searching for a leaf or twig that had survived.

They found only ash and the bodies of two humans.

“Humans aren’t just weird, they’re also dumb,” said Pika.

“Don’t speak ill of the dead,” said Prince. He noticed some grass might grow under the bodies, but he didn’t want to push the humans aside.

“What animal species does its utmost to horribly murder itself?” Pika looked to Prince as if he should have the answer.

“They don’t. They’re trying to get away before this place grows even more dreadful.”

“Yeah, and they just leave us behind!”

Prince rested his chin atop her soft fur once more. As long as we have each other, he thought. As long as Pika still hopped beside him, he wanted to cuddle her every moment.

But you can’t live on love alone, dear reader, no matter how much other tales may convince you it is so. It is my hope that these stories show how life really is. I won’t hide my own mistakes. Because if I hadn’t made them, everything would have been different.

Their exhausted legs sought the next star. Prince was just glad no new rocket took off.

The wind swelled further. Usually, the air smelled musty and gassy, but sometimes he caught a fresh icy breeze and knew to head that way.

A new downside to the blackened sky revealed itself. At full speed, they crashed into a tree trunk they hadn’t seen. The tree shook and cracked. Its trunk was barely thicker than their bodies, before branching into five smaller limbs, each the proud owner of two nibbled leaves.

Or a koala.

“Who dares attack my tree?”

The darkness was so thick that they stared right at each other without knowing it.

“Two hungry hares,” Prince called up. “May we please have a few leaves?”

“You can have them all.”

“Really?”

“See,” Pika whispered, “a human would never do that.”

“They’re poisonous.”

“Oh.” Pika kept her whiskers to herself.

The ground rumbled. A gray creature with ears like cuddly wings and an oval black snout waddled toward them. Its paw prints in the dirt looked much like human hands.

“Nearly all the leaves are poisonous now,” she said sadly. “To survive, leaves must breathe in the air. But when the air’s this filthy …”

Her eyes fell shut. She went to the tree trunk and gave it a hug instead of climbing back up.

“What are you doing?” Prince tapped his paw against the leaves, which did look withered and sick. The hares had quickly decided they could wait a little longer.

The koala opened her eyes. “Cool. Hugging trees keeps me cool.”

The hares tried it too, but they couldn’t grip the trunk like she did. Rubbing against the bark only made them feel hotter.

When they glanced over, the koala slept again.

“Well, sorry to have bothered you,” Pika whispered.

No response. They turned their backs and dashed on.

“Oh, you’re no bother.” The koala climbed the tree and hung from a branch, bending it until she dangled right above their heads. “I’m just glad to talk with someone again.”

Prince often forgot how lucky he was as a hare. After the Babbling Brothers, no species still spoke another’s language, and the rabbits were the only exception.

He didn’t know how, but as descendants of Kurin they could still understand most animals.

“I’m Akoa. I want to come with you.”

“You don’t know where we’re headed.”

Akoa frowned. “Where all animals are going. The rocket base in Aprania.”

“And besides,” Pika said quickly, “we’ve no food or water for two, let alone three.”

Akoa bent down further until she could roll off the branch, asleep again. Eyes closed, she ended up beside the hares. “Oh, I hardly need any water. Koala is ancient dovish for doesn’t drink.”

“We won’t carry you,” said Prince, “so stay awake.”

“We’ll do no such thing!” Pika accidentally whistled. “I won’t go hopping into those murderous human arms!”

Akoa stuck her front paws into her pouch, which opened at the bottom, making her look as if trying to somersault. Which she did, for she fell back asleep.

Eventually, five fingers held a flat rectangular object. “Humans call this a pass. With it, you can get on a rocket without any human ever seeing you.”

“How’d you get it then?” Pika sniffed and licked the plastic.

“I’m a member of the rocket association.”

“Really?”

Akoa laughed and slapped her front paw against her thigh. “Of course not! I just found it near the base.”

Prince finally grasped what Akoa truly asked. “You want to come with us because we must carry you, right?”

“I’m too slow on my own. And there are no trees to bend around the rocket base.”

Akoa stepped forward and put a black hand on each of their shoulders.

“There’s nothing left here. Even if you find a tree, it’s inedible. All the other koalas have already left … or died.”

The three looked at each other in turn. Akoa smiled and edged even closer. “Humans are allowed to take their pets. There was a long discussion about it, so long I fell asleep halfway through!”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” said Prince.

Akoa coughed. “Anyway, there’s plenty of food on a rocket and they’ll think you belong to someone.”

Pika looked around. The world was endlessly dark. She yearned for the sun above, for light and clean air. It could never be worse on other planets, right?

She sighed and brushed against her partner.

“Humans really are dumb, but it might work out nicely for once. As long as we stay away from them, I’m happy to break into one of those steel tubes.”

Hares were not made to carry koalas.

They tried having Akoa stand atop their heads, but she kept sliding off. Then Prince threw her over his back like a cloth, but she was too heavy and kept scraping the ground with her claws.

Finally, they had pulled her tree from the dirt. Akoa hugged one of the upper branches while the hares chewed on two lower ones and dragged the whole thing along.

They soon reached a slope. They’d been walking over what used to be the seabed, which meant the slope probably led to a beach, and shortly after to Raketa: the rocket base.

Prince sighed, planted the tree back into a crack in the ground, and tapped Akoa.

“We can’t jump while carrying you.”

“No problem, no problem.”

She rummaged in her pouch again and found a rope, woven by human hands, frayed by time. She tied one end to her branch and gave the other to the hares.

“Pull me down as far as you can.” Teeth on the rope, they bent the branch until it was taut.

“See you soon!”

Akoa let go. The branch snapped back up like a rubber band, firing her into the black sky. Prince anxiously watched her vanish. When she was out of sight, he heard a thud and began climbing up himself.

At te horizon, he saw a new star. Cautious sunrays, two whole ones, lit up green patches.It was tempting. I chose this plan, he thought. The humans will help us, so we’re going for it.

Something alighted at the end of the slope. It began as gray smoke but quickly turned yellow and orange, illuminating great fires and a new rocket ready for takeoff. Akoa was a small black silhouette amidst the smoke plumes.

The hares bounded up but stopped when a white blur attacked Akoa.

Pika’s eyes grew wide. “Should we really do this?”

“Yes, we’re doing this,” said Prince. “We have one chance.”

“But they’re still humans. What if our tube explodes too? It’s dangerous!”

“Oh, stop with the humans already.” Prince tracked the white blur dragging Akoa toward the rocket. “This is our chance at a beautiful future!”

Up close, they saw the blur was no white paw or human hand, but a penguin. It slipped over the hot ground while Akoa lay dazed on her back.

“Sorry, can’t stop!”

Akoa looked to the hares. “What’s it saying?”

“That we must hurry,” Prince called out. The rocket already rumbled, ready to launch any moment. How will we ever get in? Prince wondered. Not from below, certainly. The flames would roast us.

He noticed the long stairs leading up to a higher platform. To reach them, they had to pass the Floatfences.

He felt for Pika beside him, but she was gone. She braked the penguin by leaping atop him. “Do you know where we can find water?”

“If only I did know,” he replied. “Where all the ice has gone. I’m Pinpin and I’ve lost my family.”

“Well, where are you from? It must be colder there. We’ll head that way next!” Pika’s voice grew higher and faster.

