After tragedy strikes, Lemos lives a simple life with his dog Long ago, there was a man named Lemos. Lemos was a simple man who lived in Ancient Greece during the time of the gods and monsters. Lemos had a simple life in Greece. He lived in the city of Sparta, in a small hut a few miles off of the main villages. Lemos lived alone. Lemos was known for nothing, and nobody knew who he was. He did not have any friends, or family. He had one dog, who was named Alexander. Lemos had found Alexander on the streets of Sparta while trying to buy some food from the local market. Lemos cared very much for Alexander, but as the years went on, he started giving less and less attention to Alexander. Alexander loved him and obeyed, but was at times saddened by how lonely his owner felt. Alexander could see him looking out the window of their small hut for hours on end, just staring. Since Lemos had no friends, he didn’t have to tell anybody his secret because he didn’t have anyone to tell. When Lemos had found Alexander, he was shriveled and starved. Lemos knew he had to help Alexander. Since the dog could not move very well, he stayed in the same spot on the street behind the food shop every day. Every day, Lemos went behind the food shop to give him food and, occasionally, scratches. As time went on, Lemos began to love Alexander. Lemos had named the dog Alexander because of his son. His son’s middle name was Alexander, and Lemos wanted to prouden the dog’s name. Fire Eater Lemos’s son had died, and it had been Lemos’s fault. One day, Lemos’s son went to the swimming hole a few hundred feet from the house, and Lemos decided to let his son go on his own. He had never let his son go before, but his son snuck out of the house at night and down to the swimming hole. Lemos wanted to teach him a lesson. His son cried out after an hour went by, “Father! Help! I got stuck in a mud hole!” Lemos responded, “Son! Where are you? Surely you cannot be in the swimming hole without my permission!” Lemos thought that his son could get out on his own, and he decided to go to sleep and give his son a lecture in the morning. Lemos woke. He walked out of his bedroom and checked in on his son’s room. Lemos started to panic, as his son was not there. He burst out of the house and ran over to the swimming hole as fast as possible, only to find that his son had suffocated trying to get out of the mud hole. Lemos burst into tears and cried for days on end mourning his son, on the verge of wanting to end his own life. But then a month later, he had found Alexander. After two months of caring for him on the streets, he took Alexander into his own home. Now, three years later, a man appeared in his house the minute he walked in after buying food at the market. The man was wearing a green toga and nothing else, except for two sandals on his feet. His face was shaped roundly, and he had gray hair and green eyes. He spoke: “My name is Janus. Take a seat.” The strange man offered him a chair that Lemos was sure he had never owned, for he owned no furniture but his bed. Lemos said nothing, but he sat in the chair. Suddenly, the man reached over and pressed his fingers against the temple of Lemos’s forehead. Lemos’s mind went black, and then it was flooded with a vision and memories of him with his son, times when he and his son played games around the house, went swimming together in the swimming hole, buying fun things and foods in the market— nothing but happy memories. All of a sudden, during another memory, he heard Janus’s voice again speaking in his mind: “You miss that, don’t you?” “Such a quick decision! Are you sure you are decided? It could haunt you forever.” The scene changed to the day his son had died. Lemos awoke from his memory slumber in tears. “Who are you?” he asked Janus in a choked voice. Janus said, “I am a minor god, and I have come with an offer that can change your fate forever. If you give up your dog, Alexander, to me, you can have your son back, and this offer lasts forever.” Lemos considered the offer. It made him very sad because he loved Alexander very much, but his son meant more to him. Lemos said “Okay. I accept your offer, Janus.” Janus responded, “Such a quick decision! Are you sure you are decided? It could haunt you forever.” Lemos said, “I am sure.” Swiftly, the god disappeared into thin air, leaving the chair wobbling. Lemos knew he shouldn’t bother looking for Alexander. “Dad! Dad?” Lemos heard his son cry. Oddly, the voice sounded faint. Lemos ran for the door to find his son, but the minute he exited the door, he sank into the ground. Lemos fell into an extremely dark opening, no entrances visible. He heard a voice, but this time he could feel the power of the entity speaking to him. The voice was the almighty Hades. “Lemos, you have disobeyed the laws of death by bringing your son back to life. It was once your decision to let your own son struggle against the claws of darkness. Once something has happened, it cannot be changed. You should know that by now. If you had listened to Janus, you could have been rewarded, but now you will be punished. You shall sit in this hole eternally, and once you die you shall serve eternal punishment in the underworld.” Hades disappeared with a massive rumble

