The Man and the Martian Part 1, by Bella Haeusel

Bursts of light flashed before his eyes and the blurbs of voices could be heard often in the background. He mumbled something incoherent and then everything went pitch black. His eyes opened, then closed, then opened again before he was blinking freely. He turned his head to the side trying to determine where the constant beeping sound was coming from, and trying to find the source of his throbbing pain. To his right he saw a weird looking metal device with buttons, levers, and flashing lights. Turning his head to the other side he came in contact with the wall. “Oomph” he muttered. Another set of beeps began to sound, this time louder than before and more persistent. He turned back to his right in time to find a strange looking individual charging into the room.

“Oh my, oh my goodness” said the strange being, “the boss will be so happy.” He ran over to a wall directly below my feet and tried to move his head up, but suddenly realized the pain he had been feeling since he woke up was coming from his head. “Whom, whom, whom” his head seemed to be yelling. Slowly he put his head back down, and waited for the throbbing in his head to stop. To his right the weird looking individual came back into focus, but now the being looked even stranger than before. The creature was wearing some sort of large lens on the front of his face and was holding three different metal tools in his large hands.

“Oh my, oh my goodness.” There was that phrase again. What in the universe was he talking about? Where did my translator go, I wonder? He turned his head and the tall individual looming over him shrieked, “he moved, he moved!” before going back to punching things into the big machine with lots of buttons. Looking around again he decided to figure out where he was and what this thing that was holding him hostage was labeled as. He knew it wasn’t from his planet Scif [sif]. he didn’t look anything like a Scifiaan [sif-ee-an] and he wasn’t on their sister planet Syficios [si-fi-cee-ose]. He thought back to the 784 planets that he had memorized and wished he had studied harder. “Wait,” he thought to himself, “what was the name of that lost planet?” He concentrated hard for a moment.

“Earth! That was it. So this thing in front of me must be a human.”