Alexis started to run even faster without caring about looking back now. All she thought about was reaching back home to the safety. And in no time she reached her house, quickly entered the code, locked the door, and peeked outside from a window. Judy and her lackeys had already given up on her and were nowhere in sight.
She took a long breath in relief, and then suddenly started to shiver and cry. She was of course afraid of the bullies and now that she reached home, all she wanted to do was cry. What she ever did to them to receive such hate, she thought.
Then she heard the sound of someone entering the passcode outside the door. It was Melissa, her mom. She was a nurse in the nearby hospital called Longevity Center. This hospital was established and run by the inhabitants of Planet GN-07 as a sign of goodwill from their planet to the Earth.
The inhabitants of GN-07 were referred to as The Healers by others because of their unique ability to heal others. And they had managed to transfer their ability to robots making it possible to heal patients efficiently. And due to its specialty and highest success rate in treating patients, this hospital had highest patient inflow record in Earth.
Melissa was returning home after her night shift and also covering for her colleague's day shift. Though the technology replaced the doctors in this particular hospital, few nurses were still hired to oversee the process and provide humane care to the patients. As expected, Melissa was very tired from her long duty hours.
Just as she was about to storm off to her bedroom, she noticed Alexis who was curled up at the corner of the door and was crying. "Hey! Lexi, what happened to you dear? Why are you crying?" asked a concerned mother, who forgot all about her own pain and tiredness the moment she saw her daughter crying.
"Oh! it's nothing mom." Alexis tried to smile through her tears and said, "You don't have to worry about me. You must have been tired after pulling an all-nighter AND a day shift. You should get some sleep. I'll prepare dinner."
"Honey, how can a mother not worry about her child?" Melissa said in a comforting voice. "You know you can always tell me anything, right?"
"I know." Alexis contemplated for a while and asked, "Do I look like an alien?"
"What? Who told you such nonsense?" Melissa looked away from her daughter as if she was trying to hide something.
Alexis's keen eyes caught up Melissa sudden change in behavior and asked again, "Mom, you never really told me anything about dad except the fact that he abandoned you when you were still pregnant. Is there something I need to know... about dad?"
"I've told you everything that you need to know about him. I think I'll go to bed now." Melissa got up and went to her bedroom. As always she ignored Alexis's question about her dad. She didn't want to talk about that person who had abandoned her and her daughter.
Alexis wanted to know more about her dad but was upset with herself for ruining the mood of her mom, she knew that if she asked anything related to her dad, Melissa would be upset.
Alexis pulled herself together and started to prepare the dinner. Alexis was pretty good at cooking and wanted to treat her mom for upsetting her earlier. Her mother's favorite dish was chicken wings. So she prepared some crispy and spicy chicken wings with baked sweet potatoes. Sweet aroma of the freshly prepared food covered the kitchen.
"Mom, dinner's ready," Alexis called her mom for dinner.
Melissa was still half-asleep when she came downstairs to the kitchen. Then she sat down for dinner and saw that her daughter had prepared her favorite dish. It brought a soft smile on her face.
She took a deep breath and then said to Alexis, "You know I love you and I wouldn't ever want you to get hurt. Yes, as you suspected, your father is not from this planet. And if I told you that, I was worried that you would go in search of your father."
Alexis was not that shocked as she had already speculated that her dad might be from another planet. She just didn't know how to respond and just kept on staring at her mom expecting she would say something more about her father.
"You are already studying in the SpaceTravel Academy and I don't want you to go searching for your dad. I know it's me being selfish but I don't want you to leave me just like your father did." Melissa seemed a little disappointed with herself after she said this, so she quietly started to munch on a sweet potato.
Alexis pursed her lips not knowing what to say and not believing that her mom actually said that.
Seeing the disapproving look on her daughter's face, Melissa said, "I'll tell you more about your father in the future, just not today."
"It's fine", Alexis said sternly but it was obviously not fine. She then started to eat her dinner as fast as she could and while doing that she almost choked on the sweet potato.
After finishing the dinner, Melissa started to do the dishes while Alexis headed towards her bedroom. She felt her whole body becoming sore and just wanted to get some sleep. After all, she had a very long day today. She came across the Soulmate app but it didn't show any name, not that she was dying to see one; then she was caught by the bullies and was almost beaten up; and she found out that her dad was not even from Earth.
Her room had a face recognition system, which was very common to have in this neighborhood. She opened the door of her room and a robotic voice greeted her, "Welcome! Lexi. I hope you had a wonderful day today."
"Wonderful day? You don't know, PIA." Alexis smirked awkwardly.
Her room was small but very decent. At the one side antique items like model airplanes, telescope, books, and calculators were on display. On the other side, there was a large transparent screen which was a personal computer. Alexis mostly spent her time in front of this screen; either doing her homework, studying, watching interesting videos, playing spaceship simulated games, or simply just staring at it.
Alexis stepped on her oval-shaped white bed and set the bed's temperature to a warm setting. As soon as she lied down on her bed, all the light of her room automatically turned off. But she could not get any sleep and just kept on turning the sides.
"So, my dad is an alien huh...", Alexis thought to herself, and finally went to sleep.
[NOTE: IGT Fed started the planet coding system in order to make it easier for them locate the planets according to the galaxies they are in. For example, MW-01 means planet number 1 in Milky Way galaxy, which is Earth. Likewise, C-31 means planet number 31 in Cygnus A galaxy, A-11 means planet number 11 in Andromeda galaxy, and GN-07 means planet number 7 in GN-z11 galaxy.]