The search for life on Mars is punishing and seemingly hopeless until one exciting day . . . Mars, 2050. “Just one more step. I can make it,” I told myself again and again as I walked down a seemingly endless dirt road on Mars. My space suit weighed fifty pounds on Earth, but it didn’t feel that heavy because the gravity of Mars was much weaker than that of Earth. But still, it got heavier every step I walked—though maybe this was all because I failed to make any progress. When I’d volunteered to help probe for life on this planet, I had expected the trail to be long, but not this long. In the distance, all around me, giant volcanoes were a bold statement of the slowness of the time. In the pink sky, a meteor burned away like paper, bringing the promise of finding a trace of life slightly closer. I saw a light-blue object looming in front of me; it was the Rover-937 crater, found by a robot named Perseverance in the year 2021. It was as grand as an ocean and expanded forever through the rust-red soil. It stretched to the point where the reddish ground met the butterscotch sky. All around me, near and far, were scattered many tiny rocks and craters. Approximately thirty people trudged along around me. The Fruit Bowl on the Ocean However, there was no time to waste. We had to go to Boogia Volcano and search for life there, if there was any. The leader of the team urged us on—“Hurry up. We can make it”—as everyone walked and panted like dogs. At ten o’clock, we arrived at Boogia Camp A, located on the shallow slopes of the majestic volcano. Instantly, the camp leader started talking. “Today, we will continue searching for organic matter!” The crowd was silent. Every face was tired after a month of fruitless searching. “Mark, Bob, Ben, Jack . . . Casey, John, Naomi, Gabe, and Jeremy. You will go to the already-dug hole over there.” He pointed into a hole so big that mammoths could play football in it. “And you will get saws and shovels to collect samples,” he continued. “Oh, and the rest of you”—he pointed to me and some other people—“will use spectrophotometers to scan the samples for life.” Five minutes later, I inserted a sample into my Hyperboogie® life detector, as I had hundreds of times before. Instantly, the life detector started whirring and buzzing, and in five seconds, it announced “No life found” in a dull, robot voice. I tried another sample and the same boring message repeated. I could almost hear voices in my mind saying, Nobody will discover life. Why are you trying? Give up! I tried to ignore these. For what felt like millions of times, I repeated this process. Sweat beaded down on my forehead. Many times I wanted to quit, but I thought of my lifelong dream—to find life on other planets—and kept myself from giving up. Minutes grew into hours. Hours grew into days. The hole expanded slowly, just like my urge to give up. Soon the idea of quitting was as uncontrollable as a wild lion. I shouldn’t quit. We will do it, I told myself once again, but it was not very reassuring. Two hours later, I’d finally had enough. After another monotonous “No life detected” message, I snorted and stormed out of the cabin. Anyway, there isn’t going to be any life in this dumb desert, I thought. I passed arid stretches of desert with the barren and gloomy peak of Boogia Volcano looming overhead. Finally, I reached the camp leader’s cabin, which looked like a worn-down pile of rocks. Instantly, the life detector started whirring and buzzing, and in five seconds, it announced “No life found” in a dull, robotic voice. The camp leader led me in and asked in a flat voice, “What is your concern?” “I’ve had enough of this lifeless pla—I mean, I feel like I want to return to Earth and live a normal life,” I spat out. He replied unsurprisingly, “Fine. You are the thirteenth person who’s decided to quit this week. Sign this form, put it in a Hypermetal® bottle, and give it to a form-reception robot. There—the yellow ones with wheels.” He picked up a piece of paper and pointed to a corner. I scribbled my personal information on the blank spaces on the pale-white paper and tossed it into a stupid-looking hypermetal bottle. Then I picked up the bottle, aimed it at a reception robot, and shot it out of my portable object launcher for a quicker delivery. It turned out my aim was so poor that the bottle smashed into the wall. A second later, I heard a loud cheering sound. Had I broken something? I thought. But then I realized it was coming from a place outside. I was drawn toward the source of the noise, which my portable iPhone 100 said was building 3B. I was not alone. People jostled into building 3B to figure out what was inside. It was a seemingly normal room. But on further inspection, I gasped out loud. I couldn’t believe my eyes. In the middle of the room, one of the three life detectors actually displayed the message “Life detected.” I pinched myself again and again. This is a dream. This is a dream, I told myself. But it wasn’t. The room was  quiet for a moment before laughter and shouting exploded, so loud I bet people on Earth could hear us. Then the leader of the camp, who had just walked in, pulled out a microscope and after a minute of observing, said, “This life form we found is a tetra-membrane prokaryote with two flagella and a disproportionately high amount of ammonium nitrate. We have never seen something like this before. In other words, WE FOUND LIFE!” I was too shocked to speak. I ran back to my cabin. I