“The Nordic Iceplates. They’ve all melted away.”

Prince shoved both her and the penguin toward the Floatfences, toward the rocket whose loud countdown had begun.

“I do hope he apologized,” said Akoa. “I’ve few enough ribs as it is, without a runaway penguin breaking them!”

“Yes, yes, yes, he’s terribly sorry,” Prince rattled off. “And he’s offering up his back too.”

“What for?”

Prince pushed Akoa onto the penguin’s back. With a nudge from the hares, they slid straight toward the fences, though unsure if they’d make it through. He and Pika followed with great bounds.

When Apra was attacked during the Second Conflict, they’d built the Floatfences. These metal fences hung from tall pillars, leaving only a small opening at the bottom for smaller creatures, while keeping out all major threats. Even if it meant the apes themselves could no longer get out either.

This way, all of Aprania had become fragmented into blocked-off sections for safety, only allowing small prey animals to travel.

Prince’s fear proved true when the penguin smashed into the fence, getting stuck halfway through. Akoa gripped the mesh with her claws, trying to bend the gap into something bigger, but the Floatfences were built to withstand far greater dangers than a koala paw.

“Aaaah!”

Prince sped up, leapt, and curled up. Like a bowling ball, he hurtled toward the penguin, collided with his rear, and knocked him loose.

Groaning, the four slid underneath the Floatfences, but wasted not another second. Prince peered up. There must be entrances our size somewhere, he thought.

A thick shut gate gave access to the launch area. Akoa took her passcard and swiped it across a glass square, front, back, side, over and over until finally they heard a beep and the square turned green.

Steel stairs with mesh treads led up to a platform dozens of meters high. The whole area was gray, stripped of all trees and plants. Behind the rocket stood a small cabin, in which hundreds of multi-colored lights flickered between on and off.

The penguin slowly hopped up. Sometimes he slid back down a few steps. The hares would soon gain a huge lead if Akoa hadn’t grabbed Pika’s tail with her left claw, and Prince’s with her right. Like a much too heavy backpack, they lugged her along.

“Is there water in that thing?” asked the penguin. “Why are we going up?”

There was no time to respond. The rocket took off. The hares stood nearly at the top, twenty steps above Pinpin.

“Then fly!”

“If only I knew how!”

The penguin flapped his smooth black wings, but Prince instantly saw they were more akin the fins of a fish, useless for gaining air.

Prince reached the summit. Akoa and Pika followed. Pinpin would never make it in time.

The rocket slid past, shooting fiery plumes.

“Take cover!” Akoa yelled.

“What’d you say?” Pinpin yelled back.

The hares roughly seized him and duck into an opening, just before the flames would have burned them alive.

It was, however, no opening from the rocket.

It was a gap in the launch tower, from where they watched their ride seek the stars without them.

The opening in the tower turned out to be an exit. Prince immediately smelled that nasty scent of gas and combustion that flowed through the pipes. He wanted out, wanted fresh air, but the other side of the wall was just as bad.

Pinpin made the decision for him. He belly-slid through the round pipes, taking Pika with him. Akoa saw this as the perfect moment to nap and Prince used her back as his own vehicle.

They spiraled through the tower, ever downward, banging against metal walls at each sharp turn, and slowed by every gray cloud that flowed through the pipes.

Prince quickly grew nauseous and would have vomited if any food still sat in his stomach. He missed the moment when the tunnels ended.

Pinpin pushed a metal block with holes from the opening in the ventilation shaft. It fell to the floor with a loud clang, after which the group of four tumbled atop it, silencing the noise.

Prince gasped for breath. Clean air, clean air, I love you, he thought.

The space shone brightly but was otherwise empty. Prince stood first and looked upon dear Pika, sleepy Akoa, and clumsy Pinpin—a pitiful pile of animals who seemed ready to give up.

“Come on! We’ll search for the next rocket and when it departs.”

“Dear,” said Pika, “I want to leave. Now! Before any humans see us.”

“Yes, I know you do,” he said, irritated.

He pulled everyone to their feet and found a gate on the room’s far side. Akoa’s passcard opened it again, leading them outside.

“If you hadn’t dawdled so much,” Prince complained, “we would’ve made the rocket.”

“I didn’t dawdle. I looked for a better plan.”

“And by doing so you dawdled! Now we’re in even more trouble!”

They stomped across the area. Slowly, humans emerged from little gates and doors around the rocket base. They all wore the same white uniforms with blue stripes and looked to the sky, cheering on the rocket. It had nearly vanished into the blackened air.

It was only a small group, shrunk further when most boarded a windowless vehicle and departed. The animals could walk on, unseen, toward the cabin with the many lights.

They moved slowly, for the wind grow hot and sticky, sometimes sending gusts fierce enough enough to blow back Akoa’s ears. A storm approaches, Prince thought. That’s why the humans have all gone home. But then the next rocket could be a long wait.

The lighted building stood deserted as well. All still burned and beeped, with many screens full of symbols Prince recognized as their alphabet the humans had adopted and adapted. “Stolen and ruined,” Pika had said upon learning this.

The truth was that the apes had something to do with nearly every invention throughout their history. So perhaps the humans were right in this case, and the animal species had stolen and ruined their creations.

Inventions existed too, however, that all wished had gone extinct.

Behind a glass wall hung pistols and rifles, for emergencies. Most animals learned of these early, when they took a loved one’s life.

One of the screens displayed many colored dots. A circle steadily grew until it reached the edges and began anew, small. Each dot that met the circle made a sound, almost like his whistle, but shorter and higher.

Prince recognized the general shape but not what it represented. Most dots were white, green or blue, but at the rim he saw something more akin a red cross.

“Prince is right,” said Akoa in the silent space.

Pika hung her head guiltily. “I know we’re in trouble. So, new plan, let’s leave Raketa.”

“No, he’s right about your dawdling.” Akoa came to Prince’s side. “We could’ve easily made that rocket.”

“Oh sorry, lazy gray pouch bear, that I doubted the plan,” Pika shrieked. “Those humans see us as food! One wrong step and we’re done for!”

“And if we don’t find food soon, we’ll all die. So we’ll do anything to make the next rocket and go with the humans. We’ll beg them for food.”

Prince looked upon the starved animals and an angry Pika. “Or we help them somehow. I’m certain they’ll take care of us.”

Pika let out her deepest growl. Pinpin stood nervously between the two hares.

“What’d the koala say?” he asked gently.

“That they want to become best friends with humans,” Pika snapped.

Wings drooping, Pinpin waddled to Pika, picking her side.

He wrapped a wing around her but quickly retracted it. “Humans fished our seas empty and chased off my family.”

Prince regarded his partner, her dear eyes now furious. He stepped toward her, but she stepped back, looking away.

“I’m going back to the wild to fend for myself. Are you coming … dear?”

“I … I … I love you.”

“And I love you. What’s your answer?”

The door swung open. A young human woman entered as if wanting to run but unable to. The mumbles to herself slowly swelled into near shouts.

“Yeah, sure, go ask Mindy. She’s just an intern. No, you don’t need to pay her. She’ll work overtime for the experience. Max five hundred beings per rocket? Or it definitely won’t lift off? A rule we’ve used for a hundred years? Go whine to Mindy, as if she can change it!”

