The Day of Rite

Kreya waited in the airlock with the others for the outer door to open. She fidgeted with the helmet of her evac suit. Even though she was a child of the tunnels, of the deepest of the Martian mines, she felt almost claustrophobic in the suit, knowing that only a thin skin existed between herself and the relative vacuum of Outside. She had never walked the surface, only seen it on various school trips from the viewports on the upper levels, but now it was time. She was eight sols, and this was her rite of passage. She must survive.