I was 14 when I decided Earth was a little too, well, everything, for me. There was too much sun, too much grass. Too many people. It was just too big for everything I was. The way of life was so vast, and there were too many set things to do. Travel was nice, but nothing was ever really new. Different people, different places, but the same basic Planet. I guess I got bored of the same planetary rules very quickly. I have to say I'm pretty lucky. My mum comes from a long line of human descended space travelers, and my dad's an astrologist. I know a lot about the realm of space and I know a lot about the way to live in different environments. I know what to avoid in space, and what to look forward too. I also have the added benefit of my mother's genes, added to her family's original human ones during her and her ancestor's travel about space. I have a higher resistance to the dark matter and have an easier time surviving in the extremely different climates and worlds. My family always knew I would end up loving space, but they never thought I'd want to go away from Earth. My mum grew up in space, nomadic and alone. She would always tell me stories of the dangers she faced and also of the hardship she had to endure where there was no stability. My mum travelled only with her father and sister, because space travel wasn't a group thing nor was her mother alive to join them. "It's unsafe up in space," She told me and although I believe her, I also believe it is unsafe here on Earth. It is boring here, but it's more than that. So many humans are ignorant to the possibility of space travel. I am bullied for my abnormally shaped and colored eyes. I'm harassed for the way my skin sometimes seems to shimmer. I can't help that my family has changed due to space, and that I am not the same as all of them.

I stole my mother's spaceship, which she had locked away in a time block. Unluckily for her, she hasn't read all the books in the "Time-recontinuation" section of the Galactiod Library. I have. A time block isn't as hard to break as one would expect. I'm glad I got it right, though. I don't think anyone would've been happy if I'd accidentally released a Paradox. My mum isn't cut off from the rest of the universe, no. We have a collection of wormholes under our house, which allow us to travel to specific places. I was only allowed to the Galactoid Library without their authorization, though. I could've found a way around their locked wormholes, but the library was the only place I wanted to go anyway.

The library is infinitely large, as it holds every single book in the universe and has to be ever growing. I am rather annoyed with that fact, because I know it means that I will never read all the books in the library. I've read quite a few, though. The library has a connected book store, which is wonderful, because any book that I wanted to bring with me on my journey I could buy for less than a hundred Universions. Universions are the intergalactic currency, available at every UCC (Universal Currency Changer). Earth is very behind. It does not yet have UCC's at any bank. That's one of the reasons I left Earth. Thankfully, though, the UCC's will convert all types of Earth currency into Universions. I bought many books on space mechanics while planning to make my journey, to ensure I had the most knowledge and the greatest probability of safety. I also bought The Compact Series of ‪PJ's‬ Space Adventures. PJ is a universe renowned tiny planet explorer, the first person from a naive planet to travel space on his own. He's my idol. His books cover all of his travels, his tips for amateurs like me, and so much more. He's the real reason I decided to become a tiny planet explorer. Of course, my family doesn't know this. They believe PJ is "crazy, the dark matter must've messed with his sensibility". They're wrong. PJ has won many prizes for his discoveries in space travel and for his many inventions. As a young planet explorer with no knowledge or access to books and other learning sources, he had to learn about travel all from his experience. He made his own wormholes and spaceships and jet packs. He survived on so many planets with little to no original knowledge. He's a hero.

I took his advice when planning my trip to space. I made a list of all the things I loved, knowing I wouldn't be able to take everything with me. I took all my books, my space goggles and breathing apparatus, a picture of my family, my pet Monopus named Terrence, a lullaby cube, an invention I made I call the "Portahome" (which can be a small washing machine, dryer, microwave, and inter-system communicator), a pin making machine, and a leather bound notebook like the one PJ took with him on his first space adventure. I packed it all up in a rucksack jet pack, decorated with one pin of Earth. I was determined to make a pin of each planet I visited and add it to my rucksack jet pack.