She finally noticed the animals and yelled as if to reach all of Aprania with her voice.

Pinpin immediately slid for the doorway. The woman dove down, hands outstretched, but Pinpin was too slick to grab.

Pika hesitated, then gently bit his tail to slide along until, outside the cabin, they fled at full speed toward the Floatfences.

“Pika!” Prince called, knowing it was futile. The woman spread her legs and arms to appear as large as possible. Her uniform hung loose, lab coat unbuttoned and weighed down by pens and papers clipped inside.

For several heartbeats, the room froze, no muscle moving, no light changing.

Then Mindy crouched. “Ho does such vermin get on campus?”

She frowned and picked with her fingers at Akoa’s fur, who even now fell asleep.

“Mice, rats, okay, fine. Small, hard to see, hard to catch. But a big old koala and a hare?” Her voice cracked. From it, Prince felt not fear but bewilderment.

She stood behind the animals and waved toward the doorway—the universal human gesture for please go the other way.

“She’s sleeping, you must wait,” said Prince.

Mindy frowned again. She pulled a black rectangular device from her pocket and shoved it nearly up his nose.

“Hey, cute bunny, make that sound again.”

Prince knew it sounded to her ears like a whistled melody. He saw Akoa awaken and wanted to flee—

When he remembered what the screen’s dots signified.

The shape onscreen was a world map. The red crosses looked just like the symbols used in the Second Conflict. The symbols you still find today, as warning signs, in places where all life has been extinguished.

Someone had fired Kran’s weapons.

The kind of rocket that did not seek a new planet, but the utter destruction of the current one.

He bit into Mindy’s pants and pulled her along.

“Hey! Let’s not get grabby!”

She picked him up. He thrashed to get out of her grip and ran across the long table of lights and buttons, accidentally turning on the radio, opening all the windows, and automatically retracting the room’s chairs.

Mindy slammed the buttons with similar fervor to limit the damage.

Prince leapt atop the screen and tapped with his foot at the red crosses. Yes, that’s the symbol of Kran! Some complete idiot has fired their weapon. We’ll all die! We must flee NOW!

Even Akoa understood she had to stay awake for this. The woman grabbed a broom and tried sweeping the koala outside, but she took hold of the stick like it was a tree trunk again, climbing until she lay against the woman’s belly like a baby.

With one finger she pointed at Prince.

He pointed with one paw at the red cross.

Mindy’s mouth fell open.

She stumbled to the screen, leaning over it, long curling locks like curtains across the dots, as if she didn’t want to look.

She did something with her black device, which beeped on every touch, then brought it her left ear.

“It’s Lindy. Uh, Masy. No, Mindy, intern at Raketa. The …”

She swallowed and dropped her device, but Akoa deftly caught it. She bent forward to be sure the receiver understood.

Unnecessary, for she screamed her message in blind panic: “Kran’s weapons have been fired! At us!”

Pika looked back, but Prince did not follow. He was carried from the cabin by a human woman. Two vehicles landed nearby, shaped like fish with spinning wings atop their heads.

The woman took her partner through a side opening, then shut the hatch. Pika watched them ascend rapidly, blending into the blackened sky.

She cried again without tears. He’s in human hands now, she thought. It’s a miracle if I see him again. Why did I do this?

But she knew why. Otherwise they’d both be done for, captured or killed, and she preferred to roam alive and free among the trees.

A forest began some ways behind Raketa, but the trees were charred black by many fires and the ground felt like hot coals. Pika and Pinpin leapt from one bare patch to the next until finding a stone path that felt cooler underfoot.

“No, we must get off the path,” Pika said after a few hops. “It’s made by humans, it leads to humans.”

“It’s also the only way through these woods,” said Pinpin. “Pika, as soon as we see humans we’ll get off. But as the Florisian Faith used to say: Let’s not fear the monster whose presence lacks.”

Pika conceded and walked the stones beside him. After some twists, the path turned into alternating straight stretches and perfectly symmetrical bends—just as only humans would create. With each step Pika grew more uneasy.

“Why do they do this?” Pika asked the darkness.

Pinpin scratched his head with a wing. “Do what exactly? Build this path? Put lights on everything?”

“No, why do they attack and destroy nature?”

“If only I knew.”

A light burned far ahead. From here, Pika couldn’t tell if it was another star—finally water and food—or one of those silly human light spheres. Emboldened by their rumbling bellies, they hopped toward it anyway.

The wind helped too. By now it had reached storm speeds, blowing at their backs. Pika hoped it also carried heavy rains.

“But it’s nothing new,” said Pinpin. “The First and Second Conflicts happened before humans existed. Penguins descend from the Owls who fled and luckily reached the Iceplates. If the Wise Owl hadn’t stayed behind, we might’ve had even more devastating conflicts.”

Pika squinted her eyes. “It’s not the same. In the past you died when a hungry lion charged and you weren’t fast enough. A fair fight. Humans have plenty of food and drink, yet they make things just for fun that blow up half the world.”

“I don’t think they take pleasure in it,” said Pinpin sadly. “They’re still animals, like us. The monster doesn’t see themselves as the monster. That doesn’t make it less terrible.”

Pika didn’t understand. That woman in the white coat carried her partner as if he were her baby. She could’ve stomped him. She could’ve caged him. But he still lived and was taken along. The humans must have something even worse planned for him!

She looked back. Raketa was invisible now. Deep inside, she might want to return—to hold Prince tight and drag him away—but it was too late. One day those humans will pay for what they’ve done, she thought.

Withered leaves whipped their faces as they took the path’s next bend. The light revealed its true nature: not a star, but a stone house surrounded and covered by metal spikes as if it were a porcupine.

It thundered overhead. That’s not that odd during a brewing storm.

It is odd when, right after the thunder, fiery metal objects fall in a ring around you.

“That last rocket exploded too!” Pinpin yelled.

“Good thing we missed it. You’re welcome, Prince!” Pika shouted to the sky.

She couldn’t relish her victory long, as for the umpteenth time, they ran for their lives with ever decreasing energy.

A curved metal ball struck the house’s roof, knocking off some spikes. An elongated metal tube pierced a shed in the front lawn like an angry spear tossed by god.

Pinpin and Pika jumped off the path. They recoiled from the hot ground, but still hopped onto the lawn grass. The crooked wooden fences had plenty of gaps to squirm through.

The green carpet made Pika’s paws feel like they floated or walked through a dream. She pinched the blades to ensure they wouldn’t vanish. Pinpin slid a long way, leaving a trail of flattened grass behind.

This grass looked sickly too, yellowed and bent at odd angles, but Pika no longer cared. She nibbled every bit she found. Her throat was raw and turned every flavor into the same bitterness, yet she kept eating, feeling stronger with each bite.

“Why don’t you eat grass?” she asked Pinpin, mouth full.

“If only I knew. I can’t eat plants, I need tiny fish.” He let his wings droop. “Those don’t live in the grass. Oh, and there’s a second reason.”

Pika looked at him. “What?”

“Bird!”

Two orange talons with long black claws dove at them. The left grabbed Pinpin, but his slippery body slid free. Pika pulled him to the fence, but the bird landed and cut them off.

“Which way now?” she whispered.

“There’s no cover. Except inside the hou—”

“We are NOT going in.”

