“Mommy! Why are those kids hurting him?!” I hear from around the corner. I immediately rush to the experiment room.

“Leah Robertson, why are you in here? You were told to never come to the headquarters.” I lecture my 12 year old daughter. The events within this experiment are too much for her to bear.

“What did that kid ever do to them?” My daughter wails, tears streaming down her face.
Here’s the thing. My husband, Thomas, and I are scientists in the Head of Prediction. Our jobs mean the world to us. We develop and control experiments to see how the subjects will respond to the variables that they create. In this certain experiment, we created a sphere that floats in the middle of nowhere. We named this place Earth. Within Earth, there are seven regions of land called continents. The point of this experiment is to understand how citizens of these continents react to each other. We put these subjects into Earth with nothing, but everything. They have the ability to make what is essential for living, but they don’t know what to do when they figure out how to survive.
These citizens have definitely surprised all of the scientists in our headquarters. These citizens are meant to be selfless and unite as a universe- not as specific continents. But, that is not how it turned out. Not only does Earth have people with extreme wealth while others can’t find food every day, but they also have continents fighting against one other. These citizens think that killing at war is okay, but murder and manslaughter is not. What they don’t realize is each continent has one ultimate goal: to survive. Fighting against one another will not accomplish this, or any personal, goals.
“Leah, listen. These people in this experiment think they’re better than all other people who are around them. The people hurting the boy think they’re better than him because they have a different skin color.” I try to explain to Leah. Out of any experiment I have ever preformed, Earth has definitely been the most hateful, selfish, yet smart invention. What Leah witnessed was a close up of teenager boys in an alley in Bethpage, New York.
“There were six boys against one. It’s like a goldfish against three sharks. What did he do to them?” Leah asks a crack in her voice.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out, Leah…why some people in Earth think skin colors matter. Go back downstairs.” I was just turning away when I hear Leah scream again.
“Mom!!! Stop them! Stop them!!” I turn around and see the boy with colored skin lying on the ground with blood around his head, and the group of boys walking away with a gun in hand.
“Leah. Downstairs. Now,” Leah runs downstairs, sobbing her eyes out.
“What is all of this commotion?” My husband, Thomas, comes from the other room.
“Dave…it’s happening. The killing,” I state, panic in my voice.
***
Once my mom and dad are asleep I go back up to the headquarters. I know I’m not supposed to go up there, especially alone, but I can’t stop thinking about the boys in the alley. Who cares if his skin is different than theirs? I go to the Earth sphere and turn it around, looking at all the continents, as my mom calls them. I zoom into the place that is the busiest. I think it’s 9:00 in the morning. The people here are very different than people in other continents. These people all have colored skin but no one is hurting them! They also have to carry buckets of water to their house. Why don’t they just go to a sink like people in other continents? I zoom back out to see the whole earth. I try to avoid New York because I don’t want to see another boy get hurt, but I have to see if the boy from yesterday is okay. I zoom back to where the boy was. He’s not in the alley anymore, so he must be getting better in a- BOOM.
I hear nothing but loud noises going off around me. “What is going on?!” I shriek in terror and shock. The noises are so loud in my head that I have to cover my ears. There is dust rising from two buildings just down the street from the alley I was looking over. “Someone stop the noises!” I screech. Another plane is flying towards toward the two buildings. “What is happening!?” I scream aloud. There are people running all over the streets. Loud screaming, from not only me, fills my head.
Finally, my parents run up to the room. Immediately, my mom runs to me while my dad goes straight to Earth. “Anna…two planes flew straight into the Twin Towers. It looks like it was a terrorist attack. Get Leah out of here.” My mom takes me downstairs while the dust is still rising.
“I told you to not go up to Earth. And you disobeyed me, once again. What does it take for you to listen to me?” My mom says in a stern and very mad voice.
“I was just looking! I didn’t do anything! Why are people drinking buckets of dirty water? Why were there people sleeping on the streets? Why are the humans killing each other? Why did the planes run into the buildings? Did they get lost?” I ask.
“Go to your room. We will talk later.” My mom goes back to the headquarters while expecting me to go to my room. How can I just go to my room after witnessing this? Slowly I creep back up the stairs to hear my parents talk about what happened. I only hear bits and pieces of conversations.
“Terrorist attack…Osama Bin Laden…Another plane crashed into Pentagon…more killing…war”
After about 10 minutes, I hear my mom walking toward the stairs. I stumble to my room before she sees me. Shortly, she comes into my room.
“What happened?” I ask, as if I didn’t hear their conversation. She just looks at me, a lost expression in her eyes.
“There was an attack on one of the continents, America. We don’t know why.”
“What? Why don’t the countries like each other? Can’t they all help each other?” I ask my mom.
“In Earth, it doesn’t work like that, honey. Go back to sleep, you’ve seen enough.” My mom said sweetly, after kissing my head goodnight. There is no way I will be getting any sleep tonight.
***
After putting Leah back to sleep, I go back to the headquarters to see what else has happened. Thomas is busy at work writing all of the events of the attack down. We know, so far, that a man named Osama Bin Laden led an attack on America, for an unknown reason. Over 1,000 people have died already, due to the falling of the twin towers. These citizens of Earth are not doing what they’re supposed to do. Killing, starving, poverty, racism, and discrimination are not what this planet was meant to accomplish. Why would animals of the same species kill each other when in the end, they all ultimately want to survive and thrive? All the citizens of Earth are doing is damaging their own planet.
Suddenly, my boss comes up to our headquarters. The look on his face when he sees New York is pure disbelief. “What even…” he starts. I can see the disappointment in his eyes. He trusted Thomas and I to create this experiment and have a better outcome.

After explaining the events of the terrorist attack, he realizes that Earth has turned into murder, hatred, and most of all- selfishness. “You’ve had this project long enough, Mr. and Mrs. Robertson…why don’t you just destroy Earth now?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary, Mr. Brown…” I start. “The citizens of Earth are very capable of destroying Earth themselves.”