I wrote a note to my mother and father, and I left it stuck to the seemingly normal kitchen table. It sometimes made me sad, knowing that if anyone saw our house they were believe we were nothing but regular people. They wouldn't know of the green slime that sometimes climbed its way out of one of the wormholes and made my father's pet scaled Parrot glow when he ate it. That was another reason I left Earth.

The first entry in my leather bound notebook was ‪on May 14‬, marking my first day off of Earth. My mother's spaceship was easy to use, but as soon as I took off, I remembered so many things I'd forgotten. Would I ever be able to talk to the few people who cared about me on Earth? Would Terrence be able to survive in the weather conditions? Of course, the answers were all in my books, but the first few months in space all I could do was worry. I did not give my parents a way to find me while on my travels. I did not want their nagging, telling me to "come home." Earth never felt like home to me. Perhaps there was a tiny planet out there that I could truly call my home. Some place I could claim and love. Maybe I would meet other planet explorers along the way. As much as these worries did come, I pushed forward. There was no going back.

I stopped first on a medium sized planet that seemed to be a tourist central. Large lights seemed to pop around everywhere. I explored my mother's spaceship, noticing that it already had a washing machine, dryer, microwave, and communicator. The communicator said it was good for connecting with any device within the same galaxy. Any longer distance communications would cost a sum of Universions that I likely didn't have. I didn't know anyone yet, though, so that wasn't a problem. There was also a large display screen and a wormhole activated mailbox. It was decorated with green, both my mum's and my favourite colour. There were five beds, stacked on two sides off the wall. They all had personal gravity stabilization, which could be set to a their personal gravity setting. There was also a lullaby box in each, which could be added to or replaced. I noticed the top bed on the left side of the ship was undecorated and empty. That was the one my grandmother had used, but she died when my mother was born. I decided to leave the one alone, and set up in the bottom right bed. I carefully removed the lullaby box, and put it away. I put my lullaby box in, which I had filled with my favourite things. A CD of my favourite music, one used book from ‪PJ's‬ adventure collection, a picture of my friends from when I was on Earth, some petrichor scented candles my father had got me for my 12th birthday, and a green marker. I hooked Terrence and his large floating water bubble up to the tap system so he would always have enough water.

It was then that I decided to go out and explore the planet. I looked in a mirror, messed with my curly brown hair, blinked my odd coloured eyes, and lifted up my head. Confidence wasn't really my strong point, as I'd grown up with people trying to put me down for all sorts of things, but I did my best to prove to myself I was ready. With that, I hooked the small breathing apparatus to my nose, and opened the spaceship door. It was the start of something new.

First thing I saw were colours. I mean, bright undefined colours that seemed to be somewhat reddish by human standards. I couldn’t quite define them. There isn’t a word in any language on earth which would properly explain what it looked like. There were so many buildings and places, all shaped abnormally. But somehow I felt more at home there than I had on Earth. I stepped outside the spaceship, pushing the door shut behind me. A couple of creatures looked at me strangely as I walked slowly through the packed roads. I was the odd species out. There weren’t as many humanoid species as I had thought there would be. Most people were floating, at least three feet off the floor. I twisted a knob on the side of my breathing apparatus, and put a bud into my ear. This was the translator part of the apparatus, which changed the known languages into as close to English as it could get, so I could understand it.

“Zorgeon?” I heard someone nearby mutter. I smiled slightly, and shook my head even though I knew they didn’t know I had heard. Zorgeons were a species of humanoid creatures that lived on the other side of the Milky Way galaxy. I’d read about them in PJ’s books. He’d met them once. They weren’t the most friendly species.

I kept walking through the roads, glad I wore the space boots my mum had given to me. The road seemed quite squishy, probably because of the large amount of gravity the planet had. At first I hadn't really noticed it, but the gravitational pull was much stronger than Earth's. The space boots made it easier on the legs and body to walk in different gravitational zones and also to walk on different types of surfaces. If I had worn regular Earth shoes I probably wouldn't have made it even five steps.