The bird flattened all grass with one mighty wingbeat and lunged at them. Pika jumped high enough for the beak to pass underneath her paws.

She whistled as loud as she could. An alarm call all hares would recognize, though she doubted any others still lived.

Pinpin flapped his wings. The bird thought he would fly too and shot upward itself. When the penguin didn’t rise one bit, their attacker peered down confused. They dangled in a taut net, nearly invisible, strung across the lawn.

“Run!”

Pika and Pinpin slithered through the grass like snakes. They made dozens of trails, toppling more obstacles in the yard, until they’d silently decided to exit left.

The bird tore free and circled overhead. It was gigantic, able to grab them both in one claw, yet tough to see with its black wings against the black sky. It dove again at its prey.

A blast. Smoke from the house. The bird shrieked, forgot how its wings worked, and crashed into the front lawn. It lay still in the grass that reddened around it.

“Blasted giant beasts,” a male human voice grumbled. “Wreck my whole roof, can’t even hear the TV.”

The door opened. Pika and Pinpin rolled to the side wall, through the grass. The man used a broom that seemed infinitely long to push the bird further out his yard. He never stepped through the doorway himself.

The slamming door shook all walls.

“On second thought,” Pinpin whispered, “let’s NOT go inside.”

Pika climbed atop his head to peer through an open window.

“Maybe I can steal some food this way,” she whispered.

The man listened to a sound box.

“Attention! Warning! Attention! The ministry reports Kran’s weapons have been fired at Aprania. Leave your home immediately and proceed to the nearest base.”

The man frowned. He wore loose colored clothing, full of holes revealing underwear. A long gray beard served as a jungle for flies. He watched another screen much like those devices at the rocket base.

“Nonsense,” he grumbled. “Fake news. Always fake news. My radar shows empty, safe skies.”

He held up one finger. “Oh! Don’t forget.”

He shifted some knobs on his sound box and held a black ball to his mouth—a microphone.

“Welcome to the Wind Warden, your reliable weatherman for all of Aprania! It’s August 29th and it looks to be a lovely day.”

With sideways glances, he monitored the many dials and gauges covering his walls. “We expect … nothing really! No rain, no storms, no funny business. Sunshine abounds—”

His fingers tapped the glass of a rusted device. “—well, as long as you live several kilometers high. Have a wonderful day, this was your Wind Warden, Aliber Woodduty.”

Humans really are dumb, Pika thought. A fierce storm nears, Kran’s weapons come, yet he stays put in his shack.

He’d saved them. But by accident, shooting a beast from behind his window—like a coward.

“Shouldn’t we warn him?” said Pinpin as they walked away.

Pika didn’t even respond. Her gaze already sought the next star, one they’d best find quickly.

Prince didn’t mind the helicopter ride, as Mindy had given him and Akoa a mound of leaves to munch. Good thing too, or he’d have seen how high they flew and fainted in a panic.

Akoa, of course, had no such issues. Mindy repeatedly shoved her sleeping body off herself, glaring all the while.

The ride was very short; the Kran weapons would also arrive soon. He missed Pika and had accidentally given Mindy’s hands several kisses already. See, Pika. Humans aren’t so bad. They’ve learned from their mistakes and won’t blindly fire back.

It was a shame Prince and Akoa had to stay caged inside the ministry. This was made worse when the prime minister grumpily shoved them aside, calling them beasts. Until it reached its worst of all when he began:

“There is but one response. We fire all our weapons too.”

“To what end, Goettot?”

Judging by the many medals and weapons adorning him, Prince deduced this was the military advisor. “Better to save our own people than punish others for something with which they likely weren’t involved.”

“Kran’s laws are clear,” Goettot shouted. He had a round face with small gray eyes above a broad nose. “No one fires them, because then the rest will fire back, and the whole planet dies.”

“Yet they’ve been fired. We’re past laws now.”

“The decision is made!” Goettot turned red. “Listen to your prime minister.”

Mindy nervously picked at her nails under the table. She felt entirely misplaced amidst the ornate chairs and heavily decorated room. This was the country’s most important building. She was an intern.

The news was so shocking, however, that this meeting had been hastily called, violating virtually every law in order to quickly reach a decision.

Prince and Akoa sat in the cage next to her. They stuck their paws through the bars. Mindy pushed them back in. “You’ve had plenty to eat, greedy little beasts,” she whispered.

The adviser sought her attention. “Mindy, was it?”

She nodded a good twenty times, eyes wide. The advisor sighed deeply. “You’re certain of what you saw?”

“Your colleagues saw it too, when they picked us up.”

“And you’re sure all the radar devices work correctly? That those … animals didn’t mess with it?”

“Get those beasts off the table,” Goettot grumbled. “Why are they here? What are you doing here? Are we to be led by foolish interns without any degree? Has the country come to this?”

Mindy swallowed. “They pointed me to the screen.”

“You imagined that, young lady.” Forms were shoved before Goettot him and he signed them. A group of three ministers were sent away to retrieve the launch codes for Kran.

“I can be a bit of a daydreamer, I admit. And my head’s as messy as my hair, but—”

“Speak clearly and speak quickly.”

Mindy stilled her hands and placed them on the table. “I’m certain. They pulled me to the screen and pointed out the exact red cross.”

“So what?” Goettot had stood up. His pen ran out of ink. Mindy immediately offered him one of her thirty pens.

Prince heard a grinding sound, coming from all directions. It was soft and sounded like the whole room slid across sand. The weapons haven’t been activated already, have they? he thought. It would mean Somnia’s end. Can I still stop this?

“These are clearly intelligent beings.” Mindy lifted the cage roughly, flipping Prince upside down. “We can use them for warnings in future. We must run tests. What happens if you feed them human food? How do they respond to pain or danger? How to get more information from them? How—”

Prince whistled as loud as he could. Akoa awoke with a start, saw the situation, and grabbed a pen from the table.

Behind the scowling Goettot, three thick walls slid down. The sound was almost like the grinding noise that now drove Prince mad, but not quite.

A red button gleamed atop a raised platform in an otherwise empty gray room. Akoa had finished writing something on a sheet. Mindy picked it up and frowned.

“What’s this?” Prince asked. “Koala talk?”

“Koalish, of course. The only language all smart animals understand.”

“Really?”

Akoa laughed. “Of course not! Only koalas speak Koalese.”

Prince growled. He tugged the pen from her paws with his teeth. He’d never tried writing anything to the humans before. But he could understand them, mostly, so maybe this worked both ways.

Goettot hurried to the red button. His footsteps left a trail of sand. Alarms sounded all through the building and the room itself flashed red.

Too little time for more, Prince thought, sliding the sheet forward.

Mindy’s mouth fell open. The advisor stood behind her, also reading.

“I don’t know what this symbol means,” he mumbled. “And that word doesn’t exist. But if this is …”

“I take no joy in it,” said Goettot, still red-faced and puffed up. “But if we do nothing now, they’ll learn they can bombard us without consequences. Kran’s weapons show strength, power, resilience, and—”

“I understand, prime minister.” The advisor also rushed into the room, but was stopped by guards. Goettot alone could enter, his fingerprint the only one that worked. “But what does it matter if they bomb Aprania … if we’re all gone?”

Goettot froze, hand above the button. “What?”

