When you think about it earth is the only planet that can sustain life. Until now. NASA has produced a system in which allows the oxygen in a room “recycle”. For instance if a person were to be in a room their oxygen tanks will be used up then turned into carbon dioxide. The machine turns carbon into breathable air. This machine has replaced all living plants and forest in the world. It has also begun to take over the red planet which is where I come in.

I am the first living being to test this machinery on Mars. Before we go on I will explain something. I am a lab rat who has been through human clinical trials and now being used for the exploration of the oxygen machine. I live in a small glass box and of course my oxygen is from the plant machine. I am not alone though, a human comes by my glass to check up on me through the hours. Since it has been only two days since my arrival I will continue through my journey.

As a lab rat I cannot leave the small glass box, but whenever the human comes and goes I see the earth wondering when I’ll be back. I try not to miss moments like this since it’s pretty much all there is around here. That is until number six-two-six came.

Six-two-six is another lab rat that was brought to the red planet and is being examined as much as I am as well. She is very shy though, she will not come out of the corner to say hello. There might be something wrong with her because whenever the human comes to check up on us, he gives her a needle with some kind of substance in it. The following day she passed away, so once a again I was all alone.

The next couple of days were rough as well because the human stopped coming to check on me. It started to get harder and harder to breathe with every breath I took. All of a sudden the power started to go off and back on again. That’s when it hit me. The systems were shutting down and since the human was not relying on the plant machine he ran out of air to breathe. Soon I would run out of air as well.

I had to think fast, and as a rat that wasn’t very difficult getting out of places. I bit open the metal door of my glass and hoped right onto the table. I sniffed six-two-six’s cage hoping I would see her. After I sniffed around and accepted her death I jumped on to the floor and scattered to the humans door. I nudged it with my head but it wouldn’t budge. After several times of doing that I darted over to the corner of the four walls. There was no flaws in this room but what got me was that how have I survived if the plant machine powered down?

A human dressed in a suit blasted through the door and looked alarmed. I bolted as fast as I could out the door but I was too late.The new human chased me for five minutes until he gave up and left. I sniffed the door and climbed back up to my cage. I saw the human wearing a suit drag the original one back up to his ship. I started to pace wondering if he was trying to help me or kill me, but now it is a little late for that. I stopped pacing and looked impatiently as the human blasted off back to earth minutes later. Once again it was harder and harder to breathe until I found myself back at my cage in the corner. I thought to myself, what would have happen if I went to the human as I feel asleep.