Earthborn: Lost Amongst the Stars

Chapter 1: Prologue

It's strange seeing a city so large, so empty. My father and I have been abandoned here when the Deep Space Evacuation Protocol was announced and the shuttles left the planet. There were others with us, but we kept to ourselves in the case that they'll go mad. We scavenged for our food and water and savored what little rain we could get.

My father always carried a large staff around with him everywhere he went. It looked like a large wooden stick, but it looked unnatural all the same. I asked him where he got it from, but he told me, "I got it from a good friend before all this happened." I didn't try to push further.

I was about ten when it happened, but I couldn't tell very well, we couldn't find a complete source for time telling. My father brought me to a house on the outskirts of the city that was completely caved in. He looked around then leaned down and brushed something off. There was a hatch in the ground hidden by a thick layer of dirt. He opened the hatch and looked inside. "This is a fallout shelter, it was safety from radiation back in the day." Said my father.

He stepped back and opened a device and held it to his ear. "What! This is early, they weren't supposed to start until everyone agreed. Understood. Yes we're here right now. What!" He said, having a conversation with someone through the device. He turned to me, pushed me into the fallout shelter and stepped back and looked to the sky. "I'm sorry Lucas, the time for preparations is over." He stated. He dropped his staff into the hole and shut the hatch. Several booms rang against the hatch.

I stayed trapped in the shelter for several years living off of the rations stored inside until the Geiger counter attached to the ceiling showed no radiation was left. I pushed open the hatch and climbed outside. The city was worse than before, entire buildings had disappeared and pieces of some buildings were several hundred feet away and embedded in the ground.

Red fog hung in the air and felt like molasses to my skin and tasted like how manure smells. The actual scent in the air smelt like smoldering rubber. I held up my father's staff and started to walk through the desolate landscape. I made it to the bridge that separated the island from the mainland, but there was only a small section of it left, the rest is who knows where. A good and bad thing was however, the river which the bridge crossed was now gone. I slid down the slope and climbed up to the other side.

I walked through the barren fields and stopped when I heard a strange gurgling noise from behind a tree. I turned towards the sound and a deer stepped out and turned towards me. It looked normal until it stood on its hind legs and the flesh on its upper body melted off revealing strange looking blue scales covering a humanoid figure. I panicked and held my father's staff at it. It ran at me and I closed my eyes and swung the staff like a club and felt it make impact. I opened my eyes to see the deer monster's top half laying at the bottom of a tree and its bottom half on the ground in front of me.

The staff started the shake then it molded like a ball of clay into a compass. It didn't point to north, it just pointed in a direction. I followed the compass to a large rock that sat in a small crater. The compass was pointing at the rock. I stepped next to it and the compass transformed into the staff again and touched the rock. The rock disappeared and revealed a small pod that looked ready to go. I tapped it with the staff and it opened.

I climbed inside and it shut and started to shake. I could feel it lifting into the air then it boomed and I lost all sense of gravity. A window opened up and revealed the blackness of space. In the distance sat a space station the size of Australia. "Hello, Prince Lucas." Came a voice from the console.