"New to Ignion?" A salescreature shouted in an accent I didn't know. I turned my head towards the voice, my abnormally large eyes rocking back and forth. The creature was around the same size as me, a translucent pink-ish colour with what looked like two full green basketballs inside of it. Every time it spoke, it's body rippled and shapes inside the jelly-like creature rearranged themselves. I walked over to it.

"Hello-" I paused, wondering if the salescreature could understand me. "Uh, I'm new to Ignion." I said, guessing that was the name of the planet I had landed on. The two green spheres inside the creature moved quickly to look at me. I guessed those were its eyes.

"Hello little one!" It said, the shapes rearranging again. I couldn't find a pattern with the shapes no matter what I did, which slightly bothered me, but I tried to ignore it. "Wow, you're from an odd place. Human, I'm guessing?" It said, and I think maybe it was smiling. I nodded quickly, feeling very awkward. I hoped that I wasn't weird or anything. Was Earth really that odd? "Welcome to Ignion, Earthling! We don't get many humans around here. Are you new to space travel?" It asked. For some reason I felt as though I could trust this large gelatinous creature, despite its odd eyes.

"Mhm! This is the first planet I've visited, actually, other than The Library. I've read a lot about space travel." I said, my eyes lighting up with happiness. Perhaps here was someone who could help me on my travels.

“Very new, I see! You’ve come to the right planet! Ignion is a common stop for new planet explorers. Any equipment you may not have you can find here, including pieces for your spaceship or jet pack! Here,” The salescreature made an arm out of it’s body and grabbed something inside it’s shop. It handed me an action figure of a fish-like creature with tentacles for fins.

I grinned awkwardly, and waved it off. It handed it to me. “I’m sorry, I don’t have many Universions. I’m sure I’d love to get this… thing… if I had the money, though.” I had no idea what it was or if it would do anything useful, but it just seemed like something that would clutter up my spaceship. I pushed it back to the salescreature, trying to be as friendly as possible.

The sales creature didn’t seem to have been put off at all, instead it started scrambling around it’s shop for anything of use. I couldn’t help furrowing my brows, wondering if it would be better if I just walked off. I didn’t want to burden the salescreature with trying to find me something, and I certainly didn’t want to keep turning down seemingly useless objects of interest. However, with a large “Woopah!” from the creature, it seemed to make up it’s mind about something to give me and my chances of escape were long gone. It handed me a black box.


It was a map, a moveable map. It was a cube made of stars, or so it seemed. It could be zoomed into, seen from all sides, moved through the universe. And it showed what seemed like the entire universe. Infinite. I’d only heard of something like it, after reading in the library. There were many maps of galaxies that were movable, but there were very few of the universe. “I used to be a space traveler, you know?” The creature said, pulling me out of my wonderment. It wasn’t looking at me. It seemed to be looking beyond me. “I did. Before I became a sales advocate. I guess it wasn’t the right life for me. Now I watch so many creatures come by with incredible wishes and beliefs of the unknown. So fascinated with their idea of a life beyond their own planet. You don’t want to know how many come through here… and come back, brokenhearted” The creature blinked, and I stared at it. My smile was now gone. “Anyways,” the creature regained its somewhat cheerful tone. “I think you’re different. I used this on my space journeys, and I think you might benefit from it. Good luck, young space explorer. May the worlds you find bring you happiness.” It then looked away, and continued to call into the crowd of creatures walking through the streets.

I stepped away from the booth, my mind spinning. The map was still in my hands, and I forget what exactly I was thinking about. I found myself back in front of my spaceship, the map still capturing my attention, and I looked back at the road. ‘How could a road of so many things seem so silent?’ I wondered, before my body took over and I opened the door. Perhaps the map would prove to come in handy, but maybe the world of space wasn’t exactly what I had hoped for.