Sitting in the space ship I looked out the window at the sideways ground thinking. As I gazed, my mind was elsewhere thinking about what the next 14 years of my life would be like.  I would be isolated from all humans for 14 years except for the four other people that are in this space ship with me. I heard a voice that sounded distant and suddenly the ship lurched upward and we were off the ground. I came back to my senses and saw the ground was getting smaller every second we climbed higher.
“Devin, Devin, Devin,” said a voice.
“Huh?” I said.
“Devin, snap out of it,” said the voice.
I looked to the side and sitting there was one of my best friends, Emmanuel.  He was the one who belonged to the voice. 
“Hey Emmanuel,” I said.
“Hey,” he said coolly like he wasn’t being rocketed into outer space but like he simply walked through his front door.
“Out of all of those planets they had to send us to Pluto, the dwarf planet that used to be a planet in our solar system,” I said like it’s the worst thing in the world.
“Yeah,” said Emmanuel sighing, “but all the other planets don’t have the conditions that Pluto does have.”
We traveled upward for a few minutes and broke through the atmosphere. When I looked out the window I saw a breathtakingly beautiful and menacing sight. The vastness of space that loomed before the rest of the crew and I and we were hurtling farther into it every second. 
In the front row Owen and Sahana are talking about basketball and how they’ll miss all the Warriors games for the next 14 years.
“Sahana and Owen have a good point though,” I told Emmanuel.
“O yeah, what’s that?” He asked.
“Well we are going to be gone for 14 years and we won’t know what’s going on down on Earth while we are on Pluto,” I said.
“Dude, what if the world goes into some disaster state while we are gone or something. What will we do then?” Emmanuel asked me.
“I don’t know man,” I said, “just hope that all goes well. But frankly I’m more afraid about our safety then the worlds.”
As the days past on the journey to Pluto the Crew (Me, Emmanuel, Sahana, Owen, and Kiana who is our pilot) and I all fell into a routine. In the Morning we would all wake up at 7am and check the schedule.

The Crews Daily Schedule
1. Wake up and have breakfast
2. Do your job for the day
3. Have lunch
4. Work out
5. Space walk and make sure the ship is in good shape
6. Have dinner
7. Play games and relax
8. Get ready for bed
9. Got to bed no later than 11:00pm

After a while the schedule became muscle memories and Owen (not like all of hadn’t done and gotten away with) forgot to look closely at his schedule. It was in the 9th month of the voyage that a serious event happened. On that day he was supposed to release the pressure in the water tanks but he accidentally went and released the pressure on the oxygen tanks.
“Alright guys. Its time to do the spacewalk,” I said like I always do when its time to spacewalk, “Make sure your straps are on tight.”
We all then walked over to the air release chamber except for Kiana and entered it.
“Ok,” said Kiana (who is in the pilot room), “I’m going to release the air and then you guys can go out.”
“Alright were ready,” said Sahana.
“You guys have fun out there but stay trapped to the ship. This is supposed to be a smooth ride and I don’t want to go back for someone who has been ‘thrown overboard’,” said Kiana.
“I’ll make sure that everyone is back on the ship in one piece,” said Owen.
“Ok good,” she replied, “The air is going to be released in three two one.”
The room was filled with the sound of hissing and then it was silent as all the air was released.
“Alright,” I said as we head out of the ship, “Sahana and I will take the left side of the ship and you two” I said pointing at Emmanuel and Owen “will take the right side.”
Sahana and I swung our legs out of the round port hole and attached our ropes to the poles on the ship. The outside of the ship is made of solar panels so that we could get electricity. We started inspecting every inch of the ship from back to front. As we did this process Sahana and I started to talk.
“How have you been doing so far Sahana,” I asked her.
“O, well, you know,” she said longingly, “I miss my family and I’m sure they miss me so that part of it is hard. But I like it out here in space. There’s not that much stress.”
“Yeah, I miss my family too,” I say with the same longing and desperation that was in Sahana’s voice, “I wish that….”
Boom!
The whole ship shook as Sahana and I almost jumped out of our skins.
“What in the world was that,” I screamed.
“I have no idea,” she replied.
Suddenly out of nowhere Emmanuel and Owen came flying towards us over the curve of the ship.
“Sahana I need you with me now. Devin and Emmanuel get back inside and help from in there,” said Owen. “Hurry!” He yelled at us as when we failed to respond.