“We have enough rockets spread across Aprania, especially in Raketa. We can ready them and have everyone flee.”

“The rockets are exploding left and right!”

The advisor punched two guards in the face and stepped beside Goettot. “The survival of most is better than the death of all!”

“Guards! Remove this man.”

He was dragged out by hands and feet. Prince and Akoa busted open the bars and ran along the table. Mindy grabbed Akoa.

Not to restrain her—to hug her. Her voice was soft and squeaky, like a baby after crying for hours. “Farewell world, I suppose.”

Prince used the slumping military advisor as a springboard to leap over the guards.

That proved unnecessary.

The guards shut their eyes one by one and collapsed. Goettot’s hand was shoved away by a sandy fist, before he toppled forward, embracing the platform asleep.

The sand grains melted and twisted until forming a figure. It surveyed the room briefly, became a hare for a moment, then settled on a human shape.

The advisor stumbled backward. “This room plays with my mind. It’s cursed. Cursed!”

“Hmpf! I’m Claes the Sand King and have just saved your world, no thanks needed, no thanks at all.”

He walked around the table, pointing to Akoa. “You may thank the koalas. All my time gets sucked up by these odd creatures who do almost nothing but sleep all day. That led me to you.”

Oddly, Akoa stayed awake at his touch. “Say, do me a favor and stay slightly more awake. Since the air blackened the whole world has a sleep issue and depression, so if you could just cooperate? Please?”

Mindy’s fingers sought pen and paper. “B-b-but you’re sand. You live. And you’re sand. And you talk. How does that work? Can you explain?”

“Magic.” Claes sprinkled sand like confetti, as if this were a child’s birthday party. The playacting ceased rapidly. “If you weren’t so stupid as to attack the gods, they might have explained it to you.”

He turned to the advisor, who tried to remain calm and collected. Back perfectly straight, he stood in the room’s center. When Claes extended a hand, however, he swiftly drew a weapon.

“Are you able to execute the plan?” Claes asked with his mouth down-turned, as if annoyed that the advisor didn’t realize bullets couldn’t kill sand. “Ready all the space rockets and flee with everyone?”

“Yes. Yes, I have that authority. But why—”

“Do it.”

All hope for sunshine and food seemed lost when humans hurriedly launched all their rockets. Pika was glad they were leaving. Currently, however, she would die before enjoying a world without humans.

Typical, she thought. Even when humans do something good, they do it in the most annoying way.

The further she traveled with Pinpin, the more she longed for that front yard with grass, for sitting safely inside with enough to eat. As her hunger and thirst grew, the wind warden’s cottage transformed in her mind from nightmare to dream. Dizzy and delirious, she saw little else in her world.

Pinpin held up better, but even he could only shuffle along. In the beginning they still ran, cheering each other on, cracking jokes. Now Pika felt in her bones that they silently walked towards their death.

She would have cried, if she still could. I’m so sorry, Prince, she told herself. We should have stayed together. Now you’re stuck in one of those rockets. You have your bright future, and I have …

Her legs gave out. Lying flat on the hard dark ground, she had no intention of moving again.

“Come on, Pika. We’ll find food somewhere.” Pinpin had eaten even less than her, yet still—

The grass was poisonous, she was certain of it now. Thought it tasted strange. Humans spray poison everywhere.

“Where?” she whispered. “Where is the food?”

“If only I knew.” Pinpin wrapped his wing around her. “Let’s head back to that cottage, okay? At least we have a chance there.”

The storm raged at full force. The wind blew at their backs; walking against it would be twice as hard. Pika shook her head and scraped her whiskers through the dirt.

“Go on without me. I can’t do it anymore. I won’t die in a human’s arms, but, but, but as a free animal in nature.”

Pinpin stayed silent. “And then what? You’ve let one human know you’re angry and proud? Does that mean you’ve … won?”

His wing curled under her belly and lifted her up a bit. “I get it. When the humans came in their boats and took all our fish in one swoop, scattering my family, I refused to cooperate. Researchers came onto the ice. As they set up equipment and weighed us, they also provided care and food. I refused to eat it. I refused to be touched by a human. It felt like I was showing how strong and powerful I was!”

He pulled Pika until she had no choice but to stand on her hind legs again. “And now look at me. My family gets food every day, and I’m nearly dying in the dark. I’ve won my imaginary war against humans … while losing everything else. If you go, I’ll be completely alone.”

They watched another rocket launch skyward. None had exploded so far. The only loud bangs came from collisions with other debris aloft.

In the distance, like the tiniest star you only saw if you looked for it, was a red dot. Kran’s weapons were coming, and coming fast, whether you believed the humans or not.

Pinpin stood tall and pulled Pika along. “I think I’d rather die in someone’s arms, human or not.”

He’s right, Pika thought. She didn’t want to think it. She wanted to squash the thought and stick it out until the end. She wanted to lie here and wait for Prince to return with food and cuddles.

When Pinpin walked away, however, she found herself back on her feet.

“Prince! I’m coming!” she yelled.

The wind whipped her fur straight back. She didn’t dare leap anymore, for once airborne she would blow away, so she crawled and slid forward. Pinpin stood before her like a windbreak, but the longer they went, the more he hunkered down.

The cottage lights were a new star. They blurred into a hazy smear amidst the leaves and dust swirling through the gusts.

They gave a direction. They gave a goal.

And so they crept on, centimeter by centimeter, from tear to tear, and with each painful step Pika tried to think of Prince.

They would be let into the cottage. They would convince that man to board a rocket. There they would find Prince–and everything would be okay.

Everything will be okay, she repeated in her mind, each time the wind pushed her back, each time her front paw gave out again.

With the fence posts in sight, they squeezed out one last sprint. At the final moment, the wind redoubled its efforts against them.

Pinpin grabbed the wood. Pika bit his tail.

Like a flag they, flapped in the wind, horizontal and ungrounded. It took all his strength just to hold the fence. They weren’t getting closer, but letting go meant they’d blow away, into the sky, lost forever.

Pika stretched her neck and arched her back, as if squeezed by human hands, and whistled: eeeeeeep.

It was a short sound. Barely audible over the howling wind.

She eeped again. And again. Louder and louder, until her jaws were too tired to open anymore.

There must be more whistling hares, she told herself. There must be. Life finds a way to survive. And they will come. And we’ll be together. And a human wouldn’t attack fifty whistling hares, right? That’s too many, right?

Her courage drained from her paws. But … why would they help me, when I never want to help anyone else?

Maybe it was hope, maybe it was luck, but they held on long enough for the storm to die down slightly.

They fell to the ground and slid along the fence, through the grass, towards the now-closed window.

Aliber sat on the couch, facing away from the window, towards a screen. He seemed relaxed and perhaps even sleeping, while his rifle lay next to him. Pinpin tapped the glass with his wing. It sounded like a sponge hitting the wall, but Aliber startled and looked over.

He shuffled to the window and bent down, his eyes level with Pika’s, his face terrifyingly huge.

Pinpin tried to smile. Pika tried not to fall over dead.

Aliber shrugged and walked back to the couch. But he kept going and opened a white cabinet in which a light suddenly turned on. When he returned, he opened the window a crack and slid some food through the opening: nuts for Pika and fish for Pinpin.

The wind rattled the window. Aliber felt the breeze with his hand and walked to his screen.

