“Look, I didn’t ask to be picked. None of us did.” I was being hurried into the spaceship with the others. It was likely the last time I was going to see Earth.

***********************************

I was sitting in class, filling in bubbles monotonously as I was taking the quiz with everyone else. The plastic chair was digging into my back and the bright lights were buzzing above. The clock was slowly ticking and I could feel myself wearing down. I started to doze off when I suddenly heard a loud knock at the door. Then, _they_ came in.

Grown men with grey suits and numbers listed on their arms. They looked military. But not normal military. They came rushing in and lined up at the front of the class. My home economics teacher looked up, startled, as was everyone else.

“Hey.” Yelled Mr. Jones. “What’s going on?!”

The men said nothing. They just stood there. Lined up arm to arm. Then, one of them spoke.

“You.” Said the man. He pointed in my direction.

Everyone sat still. The room was silent. Again, he stated “You.”

“Me?” I asked reluctantly.

“Yes. You.” The man said in a flat tone assuredly.

I was confused. Surprised. What did they want with me? Why?

I slowly got up and walked to the front of the room.

“No time to waste. We need to leave now.” Said the man. He grabbed my arm and rushed me out of my class. And suddenly, passing the quiz became the least of my worries.

They took me out into the hallway and closed the door behind me. The man with “7” spoke up.

“We need you. The world will end in a few days.”

I was confused.

“What?”

“There’s no time to waste. We need you Sam.”

My heart began to race. My heart dropped.

“Why? What’s going on?”

I was swept away and guided into an armored truck. There were others there too.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

A boy with large glasses about my age spoke up.

“We don’t know for sure. But things have been happening around the world. Flooding, meteors falling from the sky, birds flying south in droves. The news hasn’t been talking about it because they’ve been given orders not to. Earth is going to drop. That’s what I’ve been told.”

“Drop? What does that even mean?!”

“Exactly what it sounds like. The Earth will drop in 3 days and will disappear into space. Nobody or nothing will survive.”

There was a brick in my stomach. My boring life was turned upside down.

“Why us?” I asked.

“Look, none of us want to be here either. But we don’t know anything. But they need us. We don’t know who they are, the men in the suits, but we think they’ve chosen us for some reason. To try to stop it. Or figure out how to. Everyone here has proven in one way or another that they might help stop this catastrophic event from happening.”

I began to have flashbacks to my childhood. I was accepted into college at the age of 9. I was on the path to becoming a doctor in quantum physics but gave it up for a normal life. I didn’t want the pressure of college. I just wanted a normal life. Filling out bubbles on a page mindlessly while always knowing every answer and solution to any test problem allowed me to be content. I didn’t want to be thrown out of the life I had chosen for this. But, maybe being comfortable wasn’t the answer anymore.

The truck came to a stop and one by one each of us were rushed out and into a platform. The ship was awaiting our arrival.

“Onward!” Yelled #5.

And before I knew it, I was going up into the sky and off to the stars, looking down at the Earth, the place I may no longer call home, the place which may not be there in the next 3 days. I closed my eyes and realized that my life would never be the same. Nobody’s would.