We have our minutes cut~
I stood, breathing hard outside of the building from which I’d just escaped. Shoving my hands against my ears, I clenched my eyes shut, and breathed through my mouth, trying my best to block out the confusing sights, sounds and horrible smells that surrounded me.
Why, of all the places we could’ve crashed on, did it have to be here? Earth, an unenlightened, self destructing bomb. I took a deep breath, and tried not to choke as the filthy air entered my lungs.
“Key?” I looked up; Lion’s muffled voice filtering through my hands, and found him standing next to me.
“Key, we should get back. Now’s not the time to be freaking out. Who needs us.” Lion held out his hand, and gave me a sympathetic smile. How was it possible that he could be so calm right now? Our world was in chaos and he was still able to smile. That was just a small hint at the strength he possessed, I guess.
Nodding, I reluctantly removed my hands from my ears, and placed them in Lion’s. Together, we headed back in the direction of the Hospital. A place, Lion had explained to us, where people who needed healing went.
I only vaguely remembered the history lesson on Earth and the week we’d taken studying it. Lion on the other hand, seemed to know a great deal, and I was glad he was the adult and not the other way around.
From the parts that I could remember, I knew that Earth was an ignorant planet. A term used for planets that did not know that they weren’t alone. I remembered that part because I’d always wondered how anyone could possibly think that out of all the planets in all of the galaxies that only one would have life on it.
I also remembered Lion telling us that the majority of their planet was covered in water, and that most of it was filled with salt. He’d gone on to mention that the indigenous population, called humans, were very destructive of their planet, and that if they kept going at their current pace, Earth would cease to be able to harbor life. Humans would become extinct.
Letting Lion lead me through the winding corridors of the strange, sterile smelling building that was crawling with germs and bacteria; we finally came to a door with the number 205 on it, and entered.
The room was small and contained a strange looking bed, surrounded by cheap, flimsy looking instruments that were all either making some annoying sound, or flashing stupid lights and were somehow or another connected to the occupant of the bed. Who.
I had to admit, he looked much better than he had a couple hours ago. Whether it was due to the care he’d received here or the lapse of time, I wasn’t sure. I was just glad that my leg had healed enough for me to walk by the time we’d reached the hospital, and that I wasn’t laying in a bed hooked up to a bunch of wires like some scientific experiment.
The healers, or Doctors as I guess they were called, told us Who was going to be fine.
Crossing the room where Pixie and Chess sat, I lowered myself onto a piece of plastic that was supposed to serve as a chair. Humans really were lagging on the evolutionary side of things.
Glancing to my left, I found Pixie and Chess staring dazedly into space. They must be so tired. Poor Chess had had to carry my dead weight most of the way through the forest, while Pixie roughed it out, and she and Lion carried Who the whole way. When we’d exited the forest and entered into the city, Lion only had to take one look to know where we were.
While we rested at the edge of the forest, Lion tried to come up with a plan, and a feasible excuse for what had happened to us. Although we looked similar to the humanoids that lived on this planet, we were vastly different. Our bodies healed much faster for one thing, and once we were in the hospital it would only be a matter of time before the humans realized this.
Lions plan was to get Who to the Doctors, have them diagnose what was wrong with him and get him on the path to healing, then his body would do the rest. After the Doctors were done, it was crucial that we leave before they suspected anything, and that could be difficult.
Our alias that Lion came up with was that we’d been on a road trip and gotten into an accident. The vehicle we’d been in had gone over the side of a cliff, and it was lucky any of us had survived.
After we figured out that much, we made our way to the road, if that’s what you could call it. Just a simple layer of rock, with painted lines on it. Very primitive. We didn’t have to wait very long before a very small land-craft, or vehicle, as the humans called it, whizzed by. It slowed and then stopped, not far from where we stood. A man, probably in his early thirties got out, and rushed over to us. He’d seen Who, who was lying still unconscious on the piece of fabric, and wondered if we were alright.
Lion told him our lie, and to my surprise he’d actually believed it. He helped us load Who into the back seat of his truck, and Pixie and I crammed in next to him to keep him stable. Lion and Chess piled into the front seat, and Ralph, as he’d introduced himself, had been more than willing to take us to the nearest hospital. He’d given Lion a funny look, when he in turn introduced us, but hadn’t elaborated.
The chaos that ensued once we reached the hospital had been a nightmare. Questions, paperwork, doctors, needles, blood, pain, suffering, death. It all bombarded my senses, wreaking havoc on my nerves.
After everything slightly wound down, and Who’s condition was stable, I was finally able to calm down a little. The doctors examined Who, and told us there was nothing seriously wrong with him. Just the bruising and lacerations, that were already almost gone. When Lion asked about his legs, the Doctors looked blankly at him.
They then wondered how long Lion had been with Who. All of us then listened in horror as the Doctors explained that Who was paralyzed from the waist down, but it was nothing new. The damage to his spinal cord had occurred several years ago, judging by the scar tissue.
Lion recovered his senses the quickest, realizing that Who’s body had healed him as fast and well as it could, and covered up. Saying that he’d only wondered if they’d been damaged worse in this accident.
The doctors told him no and that Who would be fine. They wanted to keep him over night, but we were free to leave in the morning, solving the solution of our escape.
We all stayed by Who’s side, still trying to process the fact that Who would never walk again.
While we waited for Who to come around, Lion halfheartedly quizzed all of us on what we remembered from our lesson on Earth. With our minds, already overloaded with worry for Who, we sounded like a group of lazy students, who hadn’t paid attention in class. We were hardly able to come up with anything.
Lion then refreshed our memories as best he could. I ignored most of what he was saying, but when he got to the part about how the humans were destroying their world, and in turn destroying themselves, I paid attention. He explained that the atmosphere of earth, and the air we were currently breathing was not clean like on our planet. It was full of slow killing poisons the humans had contaminated it with, that considerably shortened their life spans.
Human lives tended to be less than half the length of ours, and in turn they aged much quicker. Lion, who on our planet at the age of eighty-three was relatively young, resembled a human at least thirty years younger. Where on our planet he could’ve easily reached two hundred, a human was lucky to reach one hundred.
My breath caught in my throat, as Lion continued. The longer we stayed on this planet, the more it would affect us, and the shorter our lives would become.
As the realization of what Lion said hit me, I lost it. Not having any plan, I took off, only getting as far as the outside of the Hospital.
Now sitting back with everyone else, I felt trapped, confined. Like I desperately needed to reach something, and no matter how fast I ran I could never catch it. There was no way to sugar coat it, our situation was dire, and when you got down to it only one fact remained. If we couldn’t find a way to get back home soon, our life spans had just been cut in half.
I must say I found your story really interesting! Seeing the world through someone elses eyes (a stranger to the planet) really puts it in perspective, what we've done to our planet, doesn't it? 
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