MARTIAN APOCALYPSE_ by Alice Grumelli

What they saw was terrifying: in a corner near the entrance of the cave there was a pile of dead aliens. The astronauts tried to understand how the Martians were like, but the bodies were decomposed so they could only see that the corpses were very small and had some kind of legs. At a closer look, the legs turned out to be six, of which two were near the head and had two pincers. The others legs didn't have fingers and where frog-like.

After the examination, the astronauts went ahead through the cave and soon after they found a city. It was an apocalyptic alien landscape. The red Martian sand covered everything, and the astronauts could only see the roofs of the houses and something that kind of looked like cars. Apparently there wasn't any vegetation nor water. They decided to inspect the city looking for water and life.

One of the astronauts approached a "car", wiped the glass and saw that there were two little dead creatures inside, one seemed bit by the other and dried blood was shed everywhere. They made camp and tried to get some rest, and the day after they began to dig the access to the entrance of one of those houses. The buildings were small and different from ours, they didn't have any window nor a garden. Finally they found the door.

The first floor had shattered furniture and broken objects everywhere, as if there had been a burglary or an act of vandalism. They found some alien technology, but it was thrown to the floor, broken to pieces. But nothing could have prepared them for what they saw on the second floor. There were seven rooms that  looked like bedrooms. One of these rooms was very small and the door was closed. They approached the door and opened it. Four of the little Martian creatures had been torn apart and the room was covered in dry violet blood. In a corner, a strange animal also lied dead and covered with blood.

The astronauts were very scared and they rushed out of the house. When they calmed down a bit, they decided to continue the research. For a week the astronauts tried to understand why these creature were all dead and what had happened to them, but they couldn't figure it out.

They asked for reinforcements, and the Earth sent another spaceship. With the help of the other astronauts they discovered a big lake and a forest near the city. There was also a lake. The water on Mars was red and very beautiful: when the sun rays made their way through the crevices of the cave and touched the water, it changed color from red to orange, and when the sun went down and the cave was all dark, the water became violet, like it was magical. The trees on Mars had yellow leaves with blue veins on them, and they have a spiral shape. The astronauts stood amazed at the beauty that surrounded them, as the biochemical team made all possible exams in their portable laboratories.

After three months they found the truth about the death of the Martian civilization. Before the extinction, an alien had managed to record some sort of video in which he showed some images. They discovered that in the last year of its life the population had grown so much that they had a shortage of water. They sent some spaceships to cook for water  on other planets. They knew that there was water on Earth, but they also knew that our civilization had polluted all the water.

So they started a program for the research of water in outer space. After a year they found a planet full of water and uninhabited. They took this water, purified it and brought it back with them in big containers, but they didn't know that inside this water there were bacteria so small and strong they couldn’t be eliminated nor even detected with any known technology. When they drank this water, the bacteria attacked their brain and the creatures became violent, so they started to kill each other. The animals were also infected. They couldn't develop a vaccine because the outbreak was very violent and rapid and after a short time all of the aliens were dead.

Today, every March 3rd we celebrate "the day of the first landing on Mars" which is a festivity where we remember all of this.