Year 2080, Age 13

I run towards my friends wearing my mask.

I had heard of a time, where people didn't have to wear them at all. A time when the air was so clean, that winged colorful creatures used to fly in the sky, a time when there were beautiful green trees at every corner.. A time when rivers were so pure that you could drink water right from them. To be honest, it all seemed like a movie to me... I couldn't imagine a place so beautiful, so real, while at the same time, so unreal.

"Hey let's go to the beach today!" one my friends suggest.

"Nah, we'll have to wear our special suits for that, I'm feeling too lazy to do that today." Susan replies

"How 'bout the 'Trodden Trunks' park?" Ella asks.

"Too many animal carcasses" one fires back.

"Well you suggest something better, will ya" she says angrily.

"Guys let's stop arguing"  I start, "how about we volunteer in the PCL [pollution cleaning committee] today?"

"I literally just said I'm feeling lazy today and don't want to wear a suit," Susan says.

I mentally grit my teeth. They just don't understand how important it is to help our planet do they? We've already come to a time in which we hardly have enough oxygen to breathe and all they can think about is....never mind, whatever they do I won't give up.

"hey, um.. sorry guys, I'm not feeling too good today, I'll meet up with you tomorrow, see ya guys later" I reply and walk back in the opposite direction after giving a wave.

Like everyday, I then go to the PCL sector to volunteer in our city. "Hey Frank" I say to a boy my age, who volunteers here everyday just like me. He also just so happens to be my best friend.

"Hey," he says, giving me a smile, "ready for today? Mark says today we're going to a nearby river and we'll have to dive in to collect sewage from the bottom." he says.

"Really?" I ask.
"Yup" he replies.
"Do you think we'll see any fish?" I ask him.
"Doubtful, they are hardly living anymore " he says, shrugging.

"Gather around everybody" I hear Mark call "today we're going to the river to collect sewage from the bottom" I smirk at Frank cause he literally told me the same thing just a second ago.

We reach the river and put on a special pollutant resisting divers' suits. I stand near Frank. "Ready?" I ask him. He takes a deep breath "yup" he says, and we jump in.

Thankfully, due to a dam being nearby the river wasn't flowing quite fast, in fact it was quite manageable. We held on to the pipes that would suck all the grime that had settled down at the bottom. We continued doing so  for a couple minutes when suddenly something felt wrong.

I don't know what suddenly happened, but I suddenly started making my way to the shore and motioned for Frank to do the same. He looked confused but followed behind me anyways. For some reason, me and Frank were the only ones in the river. I could hear some muffled shouting from above shore and quickened my pace. Just as I reached the shore I could see what the shouting was about.

A big black blob of black oil and pollutants was coming towards us which would definitely have blocked our vision and pipes and led to our death.
Wait, Frank had still not come up. I needed to save him. I almost jumped back in but was held back by the others. I struggled against their grasp to no avail.

Half an hour passed, but he still didn't come up. Everyone lost hope, but I sat there for a long time in the hope he was still alive. Eventually, I cried a lot but went home still unable to comprehend he was no more.

Yet another life taken by the mistakes we humans make. By our careless mistakes today I lost my best friend. Who knows, how many others lost theirs too.

Little did I know, if only we had understood this earlier, if only we had taken action earlier, we wouldn't have had to leave our planet Earth.....

Heya! Just so u guys know, this is a collab story with Unicorn_writes_1
We'll be updating every friday, 10am EST
Hope u enjoy!