We're called Echoes. Our birth is a nasty one. We are born from the screams of death from humans. Not all of us are the same age. Some grow and stop at an old age, or some at a young one. I stopped growing at thirteen. When people talk regularly, it's very articulate, but if they shout over the Grand Canyon, their voice travels longer than regular ones. That's how our life span worked. We grow and stop at certain ages, and we die a few hundred years later. However, since some Echoes have such depressing lives, they just let them selves die, and they become an empty shell. At least, more than they already are. Instead of me being thirteen, I'm actually two-hundred thirteen.

Echoes live in very secluded areas. Some in abandon buildings, old houses, or the planet Venus. We don't interact with humans very much...or at all. We aren't ghosts, but we're not human. You can see us, but we don't come out. Most of the Echoes live on Earth, but there are a handful of us who live here on Venus. There's these invisible rooms, that when you walk in, it's nothing but white. It looks like you're floating in a white space. The crazy thing about the white room, is there are no shadows. It's never dark in there. Always white. Some Echoes go crazy in there, that's why the sane ones live on Earth. I'm not crazy, I just like to...explore.

The door slid open, and Kaiden walked in. Kaiden's been my best friend for nearly one-hundred eighty seven years. In short, we've been friends for a while. He had brown spiky hair, hazy green eyes, baggy black shorts with yellow belts around each pant leg, white shirt, and a black hoodie with sleeves like a T-shirt, and stopped above his belly showing half his yellow shirt, long arm fishnets, and red shoes with a lightning symbol on the sides. Sounds like a wacky outfit, but not to us. It was the year 2043 or so on Venus, though I lost count after 2021. I, on the other hand, had red checkered drain pipes, a belt with several different designs, a white jacket that changed color and pattern, messy uncombed blonde hair, blue eyes, and yellow and white shoes. I know what you're thinking, I'm better looking than Kaiden. Well, it's true, he just never admits it.

I was lying down on an air mattress when Kaiden walked in. Air mattresses on Venus were actually just air. "Where've you been young man?"

"You're not my mom, Len," he said flatly.

"You don't have a mom. You're an Echo." he sighed and added, "I know, but I hear that humans say that to one another when one acts like their mother." I tilted my head as if I was interested. Kaiden was usually very interested in humans. We had the form of humans, but we were pretty much just hallow shells. "No seriously, where were you?" he walked over to a wall, and stuck his hand through it. He stuck his other hand in, and pulled one up, and the other down, making a small window. Through the window, I saw a small blue green orb that no human would ever guess was earth. We also have better eye sight.

"Again?" Kaiden always wanted to go there. I didn't care much. It wouldn't take long for us to get there. Not 20 years, not 13 years. It wouldn't even take a week. Being the Echoes we were, we just needed our voice to carry us. Echoes didn't need food, didn't need water, didn't need air, didn't need much at all. Like I said, we're hallow shells.

"Let's go there one day Len. It won't take long, why won't you go with me?" he said looking out the window.

"Because Earth is no place for an Echo,"

"There are a ton of Echoes there." I sighed in defeat. "Why do you wanna go there so bad? It's polluted, gross, stinky, and..."

"You're just nervous because there's so many people there. Don't you wanna see all the different people? Don't you wanna see a world totally different from ours? You've never even stepped out of this room ever since you were born. Just because we're Echoes, doesn't mean we don't have lives."

"But we don't have lives. Kaiden, we live on Venus in a white room. Face it, we're boring." He rolled his eyes at me in annoyance. "No, you're boring. I wanna go somewhere not boring. I wanna go to Earth. And I'm leaving tomorrow. Come with me if you want. But I need an answer soon, so are you coming." Kaiden was two, or two hundred years older than me. He knew a little bit more about arguing than I did. It was true that I was awfully bored on Venus, but I never had the guts to leave. I don't wanna step out of the room because I've been afraid of the outside world. If I can't step out of this room, how does Kaiden think I'll go to a whole new world? The more I thought of it, the more fun and scary it sounded. He looked at me.

"Yeah, I'll go."

The next day Kaiden practically pried me out of the white room. I never knew how beautiful Venus's rings were. I never knew how beautiful the galaxy was. It was truly amazing. My smile dissipated when Kaiden turned my body toward Earth. I really did not wanna go there.

"Shall we, Len?"

