They did it. Humans finally placed the straw that broke the camel's back. The camel in this case was Earth and she wasn't taking it lightly. The natural disasters and unbreathable atmosphere were a clear message from Mother Earth to humans: “get out!"
But humans were prepared, too, or should I say the elites. They had already prepared to make Mars their new Utopia.

On the dying earth, there was a boy, Kelly, 19 years old and born an orphan. He had always been insignificant from birth, rejected, and living on the streets. His only fear in life was dying insignificant. He tried his best to make a life, but the system where the rich got richer and the poor got poorer wasn't going to exempt him.

The first batch of the elite had already landed on Mars. Some tech was left to make their lives easier on Mars. And somehow Kelly found a way to sneak into the cargo ship.

He arrived with the cargo on Mars with hopes of a bright future, but was met with pure disappointment. Mars was beautiful, with technology he could never imagine, everywhere. He thought he could evade detection by the system, but the city was run by a super AI that could detect life in every nook and cranny, and no one was unaccounted for.

Kelly was detained, and a fair vote was to be carried out to decide his fate— whether to be executed or sent back to earth.
Kelly sat in a vast empty hall held by two guard robots. The city was given a day to decide Kelly's fate. Kelly sat in the dark hall alone with the robots as he thought about his life.

All his life, he had never felt the happiness or joy of being at Mass. The only choice he gave himself was death. And he would rather die with his last memory being happy than go back to earth just to suffer and still die there. He thought of ways to end his own life before reaching Earth. Maybe he could jump out into outer space and die peacefully, his body drifting forever, alone, just like he has always been from the moment he was born.

Finally, it was time. The center of the hall lit up with a hologram; it was a face without identity made up of algorithms and codes. A female voice came from everywhere as the hologram's mouth moved. You have committed a crime of illegal entry, and now the city will pass its judgment on you. Then two digits appeared above the face. A green zero and a red zero. Kelly guessed the red was for deportation, but he became confused when the green one started counting and the red one remained at zero. Maybe he mixed it up, he thought.

Finally, the vote was over, and the red was still at zero.

Then the AI spoke, “Judgment has been passed, you have been deemed insignificant and shall be pardoned so as not to consume resources for your transport back to Earth. You shall be allowed to stay, but you are not a citizen of Mars."

Kelly could hardly hide his joy as he smiled and cried as the robots escorted him out. But slowly that joy began to fade; he was dying in paradise. He was treated like a ghost, and as a non-citizen, he had no access to anything. And just like before on Earth, he stayed near a water fountain like he used to when he was bigger on Earth, only this time he wasn't begging.

After days of surviving on just water, he lay on the floor one night staring into the empty sky, and his life faded slowly. Then he saw something strange, it was a huge spaceship that slowly entered their atmosphere, not like anything from Earth, it just hovered over the city.

“Well, at least I still get to die with a beautiful sight,” he said with a sorrowful smile.

He stared at the ship for a long time, and soon his eyes started to close slowly. He was finally going…or maybe he was just sleepy.

“By the vote carried out by the city you have been chosen,” a robot voice said close to him.

" What?” He was confused.

The robots grabbed him by his arms and dragged him along.

"What is going on?” Kelly asked helplessly as he didn't even have the strength to struggle.

The robots dragged him to a black space pod just like the ship hovering above.

“Let me go, what the hell is going on?” Kelly panicked, but the robots didn't reply and just shoved him into the pod.

The pod changed into nanites and engulfed Kelly before turning back solid, then shot up into the sky at hyper speed back to the space sheep.

Kelly didn't know what was going on. All he could see were black nanites squirming all over him.

Finally, the nanites stopped and slowly moved away from him. When the nanites cleared from his view, he saw himself in a huge black spaceship. It was the one hovering above the city.

“Arrgggh,” he shouted in fear as he saw what stood before him. It was an alien. It had legs, hands and a head like a human, but was ridiculously tall and had no mouth, ears, nose or eyes. It was covered in black scales.

He scurried back like a scared cat if he wanted to force himself into the wall.

“Do not fear, for we mean no harm," Kelly heard a voice in his head. And weirdly, he did exactly that. He became so calm.

“I am in your head, and you can ask any questions?" The alien crouched and felt Kelly's face in admiration.

“W-why am I here? Who are you?" Kelly asked.

“I am Samyra, from the Veridian planet, a harvester with the mission of collecting species across the universe, and I have been assigned to planet Mars,” the alien replied.

"Why?”

"We aim to be of all species and live forever to the ends of the universe,"

"Why me?”

"We give a chance to every species to select the most insignificant life and offer it to us as a hostage in exchange for a peaceful end—an end to all things. And a start to a new life,”

"What do you mean by an end to all things?” Kelly asked

"In a few human minutes, the planet Mars shall be turned to dust along with all life on it,” the alien said

Kelly felt his heart tighten as he held his chest. Everyone on Mars was going to die. And the fact that they didn't know their end was just minutes away made it more horrifying.

“According to the culture, you have the choice to go back and warn your people or follow me and be the one to start and lead a new kind into existence, in any scenario, Mars will be vaporized," the alien said

Kelly stood there blankly. He wasn't sure he had it in him to watch a planet filled with life die.

The alien stood and turned to the wall as the nanites became transparent, and Mars was now in sight as the ship drifted away slowly.
Kelly stood beside the alien and watched Mars get smaller.

“I was wrong about you," the alien said

Kelly looked at it, puzzled.

“I have been in your head and have lived all your memories in just seconds. I never imagined it would take long for you to choose the obvious. Or would you rather die with them—an insignificant amongst the significants,”

The word insignificant struck Kelly somewhere in his soul. With a straight face, he said, “I can't go back,"

The alien touched the nanite's wall, and the whole ship reverberated. Then there was a beam of light that travelled from the ship and straight to Mars. Mars lit up the second the beam hit it, and for some seconds it looked like an exploding star before everything vanished, and all that was left was star dust.

Kelly stood expressionless after watching life turn to dust. He had a look that would raise questions about whether he still had a moral compass or not.

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_{Image generated using OpenAI}