The person who stood before her was not the Kara she had grown up with. The girl's eyes were sunken and dark, cheekbones defined. She looked emaciated. Her face looked as if it hadn't smiled in years.
If she didn't have such vibrant memories of her cheery sister, Kelly would almost swear the helpless girl standing before had never experienced joy.
"Where will you go?" Kelly could barely get out the words.
"I have to go back." The words barely trickled out of a broken shell. She seemed as though she would crumble at any moment.
"Just take her, please. Give her a good life, please, Kelly. Please give her the life we had, the life we dreamed about when we were kids."
"Kara, you can't leave; you can't go back to them. I love you. You're my sister. It kills me to see you like this. You’re so frail and sickly."
"Stay here. We'll get you better," Kelly continued to plead with her sister. "Please, Kara, don't leave me."
"Kelly, you don't understand. I can't come back. It's too late for me, but it's not for Mika; she can live a full life, one that I could never have or give to her."
As Kara spoke, Kelly noticed her face looked like it was covered in a rash. Reddish abrasions and scabs were everywhere there was skin. Kelly wanted to ask her what was wrong and thousands of other questions.
"You have to take her." Kara squeezed her sister with all of her might. After Kara hugged Kelly, she ran to the idling car; she threw open the back door and dove into the back. Kelly heard a hurried male voice, "Go! " Then the car sped away.
Kelly was left standing there, bearing the same things her sister brought to her door. A child and tears streaming down her face.
It had all happened so quickly, a whirlwind of emotions, and now she was left here with a newborn child. One that she had no idea even existed.
When Kara hugged Kelly, it felt like she was wrapping kindling around her. The squeeze was barely perceptible.
Kelly stood there, holding her new child. As she stared into the pouring rain where the car had been, she wondered if she would ever see her sister again.
~
Nine years later.
"Venus' atmosphere is almost entirely carbon dioxide, which causes all the heat from the sun to stay in and bake the atmosphere. It's so hot, you could melt metal there. So naturally, no driving, and your shoes would melt and stick to the ground."
Mika giggled. "You can't walk underwater, Auntie."
For a moment, Kelly puzzled, "Oh, you mean because the atmosphere is so thick, it's like swimming in the deep ocean."
Kelly chuckled. She thought about trying to explain that you couldn't actually swim in a gas, because you would just keep sinking. But she decided to stick with her analogy.
"Yeah!" Mika said excitedly.
"Next is Earth, the planet I live on," said Kelly.
"Me too!" proclaimed Mika. "That's where I live, too!"
"Oh well, I guess that's true. That's probably a good thing you know, because I love you, and I don't know what I would do if you were anywhere else." Kelly kissed Mika on the head.
"Earth is in what we call the goldy locks zone, just the right distance from the Sun. The planet is made of water, an amazing substance that hosts life and covers most of the planet. The world is also amazing because it is so full of oxygen. It's the air we breathe, and water is made from it," explained Kelly.
"No, Auntie, how is water made from the air?" Mika asked, ready for another rouse.
"That is an excellent question, but it will be hard for you to understand right now For now, just imagine, when you are playing tag, you can run away from your friends with no problem. Now imagine you hold hands with your friend, and try to run from someone else. It will be much harder to run."
"Now imagine playing tag while holding hands with two friends," Kelly explained.
"So the air is holding hands with water?" Mika asked.
"You ask a lot of questions. You know that?" Kelly asked, touching her eraser to Mika's nose, with a loving squinch. "Don't ever stop."
Kelly drew another dot and a circle encompassing the rest. "Earth. Outside of Earth, is Mars, a dry planet that may have once hosted life."
"You mean Martians?" Mika blurted out.
Kelly laughed. "No, not little green men that can lift stuff with their mind, but life, like algae and bacteria. It all happened long before Earth was ever the beautiful planet it is today."
"What happened to it? Could it happen to Earth?" asked Mika.
"Well, it will be tough for you to understand now, so I'll explain it better in the future. But we have a magnetic field that protects our atmosphere from being swept away by the Sun."
"Mars did not have this, and it eventually lost most of its atmosphere into space. We do have a magnetic field, so you don't have to worry about that happening here on Earth. Now, most people don't know it, but after Mars and before Jupiter, is a large asteroid field, called the asteroid belt. This is where asteroids and meteors come from."
"Then, there is Jupiter. Jupiter is huge, so big, in fact, that you could fit eleven Earths into it. We owe much to Jupiter. It has long served as Earth's protector."
"How?"
"Because of its size, a lot of would-be Earthbound marauders are caught in Jupiter's gravity. Once caught, they get eaten up Jupiter." She made a slurping sound and covered her mouth.
"That's why I got you that shirt, ‘Jupiter is my bodyguard.’" Kelly laughed and asked, "Can you imagine, Jupiter in a suit and tie, following you around like the secret service?"
Mika giggled. "Auntie, Jupiter couldn't follow you around; it's too big."
Kelly gave Mika an endearing smile. "The thing is, this cloud didn't come from any place that it normally does. Science has never seen anything like it before."
Kelly thought to herself on a more serious note: The truth is, science as we know it cannot explain the existence of this cloud. That's why it has blanketed the news and social sites since its discovery six months ago.
Discussions about the cloud ran twenty-four/seven worldwide, across every channel, and every source of media. The topic was quite often the same: there are rhyme and reasons for everything.
But not only can we not find either for the cloud, Kelly thought, but it also stands in the face of all that we thought we do know.
The hypothesis ranged from the most benign of origins to outlandish claims of Godly entities taking retribution – even a malevolent race of superior beings, having created a massive "death cloud."
The only thing we know for sure is there is no escaping it. Kelly stared into the eyes of this wondrous child, wondering if this was, in fact, grand design, as many had suggested.
The size, shape, and density of the cloud are inexplicable. And the speed nearly matches ours exactly, as if its sole existence is to be there for the earth to pass through, to envelope.
A cosmic inevitability, creeping along with the slow, inexorable ebb of a glacier...if that glacier was hurdling around the Sun at 66,000 miles an hour.
The cloud is elliptical, measuring roughly three thousand miles in diameter at the ends, and upwards of twelve thousand miles at the thickest portion.
Further, it is nearly two million miles long and is stretched precisely along the path of the earth's orbit. The earth, on the other hand, is just over eight thousand miles in diameter at the equator (its