They Dreamed of Poppies

Decades after an ecological catastrophe decimated life on Earth, twenty brave souls flee their crowded space station in hopes of resurrecting a failed terraforming experiment on Mars. They expect to find the planet a harsh, empty wasteland; instead, the world has become a lush paradise. As they prepare to receive the last tattered remnants of Mankind, they soon realize that the missing colonists who came here fifteen years before never actually left.

And neither will they.

They Dreamed of Poppies is an 8500-word novelette.

Appropriate for readers of all ages.