“Still perfect weather predicted. And I see those weapons from Kran nowhere.” He turned and waved his hands. Yes yes, the gesture that animals should please go away, thought Pika.

A gust swung the window fully open. The animals tumbled over the sill and landed inside.

“I’ll give you a little more food, but after that you go. Okay? Deal?”

The last morsels were greedily snatched from the floor. Pika immediately crawled under the table. Pinpin tried to follow but was too big, so he flopped down and slipped under a cabinet.

“What are you doing?”

His ears perked up. Pika didn’t know humans could still do that. And Aliber apparently didn’t either, because he put his hands over them as if he had a disease and his ears no longer worked.

“Animals only hide under things when …” Aliber tapped his fingers on all his screens. “But all my devices and meters say nothing is wrong. So nothing is wrong. Nothing—is—wrong, calm down.”

Dozens of whistling hares raced through the window, like a hundred squealing tires braking on a highway,

“Aaah!”

Aliber instinctively grabbed for his rifle, but Pinpin had already dragged it under the cabinet. With his hands in his greasy hair, he watched the whistling hares hide throughout his house, a lucky few even in his fridge.

“What’s happening? What is this—”

A whistling hare hopped inside holding something his mouth. A metal rod. Wires coiled around it, throwing off sparks, and tufts of feathers stuck to the sharp edges.

“My monitoring equipment! You destroyed it!”

Aliber ran to the window and stuck his head outside. His beard blew over his head, like a hat, finally free of flies. He ducked back in and closed the window before a thick branch burst through.

Pika was surrounded by dozens of whistling hares nuzzling against her. A few spat out the food from their mouths before her. She showed her gratitude by nuzzling back, warmly. I accidentally helped them, she thought. By opening a window and whistling for them to come here.

I can help this human too. And now I know how to send the message, she thought.

She crawled out from under the table and jumped on the many screens. Aliber swung his broom at her, but she caught it in her teeth. He shrieked and let go.

She spun the broom around until it looked like a rocket, mimicked the sound of fire as best she could, and slowly lifted the broom handle upwards. Other whistling hares helped by making the same sound and bracing the broom with their heads. They had to repeat it three times before Aliber understood.

He looked outside and saw, through the whirlwinds, the array of rocket launches.

“Everyone’s leaving,” he mumbled. “Kran’s weapons are real after all. And I wasted a whole day watching TV.”

Pika dropped the broom. It was now or never. She pushed herself under his hand and looked up as sweetly as she could.

“You wanted to warn me,” he whispered. His fingers stroked her fur. It wasn’t Prince, not by a long stretch, but it was better than nothing. His fridge had been raided and Pinpin discovered how to turn on the faucet.

Wrinkles and a smile formed on Aliber’s face. “Do you think … they’ll allow it if I say I have thirty pets?”

Prince should have been overjoyed. Mindy would take him to a rocket and everyone would flee to a better place. But without Pika, he didn’t know what he would do in that new place.

He and Akoa stood on a table, unchained. They were back in the room with the many blinking lights, which flashed even more chaotically now as rockets regularly took off.

The storm raged at full force, weather reports said. Humans had adapted to the new climate, however, by placing huge windbreaks around important places. This made it seem as if the rocket base had lovely weather.

Crowds of humans shuffled through the gates, in a neat line. They were directed by agents that frantically pointed towards the right rocket.

It finally started raining. Just as relentlessly hard and long as Prince had expected. The rocket base had a roof, but of course that had to stay open now.

Giant fans blew the rain away like an umbrella of air. Half were out of commission and the other half mainly ensured one group of people got the full barrage.

Children stomped in the puddles before inevitably being pulled back by mother’s hands. The adults complained about every drop, but everyone appreciated the cooling relief from the endless sticky heat.

Akoa had jumped onto someone’s back, who Mindy called her “colleague”, and let herself be carried outside. By the time the poor boy realized he was being used as a tree trunk, Akoa had already collected six new objects for her pouch.

Prince also considered going outside to drink some drops, but then Mindy finally returned. She placed a cage on the table and opened the door.

“I was scared you might not return!”

Prince cried enthusiastically, which still sounded like whistling to Mindy. He happily hopped into the cage. Akoa stayed put. Mindy laughed about it, but didn’t try to get him in, leaving the door open.

“You can still walk around a bit,” she said. She smiled and Prince tried to smile back.

“But soon the researchers will come to take you away, so you’ll need to be in the cage then!”

“Pardon?”

Prince waited for an answer. Akoa tugged at her lab coat. Mindy looked as if she understood the animals and sighed as she fell into the armchair next to the table.

“I’m not boarding a rocket, my dears.”

Someone called her name. She turned the chair, checked a screen, then nudged exactly the right button to make the other person happy.

“People need to stay behind to press the button. To wait until all rockets are safely in space, clean up afterwards, and arrange news or repairs from here. That’s my job.”

Her eyes searched the room, while her fingers played with a pen. “Along with the other four interns. And the janitor. And the part-time guards. Even though we don’t get paid and Goettot still doesn’t know my name.”

She’s going to deliver me to … researchers, Prince thought. They’ll put things in me. Or attach them to me. Pull me apart.

He jumped out of the cage, but Akoa blocked the opening. Mindy took it as a sign and pushed the koala further inside so she could close the cage.

Meanwhile, two more rockets had departed. Mindy watched them go with longing in her eyes.

“I don’t know, really. Do I want to spend the next forty years in one of those rockets? Are they comfortable? What if they only have gross food on board? What if my neighbor stinks? Then I’d rather be remembered as one of the heroic ones who stayed behind.”

Prince pressed his nose gainst the bars until his front teeth poked out. Mindy stuck a pen between them and laid out some paper.

She was called on again, more grumpily this time. She ran through the room, turning increasingly large dials. Until she held one and said something over a loudspeaker that echoed across the entire complex, but was probably understood by no one amidst the chaos.

In the meantime, Prince wrote his message. Writing with a pen crooked between your teeth was slow. By the time Mindy returned, two more rockets had taken off and only a few symbols were on the paper. A drawing of Mindy’s face, a rocket, and an arrow from the first to the second.

Mindy frowned. “Who’s that face with the weird hair and—oh, that’s me. You think I should go?”

Akoa squished Prince in the cage and nodded. Mindy looked over her shoulder. Everyone was busy guiding this massive unexpected operation. It was a miracle they had warned so many people and activated all the rocket platforms of Raketa. Both here and at all the other rocket bases in Aprania.

She slapped her pen against the tabletop, repeatedly, then put it back with the rest.

“Even if I stay behind, Goettot will probably pretend I didn’t exist. Like I was worthless. Just a young intern. I’m sure they can find another unpaid hand to push a button, right? Right?”

Mindy picked up the cage and walked quickly and confidently towards the exit. Someone called her name, but she pretended not to hear.

“But I don’t have a ticket,” she whispered once outside. “And the staff knows my face. So we’ll have to find another way.”

She looked over her shoulder and missed the person right in front of her. She collided between her and an older man in gray long robes, though the cage took the brunt of the collision. Prince and Akoa were squished even more.

“Sorry!”

“My apologies, young lady. I was walking towards you to ask a question, but got distracted by that peculiar cage in your hands. Your pets, I presume? Which rocket are you taking?”

