Kyan

So there I was. Digging as usual, the rock solid ground almost adamantly refused to be cut into. Cansen, my partner in the digging business, was buried in his work; literally and metaphorically. His ears were only tuned to one song, cutting out the sound of bees, mosquitoes, sotests, pantreshes, and flies. Sweat poured off him like a torrential downpour; his hair was soaked as well as his upper body. Bits of dirt covered his skin and stuck like glue. As Cansen dug deeper and deeper, he plunged himself into a well sized hole.

I was in a similar situation, and appeared to be under the same raincloud as Cansen. My shirt, or at least the scraps I was wearing, were soaked, my fifth-hand boots were filled with dirt, and my face appeared to be covered in mud, according to Cansen. We were a dirty sight, and also due for a break.

“Cansen,” I called, my voice gruff and panting,”break.”

Grabbing our 3P’s, I threw Cansen his, and with his short but grateful “thanks,” I opened mine up as well.
“Hello, this is your personal hand held three-D printer, more commonly known as a 3P. Please enter your password. You may use the screen or place it into the air. Please designate your choice.”

Usually, I didn’t mind the touch screen, but today I preferred to not get the screen covered in dirt and sweat.

“Air, please.”

Obedient to my request, the 3P pulled itself from the plastic container and made its new home in the air. Using my hands to adjust the size, I turned the 3-D keyboard towards me. Punching in my thirty letter, number, and symbol code, I contented myself with waiting for it to process my password by viewing Cansen and my work. Something caught my eye as it glinted in the sunlight, but a dinging noise told me the 3P had finished processing my input.
“My name is Chori, what may I create for you today?”
“Water, please, in a blue striped water bottle,” I answered wearily, for the day had been long and draining; the sun had taken much of my energy.

“Ice or no ice?”, Chori asked cheerfully.

“Ice, please, Chori, that will be all.”

With a click and a whir, my water bottle, ice, and water came out of the machine in the air, and into my hands. Greedily unscrewing the blue lid, my calloused hands opened the top and placed the bottle to my lips. Water poured down my throat, and I gulped it all down. The water was refreshing, and it gave me a burst of energy. I sat there quietly for a while, taking measured drinks of the cool liquid, when something caught my eye.

It was the same glimmer I had seen earlier, but I had ignored the flash. It now sparkled in the sunlight and threatened anyone to look away. Intrigued, my tired feet covered in outdated worn brown outshoes carried me to the source. Buried in the ground was a triangular piece of metal. It was banged up pretty badly, covered in dirt and grime. However, one corner was cleared of all muck, which was the cause of the glint I had seen.

Quickly but carefully, I removed the rest of the soil from the triangular piece of material. Upon removing the grime, the metal revealed itself to be large, and I soon discovered it protruded deep and wide into the ground. Trying to dig deeper, the sun reflected off the shiny surface and into my eyes, making blinding light.
The water had refreshed me, but I felt my energy level plummeting as I dug more and more, harder and faster, until at last I felt exhausted. I fell down to the ground, expecting some comfort from packed dirt, and almost instantly regretted it. The bottom of my freshly dug hole was rock solid, and I wondered how on earth the hole was so hard. Perhaps, I thought, the metal I had been so furiously digging at extended to even under my feet and across much distance.  For all I knew, this piece of metal could go all around the Pruvia. Could it be alumnum? Sillicomb? Tig?
I really didn’t know. Being a seven, I definitely wasn’t allowed to be educated, so how would I know the difference between shiny silver metals? Stumped on what and why and how, I tried to focus on something else, because this metal slab was just frustrating me. Suddenly, my mind zipped back to Cansen. What was he doing? I tried to get out of my hole, but I unfortunately realized I had basically dug myself in a trap. The massive wall of dirt I had exploited my energy on was now encasing me in its arms, telling me to stay.
The walls, the walls. Oh, how high they stretched to the sky. I tried to call out, to Cansen. But the walls. They were higher than me, a five foot nine guy. Perhaps even twelve feet high. How had I dug this hole in such a short amount of time? Then I realized, as I looked at my watch, it wasn’t ten in the morning, but six at night. I had to get back.Panic surged in me.  My county’s curfew was at seven, and it takes an hour for me to get home riding on the GoRealm. The punishment for missing curfew was three days in the jail, and that was worse than it sounded. I could lose my job, catch a disease, and other consequences that would severely affect my family.

