New chapter, written for the Writers Anonymous 10 Year Challenge

The little Elgyem gave another look at his starship, and swallowed hard. His heartbeat was quick and strong, and it drummed hard in his eardrums.

That was it. The moment had come.

He was leaving his planet.

The light blue pokémon lifted his gaze to the rocket, and fear appeared in his big, oval jade eyes. His breathing became quicker, and his red and yellow palm lights lit up, as they did whenever he felt terrified. For a brief second, he wondered why he had agreed to his, but then he remembered.

A few years ago, an astronomer had discovered an inhabitable planet orbiting a nearby star. Immediately, the planet's Supreme Council had taken an interest in her findings, ans shortly after an exploration project had begun, motivated not by the urgent need to find another planet for their species to live in, but by purely economical reasons. Some raw materials, such as nitrogen and iron, were extremely scarce on their planet, and they had to be imported from others at an enormous cost. If they managed to find another planet in which they were common, and theirs to extract, their perpetually loss-making economies, which caused increasing taxes and general dissatisfaction among the populace, could be improved.

And that's where he came in. He was the chosen explorer of the new planet. He would spend ten years away from his planet, travelling through hundred of lightyears of distance, to arrive at the chosen planet and determine whether it was or not suitable to establish a commercial colony on it.

He silently thanked the Beheeyem scientist who had discovered the hiperspace travel. If not for her, his trip would have lasted thousands of years, making it completely impractical and its possible results total moot.

But still, ten years... Ten years was a very long time to spend alone.

He knew well the risks such a long travel brought along. He had been told, and been made sure to understand, that he would be exposing himself to a variety of physical and mental risks, including cosmic radiation, muscle and bone atrophy, sleep difficulties and possible insanity due to the long periods he would spend in total isolation. He'd understood them all, and had agreed to take the risk.

They paid extremely well. And his family needed the money.

They had incurred a huge debt when his mother's company had gone bankrupt. He did not know the exact figures, but he did know that it was around seventy million geyma, a more than enough quantity for a family to live on for the rest of their lives. And a quantity his family could never manage to pay, which meant they would be imprisoned for being delinquent debtors, probably on life sentences. If there was a crime the Elgyem society considered severe, that was being a delinquent debtor.

And then, the ten-year-ling space trip had appeared, along with the hundred million geyma that would be bestowed upon the brave Elgyem who agreed to face the risks of the travel and explore an unknown planet for the glory and wealth of his own.

Immediately after learning of it, the little Elgyem knew exactly what he had to do. This was the only chance he'd ever have to save his family from incarceration, even if he would not see them for ten long years. And that was supposing he would return to his world.

The little Elgyem swallowed, and started walking to the starship gate with small and slow steps, letting his last steps drag on as much as he could. And, the closer he came to the rocket, the more tears welled up in his eyes, and the darker his eyes became. Who knew if he would ever walk on Elgemya again?

When his left foot crossed the huge, metallic door of the starship, the first tear fell from his eye. When his right foot came inside, the dam finally broke.

The little Elgyen fell to the floor, a sharp and acute metallic sound spread through the air when his light blue knees hit it. His body bent forward around his waist, and he buried his head on his hands, which were lying on the cold metal floor, devoid of their strength. Soon, they were covered in tears.

Why him? Why did his mother's company have to go bankrupt? Why did he have to leave? Why did he have to spend the next ten years of his life away from his family, with no way of ever contacting them? Why did he have to put his life at stake in a wild, unknown planet, where anything and any creature could end his life as if he were nothing more than prey for them? Why did it have to happen to him?

He knew that mulling those questions in his head over and over would neither do him any good nor bring him closer to the answer. But he kept doing it because it made him cry. And crying, he did know, was cathartic.

At least his family was not there, watching him crying his heart out, on his knees on the cold aluminium floor of the rocket. He knew he couldn't stand them seeing him break down in front of them. Not showing his feelings showed strength, showing them meant weakness. And weaklings who cried in the open enjoyed no respect from fellow Elgemya citizens.

That was why he had acted so cold in his farewell. He had wanted wanted to crush his mother and his little sisters in a bear hug while crying his heart out, but instead of it, he had just bowed his head to them and muttered a canned farewell, trying to sound calm and emotionless when his heart was actually torn and his tears threatened to burst. Just like the had done with their farewells. Though he thought he had seen a tiny, shiny tear forming in his mother's eye when she had turned around to leave.

The little Elgyem sniffed, and wiped his tears off his eye. However, as soon as it was clean, his tears flooded it back again.

He was leaving. These were the last minutes he would spend on his planet. After that, ten long years of isolation and exploration in an unexplored planet awaited him.

And he had to do it. For his family.

Summoning all the strength he had, he wiped his tears once more, and rose slowly to his feet. He did not want to leave. He did not want to spend the next ten years of his life hundreds of light-years away from his family. But they were the reason why he was doing this.

Very slowly, he turned around to the starship door, looking at the exterior; and lifted his left palm. The yellow light at the bottom of his palm blinked twice, and after that the green light lit for two seconds.

With a metallic crash that shook the inside of the rocket, the starship door closed behind him like a ravenous maw. Just a few seconds after that, the seventeen second-long countdown began.

The deep voice of the officer-in-command Beheeyem kept ringing in his ears and terrified him, but he swallowed hard and started to walk towards his chair, ignoring the feeling in his legs. If he didn't make it to his chair and was secured to it before the officer reached zero, he would not survive the intense g-forces he would suffer during take off.

Fortunately for him, he reached his chair with seven seconds left, and fastening himself to it only took him two seconds. He took a deep sigh, and put his hands over the controls of the starship just as the commander spoke the number four.

He lifted his gaze, and looked through the window, at the gray walls, at the launchpad, at anything that wasn't inside the starship. A few tears welled up in his eyes.

Three.

He could feel the engines starting, dozens of meters below him. Their raw power made the whole rocket vibrate. He felt the insides of his body churning and tying into a knot.

Two.

The vibrations grew stronger. A tear ran down his face, and he lifted his hand to wipe it; but soon more tears came to fill for them.

One.

He had a last blurred look at his planet though the screen of his tears. Ten years outside of it were going to be a very long time. He buried his head in his hands and cried.

And the spaceship took off.