“Oh, god, no, I just met them.” Mindy held up the cage. The man removed his black hat and pressed his nose to Akoa’s. “And I’m not taking a rocket—uh, I mean, rocket—uh—seven?”

The man laughed heartily. “That one just departed. Did you perhaps mean …”

“Seventeen. Yes, that’s what I said, seventeen. And these animals are my—uh—friends’ pets.”

But Prince saw the panic in Mindy’s eyes as she realized this base only had sixteen platforms.

The man held up a shiny passcard. “Young lady, you do not have a ticket for a rocket. I do.”

He placed the pass in her hand, while his other hand gripped the cage handle. “I’m willing to give this to you, in exchange for that cage with the animals inside.”

“What—why—are you a veterinarian? A researcher?”

“You could say that. The animals are in safe hands, believe me.”

But Prince did not believe him. The truth lingered in people’s eyes. Mindy looked at the animals and her eyes showed kindness and curiosity. The man glanced half a second, narrowed his gaze, then paid no more attention to Prince.

“He’s lying! Don’t give us away!”

Prince pulled Mindy’s clothes, but she didn’t feel it. Her attention wavered between the ticket and the towering rocket piercing a hole in the black sky.

“I just don’t know if I want to spend the rest of my life in that steel cage. I could be eighty before we find the first habitable planet. Eighty! Four times my age!”

“Ah, my dear, you already live in a cage.” The man rummaged in his deep, full pockets. “You can’t go anywhere without encountering fences and gates. The black sky makes the world unlivable, except for those small patches where humans make a great effort.”

A large, brown sack of gold coins was placed atop the ticket. Raindrops had already soaked everyone and immediately discolored the bag.

Prince had the sinking feeling that he was defeated. That Pika, sweet Pika, might have been right—just a little bit—after all.

“Learn this wise life lesson. lady, from an old man who has seen much. Life is not about getting out of your cage. Life is fighting for the cage that fits you best.”

The base slowly emptied. Only four rockets remained. A voice echoed across the complex: “Thirty minutes until impact of Kran’s weapons. Thirty minutes until impact.”

Mindy grabbed the ticket and money sack.

The man took the cage.

“I wish you a nice journey and hope you live five times your age!” He speeded into the darkness, the animals rolling around the shaking cage.

In the flashes Prince saw, he noticed Mindy still hadn’t moved from her spot.

As the final rockets departed, he cursed his own trust in humans. He was going further and further from where he belonged. A loud, long whistle was his final call.

Mindy had always thought she was chaotic but smart, logical, and scientific. Ten steps from the rocket entrance, she discovered this was a lie and that people do the dumbest things when under pressure.

Who in heaven’s name would give away their ticket when they know the whole country is destroyed in half an hour? she thought. Is he crazy? Or am I?

Behind her, dozens of people were punching each other.

“I’m not boarding with a filthy Juraad!”

“What have we ever done to you?”

“Go live in a hole in the ground, where you belong.”

“Oh really? Because of the color of my—”

Mindy heard a slap, a scream, and walked with hands over ears towards the line for the other rocket. She could surely come up with some fib about why the number on her ticket was wrong.

And who still has gold coins? she thought. Only the highest ministers of a couple countries, I think. We’ve paid digitally for centuries. But the man was old, maybe he had something left over from the past.

She knew the animals were special, but he couldn’t know that. She pictured them again, the cute little faces of the rabbit and koala.

“What am I doing?” she said aloud. “Those animals are proof of a whole intelligent world about which we don’t know.”

Like a rain-soaked stray cat between two rockets, she changed her plan. I doubted my cage for years. We didn’t even give nature a choice. Yes, they’ll talk about me, as the only human who stood up for what’s right.

“Wait!”

She ran to the gate the man had walked through. Out there it was instantly pitch dark and she tripped over a thick branch. She grabbed her cell phone to shine some light.

Deep footprints stood in the wet mud. She followed the trail until she didn’t need her flashlight anymore.

The man stood next to a well-lit helicopter, loading a pile of cages and other items.

“Wait!” she yelled again.

The man looked up but didn’t stop his work.

“A deal’s a deal!”

He turned around. Wwhen Mindy got too close, he pulled a pistol that was hidden on his back.

The next rocket launched. Here, outside, there was less protection from the storm and Mindy felt her clothes choking her like a noose. Every sentence had to be shouted, even now, standing just a couple meters apart.

She threw back the ticket—a waterproof passcard—and the money. “I don’t need it. Give me the animals.”

“I’m not the sort to waste the lives of pretty young ladies. But stay here and you leave me no choice.”

Mindy didn’t know what to say. She was drenched by rain and had to stay upright with the help of a small, weak tree. The pistol aimed at her face. However scared she felt now, animals must feel just as scared when hunted.

An all-terrain vehicle tore across the field with squealing tires. No, she thought. Not squealing tires, squealing rabbits! Thee cute little heads of countless beasts poked out all around.

The vehicle crashed into the helicopter.

One of the rear blades flew off and sliced through the roof like a sword.

A long gray beard hung from the window. “What idiot parks a helicopter here? Cursed people! Ruining the roof of your car.”

Mindy used the distraction to grab the cage with Prince and Akeo inside. By the time the man noticed, she entered the vehicle on the other side.

“And who might you be, young lady?”

Aliber stomped his foot on the pedal and shot away. Bullets left dents in the rear doors.

“I’m the intern they should have paid better.”

She pressed the cage to her chest as if it were a baby in need of warmth and love. Prince tried to peek past her to see if Pika was in the backseat.

As raindrops noisily splattered the windshield, they raced towards the lights of the base.

Aliber spoke with a deceptive calmness. “Did I correctly see that you threw away your ticket just now?”

“Erm—do you happen to have two?”

“I have zero.”

Mindy sat upright with mouth agape. “Oh gods, I’m stupid, I’m stupid, I just entered the car of my kidnapper, I’m so—”

“What? I am no kidnapper! I am … lazy and unprepared.”

The car turned sharply. They both grabbed a handle on the ceiling to prevent falling out of the car.

“Without a warning from the animals,” he said, “I’d still be in bed, dreaming of blue skies.”

The gate of Raketa arrived sooner than expected. In a rain of sparks and scraping metal, they burst through it and drove straight into the crowds on the terrain.

“Well, it’s not called an all-terrain vehicle for nothing,” Aliber mumbled.

Two rockets remained. Too few staff, however, remained to care about the careening auto: they didn’t even see it. Similarly, there weren’t even enough people to run into.

Mindy slammed the brakes a hundred meters from the rockets. She looked at Aliber’s long rain-soaked coat, then her own oversized lab coat.

A few minutes later, two people walked towards the rockets: a gray-bearded man and a disheveled young lady, both with exceptionally broad and full upper bodies hidden by coats.

Two whistling hares popped up above Mindy’s collar. She blew out her nose, trying to push the beasts back down, but it didn’t fit.

“Ticket?” a guard asked. The boy was her age and didn’t take long to recognize her rain-soaked face, despite the body that made no sense from any angle. “Mindy! We were looking for you! What are you doing here?”

“Well, uh, this is my …”

“Father. And she’s coming on my ticket.”

“But … but I thought we would, you know, push the button together and stay behind and …”

“Oh, well, sheesh, hmm, come on now.” Aliber used every short word he knew. “Young love, ain’t it true? But eventually we must—”

The boy’s face hardened. “—show a valid ticket for each.”