When his uncle returns after a long separation, Hans must protect him from his mother’s anger I was five years old when it happened, but I remember it well. I wish I could forget it, but that is not to be. The story begins before I was born, when my ma was a girl. My ma had a brother, Ferdinand, who one day disappeared. Then my ma’s parents died and my ma married my da and had me, Hans. I was like any boy, except that I had magic. One day when I was playing, a clear image of a man flashed through my head, hovered a moment, and flew away, leaving me wobbly and light-headed. I ran inside the cottage, calling. My ma looked up from her knitting. Her dark eyes softened. “My uncle’s at the gate. He’s wondering if his sister Thea is alive!” As always with the magic, the words tumbled out without me knowing what they meant. My ma blanched. “Find your uncle, and bring him here.” “Yes, Ma,” I said, turning, and dashed to the gate where our land ended, my sandals sinking into the sand, my tunic swishing around my legs. There I saw a man, cheeks hollow. I trotted up and said, “You’re Uncle Ferdinand—Ma’s brother?” He reeled back. “You are Thea’s son?” he whispered. “Yes.” I said. “I’m Hans.” Vibrance But then a vision came sweeping into my mind. I saw my ma, still knitting, but her face turned to the sky. And her face was terribly changed, her eyes were harsh and cold. She turned to my da and said, “I must kill my brother. He will pay for running when I needed him. He will feel my pain.” I fell, shaking hard. My mind whirled so I felt sick, and I stared at the ground without seeing. My ma wanted to kill Uncle Ferdinand. “Hans,” said my uncle urgently. I looked up in terror. “Uncle,” I said, “You mustn’t come home. Ma is set on killing you, and she will not stop at anything.” My uncle stared. “How do you know this?” “I am magic. I saw a vision. Ma aims to kill you!” I began to cry. My uncle covered his face for a while. “I must see if this is true,” he said finally. “Don’t! Ma aims to kill you!” “I must see my Thea,” my uncle said firmly, though his shoulders shook. I followed him. Soon the hut was in sight. Gabriel the dog began to bark, and my da smiled weakly. “Where is my Thea?” asked my uncle. “Inside,” said my da nervously. “I’m Esteban. Ferdinand?” “He.” My uncle shook my da’s hand and walked inside the hut. “Thea,” he said when he saw my ma in her chair. “My Thea.” “I’m g-glad you’re back,” said Ma. “And I’m glad you’re safe,” said my uncle. I stared at them. Both were distant, but where Ma had fury in her eyes, Uncle Ferdinand had hurt. “Come for supper. Esteban made soup,” said Ma. I caught a glint in her eyes. “Uncle isn’t hungry,” I said quickly. My uncle looked at me in surprise, but he interpreted my look and said shakily, “I’m sorry, my Thea.” That supper was dismal. Uncle Ferdinand ate nothing and the rest of us next to nothing. Finally we were left alone. “I can stay here no longer,” said my uncle quietly. “I’ll head for the city of Izak tonight.” “I will too,” I said. As the words came out I knew I couldn’t stay with a ma so full of bitterness, even though it broke my heart. My uncle’s eyes widened. “Your ma willn’t let you go. We’ll have to leave secretly.” I knew I couldn’t stay with a ma so full of bitterness, even though it broke my heart. “Tonight?” “Tonight,” he replied. Then I dashed for my bed and cried until I had no tears left. Then I walked outside. I had to clear my head. I sat down on a sand dune. The brilliant colors of the setting sun filled my heart with warmth. For the first time since I saw the vision, I wasn’t thinking of my ma’s vengeance. But not for long. I felt my ma’s hand on my shoulder and I stiffened. My ma had eyes like mine, dark and solemn. But for the first time I saw bitterness in them. When I stilled at her touch, that bitterness flared up. Then just as quickly died away. “Hans, you’re ill at ease.” Her eyes searched me, and though she had no magic I felt she might read my mind. For the first time, I was afraid of my ma. I leapt up. “It’s dark, Ma,” I lied. “I’m going inside.” “It’s not dark,” said Ma. She sat down and stroked me, sorrow in her eyes. “Stay out with me. What’s wrong?” “It is dark,” I insisted. “I’m scared!” “No, you’re not. Have you had any vision?” “The dark’s scary!” “Why are you trembling?” “Because I’m afraid of the dark!” “Tell me if you have seen a vision!” I couldn’t lie, not to my ma. “Yes.” “Of what?” “I’m scared of the dark!” “ANSWER ME!” I sat back down. “I’m sorry, Ma. What were you saying again?” I said, feigning confusion. “TELL ME IF YOU’VE SEEN A VISION!” “I—it is too dark!” I sobbed. Then I ran inside. *          *          * I’d just drifted to sleep when my uncle woke me. He had a sack of provisions slung over his shoulder. “Hans. We must run,” he whispered. I sat up, shivering. “Yes, Uncle.” I followed him outside. The night was dark. My uncle broke into a sprint, and I ran as fast as I could after him. Soon my chest ached, my legs screamed in protest. But I kept running. I had to. I had to keep running away from the only home I’d ever know. Soon my