As the beautiful blue marble known as my home planet earth fills the screen, I can't help but feel giddy with excitement. It has been such a long time since we've come back home, as our mission of exploring Mars has taken years.

However, ask I look at the planet again, I feel a sinking of my heart. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong. There is too much blue. Where did the ice go? Where did the land go? This isn't how I remembered the earth to look like when we left.

It was almost like the oceans got larger.

And what were the black streaks across the land? What happened while we were gone?

We nearly died in the re-entry, the spacecraft kept reporting abnormally hot temperatures. The metal was literally melting, and so were we. I was convinced that we would be burned alive.

Thankfully, we survived. When I stepped out of the rocket, I could not believe how hot it was. It surely wasn't this hot when we left. And why was the air thicker, harder to breathe?

Being reunited with my family was heaven. It really felt good to be home. Once all the celebrations died down, I got around to asking my wife about these changes I noticed about our earth, and she said two words that would rock my world- Global warming.

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Word Count: 229 

ScienceFiction Prompt- Coming Home

The trip has been long and arduous, but the mission successful. Now, beautiful Earth finally fills the screens. But something is off..