Children of the Stars

Prologue : Falling Stars

I woke up at 7 in the morning, like on every school day. I was a bit dizzy like every morning. I turned off the alarm clock, stretched, yawned, ran to the kitchen, ate my breakfast, got dressed, took my bag, waved goodbye and headed for school.

Since we were in the beginning of Winter, the sun was only setting when I arrived at school at 7:30. I was greeted by a crowd of students looking at a billboard. In the back of the crowd, there was me, Alice, 14 years old, on my tiptoes and with my neck outstretched, trying to see the billboard.. I had to wait for the crowd to leave, after the bell rang for a few seconds, to see the billboard. There was a poster hung on it, with a drawing of a meteor along with the words "TONIGHT - 10:00 PM - 00:00 AM. FALLING STAR RAIN AND FESTIVAL!" I remembered something about a falling star rain I saw on TV a few days ago, and thought I'd ask Mom if I could go see it.

I then stepped inside the school and headed for my first class, Chemistry. I arrived at room F104 and stood in the back of the bunch of students next to the open door, waiting for our teacher. The teacher, Mr.Dexton, stepped out of the open door. With his grey hair and his used lab coat, he looked a bit like a mad scientist. The class went on normally, except for the moment where Antoine spilled demineralized water on Amy's favorite dress, and she screamed at him for a good ten minutes about how he "ruined it". The next class was History, I don't remember much of it since I fell asleep in the first ten minutes and John had to wake me up half-way through. Nothing special happened in Math and French class. At lunch though, Linda pushed over Nicolas and his tray smashed on the floor, and his plate into pieces. He cut himself on a piece of plate has he tried to put them all back on the tray and was sent to the infirmary, and Linda to the principal's office. The rest of the day was normal, besides from Jack and Jill throwing water balloons in the locker rooms. Jack and Jill are these two twins, one boy and one girl, that likes to prank people. Think Fred and George Weasley in the Harry Potter series. I headed back home, alone like always. Mom wasn't home, so I stole some chocolate from the kitchen and jumped on the couch to watch some Doctor Who. We were Friday, no homework to bother me. Mom came back home during yet another "Dalek" episode. I jumped out of the couch and instantly went to ask her if we could go see the Falling Star Festival. She accepted "but not after 11." I asked her if she'd like to come, hoping to get some extra time, and she just said she'll "think about it", but she did seem happy that I wanted to do something with her, it's pretty rare.

10 pm was close. I grabbed my replica of the 11th Doctor's sonic screwdriver, I like to carry it around, along with my phone, and ran downstairs, threw on my jacket, already ready to go. Mom was having trouble putting on her new shoes. When she was finally done, we drove to the location of the festival, climbed up the hill, and sat down on the grass, staring at the night sky, waiting. It started with one star, then two, then three, each of them greeted by a few "Wooooww!" from the crowd. Then dozens fell down, hundreds, thousands! This star rain couldn't be natural. And I was right, it wasn't natural. The Falling Stars were truly falling, headed in our direction. The first one fell in the plains down the hill, and the rest followed. Then the Stars, who were really orange metallic spheres, opened. Human-looking creatures emerged from the spheres, but also animals, and even aliens that looked like things out of Doctor Who. I thought maybe I fell asleep while watching an episode, but then, Mom started speaking.

-Sweetie, she said, her voice filled with a mix of fear, panic and concern. Are you all right?... You're... Glowing..

I looked down at my hands, they were indeed glowing, with a bright white-yellow color. But more importantly, on the back of my left hand, there was a glowing red star. My body was glowing brighter and brighter, and the more it glowed, the more it hurt. I wanted to scream, I wanted to run, but I was paralyzed. Then, a group of these human-looking creatures came towards me. There was 3 men, a dog, and an alien resembling some sort of hybrid between a human and a snake. One of the "human" men looked down at me, then turned his head around telling something in an unknown language to the snake-man alien, who then approached me. It wrapped its tail around my waist, pulling up from the ground, and carried me to one of the Stars. As I was carried away, I noticed one of the 3 men keeping Mom down, making her unable to run away or try to save me, telling her it was "necessary". I tried to struggle, but I was still paralyzed. The snake-man's tail was nearly suffocating me. All I could hear around was screams, I tried to look around to see if more people got captured, but my head wouldn't move. I suddenly felt the snake-man's tail loosening its grip around my waist, and a second after that, I dropped on a metallic surface with a loud "THUMP". My body was hurting more and more, and my head too. My vision was blurry. After a few minutes or seconds of fighting it, I gave up and let myself sleep, hoping I'd wake up another time. The last thing I heard was the sound of a metallic door closing over me.