Kiah looked back at me and said "Well Bobby? Is something wrong?"
"Kiah," I replied. "You've heard of Saint Dane, right?"
Kiah looked sad and sighed "Yes, Bobby I know him. Everyone here knows him. Come in, I will explain all."
We stepped into Kiah's apartment/home. I noticed right away it was very tidy and neat. The walls and ceiling were white. Instead of carpeting there were black floor tiles. There was also a shelf full of objects I didn't recognize and some purple potted plants in the corners.
But what caught my attention the most was a wide rectangular window that lined one of the walls. I couldn't believe what I was staring out into. Space. That's right, space! Outer space! I leaned against the window looking down, hoping to see some ground. But all I saw were some strange-looking objects flying around. I knew at once that they must have been spaceships.
"Kiah, what's going on?"
Kiah was also looking out the window. "Bobby, look over there."
Kiah pointed over to the right. I turned my head and was awestruck. Giant pieces of rock were orbiting in space and in the center of the rocks was a giant mass of rock. About three quarters of it had blown away. At the center of it was a gigantic, red ball of light. Strangely though, I could look right at it and not be blinded.
I began to ask "What is-
"That Bobby is Aploshion." Kiah interrupted.
I looked at her. I could see tears forming in her eyes as she turned her head away. "But Kiah," I asked. "That's impossible. That can't be Aploshion. I mean-
"It is!" Kiah said quickly. I could tell this was a subject that saddened Kiah, so I would have to choose my words carefully.
Kiah continued "Aploshion was destroyed sixteen years ago! And people here were too blinded and stupid to realize how much they were damaging it!"
I backed away a little. I could tell Kiah was getting very worked up about this.
I said in a calming voice, "Calm down Kiah. We don't need to talk about it anymore."
Kiah responded "But that's the point Bobby. You need to know what happened."
She motioned for me to sit in a shiny, silver chair. I sat down and Kiah sat down in another one. I was all ready to listen to this mysterious tale about her home world.
"Now Bobby, I must tell you what happened to Aploshion. As you could see, it is destroyed. You see, about seventeen years ago Aploshion was a fairly peaceful planet. People worked together with one another to build massive buildings and find cures for horrible diseases. Of course, there would be arguments and some mild wars but that is just the nature of things.
"Now there was also an element deep within the ground of Aploshion called Rephite. Rephite was used to power up vehicles and charge up robots. However, to get Rephite we had to send miners and robots to get it out. And they did a good job. People everywhere were able to get tons of Rephite. Life was almost perfect on Aploshion.
Kiah sighed. "But then one day the miners dug too deep. They hit another element similar to Rephite, called Semophite. Nobody knew what Semophite was back then so they just left it alone. However the Semophite would combust when touched with air and sunlight. Scientists realized this and also saw that there was so much Semophite the miners had stumbled on that all of it could destroy the entire planet! Luckily for us the Semophite would take months until it exploded. So with the advanced technology we had on Aploshion we could build massive space stations and send them into orbit just in the nick of time.
"Every citizen was loaded onto a space station. I can hardly remember it, being so young. But I remember the fear in everyone's' face. Aploshion blew up just days after we were all safely evacuated. For some reason the explosion didn't affect us in space. We were saved…
"So now sixteen years later life is still pushing forward. Some people even live on Aploshion's moon that was only partly destroyed. Even some people live on the huge pieces of Aploshion still in orbit. But most remain here on these space stations. Like me..."
Wow. Now that was a story. I felt totally bad for Kiah. I mean, imagine if that were to happen to Earth? I could imagine how devastating that would be. But I had a question.
"Kiah that is a terrible story. But I don't quite understand why the citizens of Aploshion are to blame?"
"Don't you see Bobby?" Kiah responded. "It's all about greed. The miners would have never dug down that deep if the fuel companies weren't only interested in their profits! The scientists had warned them to not go down that deep. But did they listen? No! Greed Bobby, it is all about greed."
I could see tears forming in Kiah's eyes. Heck, I didn't blame her. I was almost getting tears in my eyes! But one thing was still bugging me. It had been bugging me for a while.
"Kiah, I though there was only one Traveler from each territory. But you aren't the only Traveler here. What about Saint Dane?"
Kiah answered with a grim expression on her face. "Bobby, listen to me because this is important. Despite what you may have heard from others, Saint Dane is not a Traveler. He is a creation. A horrible creation…"