"We shan't Kaiden." he gave me that annoying annoyed look at me. He did that when I was being an annoyance, or when he was just annoyed at me. "You said you'd go," he said. I searched in my mind one good excuse. "But, don't you think people will find it weird that we just popped out of the sky?" Score. He had a thinking face on. And I hoped with all my heart that he was thinking of staying. And if there really was a god, then he would let me stay too. "That's okay," Dammit. "We'll aim for a deserted place. We have to say it at the same time though okay, otherwise, we'll get lost." the thing about traveling to other place, is if you're traveling with someone, and you're both going to the same place, you both have to speak the place you're going, or else you'll get separated. "Let's go with deserted place on Earth okay?" I nodded. "On three. One, two, three!"

"Deserted place on Earth!" we said at the same time. And almost immediately, we we're in some old building. It was so weird. I heard these things zooming by, the sound of footsteps, people talking. We went to a broken window, and saw weird looking machines on for circles. The circles moved forward, along with the rest of the machine. There were a lot of them on a black road.

"What year is it here?" I asked looking at the strange contraption. "2009." he answered almost instantly. "How'd you know?" he pointed to a big sign that said, "Get your free Motorola phone today! Huge sale for cell phones on January 5th, 2009!" people started looking up at us, and we ducked. "I think they saw us." Kaiden whispered.

"What's a January?" I asked peeking out the window again, only to have Kaiden pull me down. "I think it's what humans used to keep track of the date." he said. "So today is a January?"

"Yeah, something like that." he said. We walked around the building and came across some stairs. We walked all the way down until we came to the door. Once we walked out, a bunch of people stared at us. I knew it was because of the outfits. The people here were wearing such boring outfits. I went up to a man in a suit, and lightly tugged on his sleeve. "'Scuse me sir, but could you tell me what that is?" I asked pointing to the contraption we saw earlier. The man gave me a funny look. "You mean the car?"

"That's what their called!" Kaiden pulled me away. "What the heck are you doing, Len?" he said sternly.

"I was curious." his mouth was slightly parted, and his face was sarcastic.

"Curious? How! You we're afraid to come here because I was curious!" I waved my hand like it was no big deal, and continued walking. At first I was nervous, but this place was awesome! I never knew humans could do such weird things. Kaiden knew more about Earthly things than I did though. I could tell he was kind of mad at me, but we both soon forgot about it when we saw a car in the sky! It didn't have wheels, but it had wings like a bird, and it zoomed above us into the clouds. No one took it in as much as Kaiden and I.

"Len, did you see that thing in the sky?" he asked me. I continued looking in the sky even though the flying car was long gone. "Yeah, what was it? A flying car?"

"I don't know. I think it was called something like...a plan?"

"That's a funny name. On our planet, a 'plan' meant like a scheme, or an idea. But here, a 'plan' is a flying car. Humans are very strange." We both nodded in agreement.

"Mommy, look at the weird people!" a little girl pointed at us. I was upset and mad. I wasn't weird, neither of us were. I couldn't control myself, and said, "Shut up you little freak." the little girl started crying, and the mother gave us a nasty look. "She's just a little girl you know," she yelled. They walked away. Kaiden pulled me aside, and whispered loudly, "What the hell is wrong with you? You may have been alone on a planet for over 200 years, but you should know better than to call people mean things!"

"She called us mean things, I was just trying to defend myself, I defended you!" I was even more upset, but worse, even more angry. And I was angry at my best friend. It made me furious that he was getting angry with me, when I just defended him. "You're terrible..." he mumbled. I punched him in the face. He didn't move. We both didn't. After three minutes of silence, he punched me in the gut. "You're so irritating!" he yelled. "You're so stupid!" I yelled back we punched back and forth, bloodying up one another. And finally I yelled, "Away from Kaiden, for good!" and I was gone. I was so glad to be away from the annoyance. But then I realized. I teleported myself away from my best friend. I was alone on a whole different planet. Alone.

I was being so dumb, and irrational that day. For years I walked around trying to find him. But how could I...I traveled everywhere, teleporting here and there. But it was no use. I had teleported my self away from him for good. And it was impossible to ever find him again. I became terribly depressed, and went to a secluded place. I crawled up, and let my self die, and became apart of the wind. It was all too late when Kaiden found me. He realized a few hundred years later of searching, that I teleported away from him, so he could still find me. And he did. I wanted him to know I was sorry. I couldn't. I was apart of Earth now. He slowly walked closer to my crawled up body. It wasn't decayed at all. In fact, it was in perfect condition. He crouched down, and touched my arm, then the whole thing collapsed, and I carried it away into my wind. I swirled around him, trying to comfort him. Trying to comfort my best friend. Then he said, "I'm sorry Len. We never should have came to this place. You were right." I stayed next to him for the next three hundred years, when he finally died. And then we both part of the wind. We were finally together, and this time, we would stay by each others side. Together. Our wind was mighty and powerful. After all. The strongest wind only comes from the best Echoes out there.