It was a warm, lazy day. The sun was shining bright, the air humid and thick. A dozen boats could be seen out at sea, either returning or leaving the doc for the other continent with the days worth of goods that had been harvested. Timid waves crashed against the sparse, sandy land. 

A group of kids raced to the shore line and jumped into the water. Others watched from the trees, playing spy games and hunting games. Some made sand castles, while their parents soaked in the sun and relaxed for the end of the work day.

I was being chased. I was running for my life away from my bully, down the grass hill and toward the beach. Parents and other children stared at me but I paid them no heed, all my attention getting sucked into my next step and how to breath properly. I spared a glance behind me and saw her chasing me with a group of school kids in her wake. She was shouting something at me but I couldn't hear her over my own intakes of air. Probably for the best, anyways. 

Time seemed to slow as my too-big feet tripped over each other and I went tumbling down the rest of the hill with an OOF and a mouth full of dirt. I tried to stand quickly when I stopped rolling but I wasn't fast enough. My bully jumped onto me and pinned my arms above my head.

"Are you going to take that back, boy?" she yelled at me. I shook my head and like the butterfly effect, murmurs and whispers rippled through the crowd. "I'm gonna kill you someday!" She raised her fist and aimed it straight at my eye. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying and hoping that something, anything would happen just so I didn't get a beating.

I guess the lesson here is, be careful what you wish for.

The moment before her fist hit my eye, screaming rang through the beach. My bully loosened her grip on me and I rolled away, looking at my surroundings. Everything was burning, and there was so much screaming and shouting. I didn't know what to do.

"Run!" Someone screamed. And it was then where my body took over what my brain didn't understand. I grabbed my bully's hand and ran towards the forest line, the other adults and children going in the same direction. I tried not to look anywhere but forward, afraid of what I'd see. Of the people I would never see again.

My bully must have also been similarly frozen because she didn't argue as I dragged her towards the trees. She just kept running next to me. Wordlessly, I instinctively ran to our class treehouse, the one that the kids in my grade and built for a project. 

I let go of her hand and scaled in the wooden ladder up to the little house in the tree. There were already five others there. My bully climbed in after me and the seven of us stared in silence, out the window, as out water planet turned to fire.

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Three more kids joined in just as the world as we knew it turned to ash.

We spent three hours up there before we were dying of hunger and of thirst. And all of us, though we never spoke of it, wanted to know where our parents were. If they were alive.

One by one, we climbed down the tree. By unspoken word, we stayed together. More than a few times, one of us would break down crying at the sight of our civilization destroyed and dead. We were the last ones living.

For the next three days, the ten of us wandered, speaking few words. We all had nightmares during the night but none of us mentioned the screaming in the morning. We found half burned plants and ash flavored water. When one of us would fall to the ground, wanting to give up, the rest of us would pick them up, help them out. We all wanted to give up, though.

On the fourth day, we all stayed lying on the ground, staring up at the red tinted, foggy sky. None of us seemed to have the energy or the will to go on anymore, looking for people that we knew were probably dead. All of us asked the question, Why not us? But none of us had the answer.

But it was while we were lying on the rocky ground, waiting for the sweet relief of death, that we heard shouting. I was the first to jump up, hope rekindling in my heart. The others quickly followed suit and we looked in the direction of the shouting. With stumbling, tired steps, I began to run, tears springing into my eyes.

But who I ran into was not my parents, even though I'd already seen them lifeless on day one. It wasn't even a person of our own species.

The man was thin and bony, a great swirly mustache curling on his upper lip. Blonde hair stuck out from underneath a black hat and he sported a gun at his side. He startled at the sight of us before smiling and crouched down.

"Now, little fella. What happened 'ere?" He asked.

I wasn't the one who answered, my bully was. "Someone killed our planet, mister," she said, taking a step towards the stranger. "Everyone is dead. Everyone but us."

"Are you sure?" He answered, a frown crossing his face, his eyebrows furrowing.

"Yes, sir," I answered, speaking up. 

"We saw that the planet was burning as we were coming here to trade with the other continent. Everything is destroyed over there, too." The man, for he was a human, sighed. "Come. We have room on my spaceship. And I can't in good conscience just leave ten kids here to die. Come," he repeated.

"Mommy said to not follow strangers," one of my friends said hesitantly. 

The man shifted his feet to look at him and smiled a small smile. "I know, young one. But I promise, I'll just take care of you."

"Well, I'm not sure..." my friend responded, looking at his feet sheepishly. The stranger frowned.

"What if you told us your name, mister? Then you wouldn't be a stranger anymore," my bully said.

The human grinned. "Smart girl. I'm Captain Simpson Harlowe, but you can just call me Captain. Are you kids ready to go?"

Without another word but with timid hope in everyone's eyes, we followed the Captain to his ship. To our new home.