“Three minutes until Kran’s weapons,” the speaker repeated. “One minute until final rocket launch.”

Mindy and Aliber looked at each other. The boy turned around and started closing the rocket doors. Mindy grabbed his wrist. “Please, we worked together for years, please.”

“Rules are rules, something you apparently don’t understand.” He poked and prodded the many lumps in Mindy’s coat with his finger.

To everyone’s surprise, a gray paw shot up, with a black five-fingered hand that looked quite human but wasn’t.

Akoa’s hand held two passcards.

Mindy laughed. She took one, Aliber took the other.

“I’d like to board my rocket now.”

But a voice called from behind the door. “We only have room for one extra passenger. More than that and the system simply won’t let us launch.”

Mindy didn’t hesitate. She pushed Aliber forward and ran to the bridge between the platforms, towards the second rocket.

Left and right, animals tumbled from her coat. She had no time to look back. No time to look down and risk vertigo.

Eyes only for those rocket doors.

The countdown had already begun.

A penguin jumped out ahead of her and slid across the ground. Groups of rabbits used him as a raft over the slick metal pipes. Mindy had to join in and grabbed his tail.

Below her, the boy yelled for her to be stopped.

They slid through the doors. They shut, pinching Mindy’s shoes. She untied the laces and got away before her shoes were crushed.

The last two rockets launched, like twin spears thrown simultaneously by a strong god.

The previous rockets had already poked holes in the black sky. The world below already received more sunshine than it had in centuries.

It could enjoy a minute of it before Kran’s weapons came.

When they finally rose above the clouds, above the world of endless gloom, Mindy only had eyes for one thing.

Her whistling hare, who placed his paw against the windowpane. And another whistling hare, across from him in the other rocket, who responded by placing her own paw against the glass.

It didn’t take long before everyone realized they had fooled. When Kran’s weapons struck, they should have seen an explosion, a mushroom cloud of smoke and fire, maybe even heard the noise from afar

Instead, there was … nothing.

While the rockets still had a connection, they could view the surveillance cameras. There was nothing to see and the entire rocket base still looked intact.

Once further from the planet, they sent space probes to take photos. Those also found an Aprania without damage, but with sunshine and more green nature than before.

The people shouted for them to turn around. The people didn’t understand how spacecraft worked.

Once out of the atmosphere, there was no air to slow them down. As the famous scientist Valton said: As long as no new force acts on an object, it will remain at the same speed forever.

So once the rocket pointed in the right direction, all engines were switched off. Without needing to burn fuel, they’d cruise at the exact speed they now had, forever. Turning around, however, would require fuel they didn’t have.

Estimations said they should reach a habitable planet in ten years.

In that time, the animals behaved as well as you could expect in a crowded rocket. The whistling hares gnawed through cables left and right. Fortunately, those were just phone chargers, and the truly important cables were well-protected inside the walls. Though many teenagers suddenly went on long rants about the importance of phones and battery in this day and age.

In any case, Prince made sure to stay far away from people who had that nasty look in their eyes, like the one man who offered Mindy his ticket.

Pinpin brought joy by sliding through the halls and allowing children to ride on his. Until the roles reversed and parents told their kids: “You should be more scared of him than he is of you!”

For three years, the mystery of the food thief played out. Someone broke into the kitchen on the same floor as Mindy at night, stole mountains of food, and disappeared before people or cameras saw anything.

The mystery was quickly solved when Akoa fell asleep face down once, and twenty bags of nuts exploded from her pouch across the entire floor.

Until the moment the rocket landed, people kept finding nuts in odd places, like an endless Easter egg hunt.

The other rocket was far less pleasant, dear reader. For a long time, Pika wanted to do nothing without her Prince. The humans kept arguing about their neighbor’s religion until they were all placed on separate floors. Many family members were left behind because Aliber said nothing was wrong. Something for which he could say sorry a hundred times and it wouldn’t matter. I don’t want to dwell on it.

Mindy became an adult woman. Prince was completely gray. They had often sat together as she tried to talk with him or understand his scribbles. They could now communicate reasonably, though a wall remained. Humans did have brains that could do all kinds of things animals could only dream of.

Mindy wrote a scientific report about it. To half the people she was a hero who had warned about the weapons and saved animals; to the other half she was a traitor who should have stayed behind. By now she cared little for either opinion.

The planet where they ended up started as a rocky landscape with craters, but was quickly transformed by human technology into something with an atmosphere and soft earth for plants.

Right from the start, they generated all energy with clean solutions, which mostly meant solar panels on everything they built. Something for which Mindy—to her regret—still had to fight long and hard.

A few months after landing, the impatient travelers were finally allowed outside. Without spacesuit, without any other protection, finally out of their cage. They called the place Whistlehaven, towards the center of the Nibuwe system.

The longer they were out of the Sand King’s clutches, the less everyone still slept. All the rules were different here. And they had to learn them quickly if they wanted to survive.

Prince stood on a rock, every day, gazing at the stars. More years passed, in which visitors from other planets arrived more and more frequently, but Pika’s rocket never arrived.

That’s how they also heard the latest news from Aprania, thanks to a family of traders who arrived in their own little spacecraft.

“It was a bluff,” they said. “Kran’s weapons were never fired. It was an empty rocket with a trick to mess with our radars.”

Mindy received them in the rocket harbor, where she had long been preparing her own spacecraft. “Why? What’s the point?”

Asking was answering. “The point was for everyone to leave Aprania. The country quickly recovered and turned green. Many animal species have rebounded.”

Mindy pounded the ground with her hammer, lacking a nail. She blew away a sweaty lock of hair. “We came this close to sending back weapons.”

“An outcome they’d also find okay.”

“What?”

The spaceship captain tapped some screens and showed a photo. A man she recognized.

He wanted to buy the animals back then, Mindy immediately knew. He didn’t need a ticket, because he KNEW the weapons weren’t real.

“They wanted to solve the climate problem by wiping out half the world. They were fine if that meant their own death.”

Mindy repeatedly struck the floor with her hammer. “And we did exactly what they wanted! It’s a paradise there now, without us.”

“Paradise? In the future, maybe. For the animals, maybe. It will take another hundred years before the climate fully recovers and the air is completely clean. These bluffers won’t experience that themselves.”

Over the years, Mindy would often consider going back. Prince expected that Pika surely would have: she loved their world of Somnia and its nature the most.

But Mindy was a researcher and explorer, and thought her own spacecraft was meant for the galaxy.

The decision was made when she finally received a response from a message she sent out long ago.

“According to our information, rocket twelve departed for the other side of the Nibuwe system. There is no reason to think they returned or exploded. Hopefully this helps. Greetings, your biggest fans.”

Mindy’s spaceship was finished by then and had already survived many short journeys.

Akoa grew old. Prince grew old. She knew they had at most a couple years left. Just enough to traverse that part of Nibuwe system.

So they waved everyone goodbye and stepped into their comfortable spacecraft, with a cheerful painting of Mindy, Akoa and Prince on the side. Mindy and Akoa gave a thumbs up. Prince looked past them and had insisted on drawing his own series of musical notes.

They departed. This time, in the best cage, which they had chosen themselves.

And so it was that life continued …