As soon Emmanuel and I start moving towards the entrance to the ship Owen and Sahana were gone.
“Devin, Emmanuel I’m opening the door now” said Kiana’s voice coming into our heads through our microphones.
“Okay,” I said were on our way.
Emmanuel and I quickly made our way to the door and got inside.
“Were in,” said Emmanuel and the door behind us shut and the hissing begin again. When it stopped the door in front of us opened and we walk back into the ship.
“What was that,” I asked him.
“A panel unhinged while we were out there because of the explosion that came from the water tanks,” Emmanuel replied.
“Alright let’s get down there and see what we can do,” I said.
When Emmanuel and I got down there a pretty sight did not meet our eyes. Owen and Sahana had managed to screw the panel back on but inside there was a big hole in one of the water tanks and water was all over the floor.
“Quick,” I said. “Grab the vacuum Emmanuel and collect all the water back up while I try to patch this hole.”
After everything was fixed we all met in the dining area and discussed what happened and more importantly why it had happened.
“The water tank exploded which means that the pressure in the tank wasn’t released,” said Emmanuel.
“Who was the last person that was supposed to do that job?” I asked Emmanuel.
“The schedule says that Owen was the person who should have let the pressure out today,” he replied.
“Oh, sorry guys I must have read my schedule wrong and done the wrong job,” said Owen.
“That’s alright” said Kiana, “but now we know that we all need to be a little more focused when we are reading our schedules.”
“Now that that’s cleared out of the way,” I said yawning, “how about some sleep so that we can focus tomorrow.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Sahana.
“Same,” said Owen.
“Me too,” said Emmanuel.
“No need for me to stay up now,” said Kiana.
So we then all hopped into bed and slept like rocks undisturbed and in deep sleep.
Everyone woke up the next morning and was on high alert because of the events yesterday.
“Alright guys,” said Sahana, “let’s get everything done correctly today, ok.”
“Alright,” I said.
“Let’s do it,” said Owen.
“No problem,” said Emmanuel.
The rest of the day and for the next months until the end of the first year everything went according to plan. On the eve of the New Year, everyone stayed up until Midnight and celebrated when the clock struck twelve.
“Let’s hope that this year of our journey has no problems,” I said. But I knew that in space nothing is fine for a long period of time.
The New Year started off great and I had high hopes. First days went by then weeks and then months, and we had no trouble.
“Everything going well?” Sahana asked Kiana one day.
“What … oh hey Sahana,” said Kiana startled. “Yep everything’s going on to plan and we should hit Pluto in about 54 more months.”
“Man … It sounds like a lot more time when you say it like that,” said Sahana.
“Everything ok in here?” I asked while I walked into the room.
“Yeah,” said Kiana in response. “We were just talking.”
“Ok. I just was checking on everyone and making sure everything is good,” I said.
The thing was, I was wrong.  Nothing crazy happened in the third year of our journey and we celebrated the New Year just like last year.
This year, I thought, we won’t have any problems.
Oh how wrong I was.
On the second month into the third year, things went bad.  Not with the ship, but with the people inside the ship.  On one day I woke up and I could tell that the spirit was low and the patience was low. It was like that feeling you get when something bad was going to happened.  It was also the physical things. The looks they were giving each other, the way people were handling objects, and the way they were moving.
“Alright guys, let’s get to work,” I said as everyone was finishing breakfast. That was a mistake.
“Why? Why do you always get to pick what we do?” said Sahana angrily.
“I don’t know,” I said calmly. “I guess because I’ve acted like a leader my whole life. But if you want to be in charge, go ahead and be my guest,” I said, my temper and my voice rising. “You lead. But don’t come back to me asking for help or telling me it’s too hard because if you’re going to complain,” I said almost screaming, “Then you better be a heck of a lot better than me and if you want me even thinking about becoming the leader again you better apologize when the time comes.”
“Devin,” Kiana said calmly, which really annoys me when I’m mad, “calm down. I don’t want to go deaf from you screaming in my ear.”
“Fine,” I said glowering at her but lowering my voice a little bit.
“I’m sorry,” said Sahana. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t want to lead, but I also don’t want you bossing me around so much.”
“I’ll try not to,” I said not looking at her.
“Thank you,” she said.