Even if I did find a way out of this cursed hole, I would almost for certain be caught for being out after curfew, so I might as well just stay here. But still, I needed to see if it was possible to get out. After all, if I stayed here for the night, I had to get out in the morning. So, I checked what I had with me.  My 3P was safe in my pocket, and I had a flashlight, but that was all. For a brief moment, I wondered if I could make a rope or ladder from my 3P, but as I checked the battery level, I saw the percent to be 5%. I needed at least 10% to make anything, and even if I could’ve used the solar power, I didn’t have enough powder to make anything of the size I needed. Plus, it was dark, so I wouldn’t be getting any solar energy.

I was stuck. Might as well get some sleep, I told myself. As I settled into a position of minor comfort, my eyes locked onto the metal slab I was laying on. and I suddenly noticed a hinge. It couldn’t…. open…. could it?
   

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Otto

Sticky. Hot. Tired eyes blink. Work done soon. Fingers fiddle with wires. Fan needs to work. Temperature 170 degrees fahrenheit. Brain want to be done. Why they tell Otto to do it? No one do it before Otto. No one ever do it. They say Otto can.
Otto can’t.

Otto is me. I is 111, a very young Binhiy. They say me smart. Me not smart.  Me fingers can’t do it. Hot. So hot. I used to hot. But this very hot. Too hot. Why fan not work? How it work? Too many wires. Too many gadgets. Fan not work still.

Humans say it work. They wrong. They come 500 years past. They found us. They see our tellies, and they want it. Human say they get it, or they take chief away. We give them tellies. Chief too important to be taken. They come back many times. They take more tellies, they ask math equations. We good at that, us Binhiy. They tell us they at peace with us. They say no harm. They take our tellies and math, they give us fans. We like fans. But then we catch disease. Binhiy die. Not many left. Humans say they give help. Cure. They promise. They take radios, they say they give cure to us. But that was 500 years ago. Humans forgot about us. They broke promise.

And now the fans broken. No one know how to fix. They say Otto can do it. Otto can fix. They wrong. Otto can’t. If Otto don’t fix, more Binhiy die. It is hotter than we used to. So fans save people. It is too hot. They say to Otto, “You fix, Otto. You fix, or you be killing Binhiy. So Otto try to fix. But it doesn’t work. If only humans come. They give cure. They fix fans. if only they come.

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Kyan  

My mind now sharp with burning curiosity, my fingers carefully searched for a lid. Brushing away dirt, I felt a crack in the metal. Fingers skirting around the crack, I lifted the lid. It creaked from no use, and the sound resonated into the dark. The only sounds were of pantreshes and grasshoppers, making me feel horribly exposed with the screech of the lid opening. I soon realized the metal hole was a huge opening, and with my flashlight gazing down into the depths, I saw an everlasting staircase. Curiosity spurred me on to descend onto the staircase. There wasn’t much down there except spiders and dust, and, according to my count, 2240 steps.

Finally, after seemingly an eternity, I reached a storage room. Inside, was a suit that seemed to have some sort of cooling mechanism. I tried it on for size, and realized it was at least two sizes too big. I rolled up the sleeves and the pants. Clearly, wherever I was going, It was going to be extremely hot, because as I pushed a button, cool air started to circulate within my suit.  And indeed, I was very hot at the moment, as hot as I had been when digging this morning. In the corner, was a pair of shoes which surprisingly fit. Because of the extent of the equipment I was required to wear, I was forced to question what I was going into. But, I told myself, For as long as I had been on the stairs, I wasn’t about to turn around. And so, I opened the door in front of me.

My breath hitched. My heart stopped. My brain rushed to process what I was seeing, for in front of me was a.. a… an alien. There were simply no other words to describe what was standing in front of me. Then the creature started to speak.

“Hello. My name Otto. You are human?”