She let him walk out the door. Now that he had the sunglasses on he could see what was outside. Outside of the house was a scene unlike any Duo had ever seen or dreamed of living in the colony. There was a huge grassy field, flowers of almost every color, and beautiful nearly cloudless sky. He was so shocked that he stumbled forwards a few feet as a gentle breeze ruffled his short hair. He quickly realized that he wasn’t in any of the colonies. He also knew that he wasn’t on Earth, because everyone, even the people in the colonies, knew what the Earth looked like. The pollution was so bad that the skies were filled with grey smog; every bit of spare land was either occupied by a building or a badly yielding farm trying to live in the exhausted soil. And that was the parts where humans could live the best. He turned around to look at her. The small house, behind her was at the edge of a forest.
There were no trees on Earth or the colonies; they had long since been cut down to make room for more people, died from the pollution, or mindless destruction. So the sight of all those trees was astounding to Duo. She was smiling, obviously proud of something.
He looked around for a while longer, amazed at the work of hope on Mars. He believed her only because it was the only possible solution he could believe in. He got up and walked to a tree and put his hands on the bark to see if it was real. He walked to the field to see for himself if it was real as well. Then he looked up at the sky and saw the clouds that occasionally rolled by. Hope walked over to him.
He looked at her, dazed, and shook his head up and down.
She went to the edge of the field, which was on a slope. Down the small hill was another forest with a path through it. She led Duo down the hill and along the path. The sunlight shone through the trees. Tall green grass and little pink and yellow flowers were covering the ground. Duo stared at it all, caught up in its beauty. The forest opened up a little, and he could hear water flowing. He looked at her.
He still had heard what she said but it took a moment to sink in. He had never seen a river, but he had heard of the ones on Earth. Most were dried up now; or heavily polluted. They turned around a bend in the path and the river came up into view. It was a pretty big river for a forest, but it moved along slowly. There was a small simple bridge across it where the path crossed to the other shore. Duo was about to stop and look at the river when Hope grabbed his wrist and firmly, but gently pulled him towards the bridge.
When they got to the middle of the bridge they stopped. She let got of Duo and leaned on the railing of the bridge.
Duo looked at her. No one, not even his mother, acted as free as she did. He saw her looking over the edge of the bridge at the water.
He looked to where she had pointed and peered over the side. There in the water were some small creatures. He looked at them a bit confused, then he realized he had seen things like them before. He had eaten some fish once. He didn’t know what they had been because he had stolen them, and he didn’t understand the word at the stand that they were at.
He didn’t answer, because the fish fascinated him as they swam about in little groups. She noticed this and for three minutes tried to regain his attention.
He didn’t notice her. He only responded when a question popped in his head.
She liked this question, so she smiled.
She stopped and looked at the fish.
He stopped and turned towards her.