For the rest of that year there was a tension between me and Sahana.  I tried to be not so “in control” and I think she only made a few comments about leaders.  Towards the end of the year the tension began to fade away, but it wasn’t forgotten.
The fourth year went south very fast. The first day of the fourth year went bad and I was worried about how this next year would plan out.
On that first day, we were all awoken by sirens.
“Kiana,” I yelled.
“I’m on it,” she replied yelling over the sirens.
I got out of my bed and saw Kiana running around the corner in a streak of gray.
Five minutes later her voice came over the loud speakers.
“Alright guys,” she said calmly, “it was nothing but I need you guys to check the ship because we were hit by a pretty good sized space boulder.”
“Ok,” said Owen. “Sahana and I will go check it out.”
In a moment they were gone and getting ready for the space walk.  Emmanuel and I sat back down and Kiana rejoined us a little while later.  After some time we started to play cards.
“Hah, I win,” said Emmanuel.
“No you didn’t,” I say. “You che....”
“Guys we need some help out here,” said Owen’s voice interrupting me through the speaker.
“Alright,” I replied.  “We’ll be there in a little bit.”
In a few minutes Emmanuel and I were outside and we found where Sahana and Owen were.
“What’s the problem?” Emmanuel asked.
“Well,” said Sahana, “that little space boulder ripped the metal and we don’t know how to weld it back together.”
“Ok, I’ll go get the welding gear,” said Emmanuel. And in a few minutes he was back and ready to weld. We started welding and things were going well until one little spark got away and floated through the hole we were welding.  As soon as I saw it go through that hole, I thought “oh no,” and I blacked out as the force of the explosion hit me.
“Hey Emmanuel,” I said as I opened my eyes.  “I had this really weird dream that there was an ex-plo-sion. When the sight registered I knew something was up.  Emmanuel was there but he had a somber look and was looking down.
I looked around and I saw that we were in a small room with dark gray walls that curved to form a cylinder.  I realized that it was an escape pod.
“Emmanuel, why are we in an escape pod?” I asked.
He looked up at me and I saw that he had a blood stained patch over one eye.
“When the explosion happened we were blown away as well as one of the escape pods. I pulled us inside and patched us up. I think that Sahana and Owen didn’t get blown off the ship because they were farther from the explosion,” he said, “I set a course for mars so we can meet up with the rest of them if they made it.”
“Uh,” I said.
“Don’t move,” said Emmanuel. ”You got a piece of metal in your shoulder and your leg that I took at.”
“Ok,” I said, “I’ll try not to.”
“There is enough food and water for us to last three more years if we ration it,” Emmanuel said.
“Is there anything we can do in here for the next three years?” I asked Emmanuel because I know that it is going to get boring in here really fast.
“Actually I have a pack of cards,” he replied.
“Ok good,” I said, “at least we won’t bore ourselves to death.
After the first month past and I didn’t do much except eat and sleep we started to play cards. Playing cards probably saved us from insanity because we fell into a routine that kept us from going insane. After this routine became engraved into our bones the days went faster and faster until they all merged and almost three years had passed. One day I looked out the window and said “Emmanuel how did Pluto get so big overnight?”
“It hasn’t Devin,” he told me. “You just haven’t looked at it for about a week so it looks like its grown really fast for you.”
“Oh, really,” I said.
“Yep,” Emmanuel said. “Speaking of Pluto, we should land in about two weeks.”
“Wow, already!” I said in amazement. “It feels like we just blasted off a month ago.”
“Yeah, it does,” said Emmanuel.
The next two weeks went by super-fast and before I knew it Emmanuel was telling me to strap in for the impact.  When we broke the atmosphere and I saw below me a barren tundra of ice I knew that living here would suck. As we plummeted to the ground a gray spot appeared out of the white and blue and it got bigger every second.
“I think that’s them,” I said over the sound of the wind.
“I think you’re right,” said Emmanuel.
Once the parachute was let out of our pod we slowed down tremendously and I could see that the gray spot was indeed the other ship. While we descended Emmanuel and I had our faces pressed against the glass to get a good look at the world we would be living in for the next two years. As soon as the ship hit the ground with a thud Emmanuel and I put on as much clothing as we could find and sprinted the couple hundred yards between the pod and the ship. When we entered the ship Sahana, Kiana, and Owen all got up and tackled us with hugs. Then we were all laughing and crying with joy that we were finally all back together.