Orion: The Dhantri Chronicles

Chapter 1

Location: Washington, DC - USA
Year: September 2058
    
     We're living in a world that isn't ours. One we aren't welcome in. We have nowhere else, and all we want is to live in peace, as they do. Instead, we hide in plain sight among them, since we're able to adapt our appearance to mirror theirs. We are Dhantri. Life is quiet, as long as they never discover us.

     What brought us here in the first place was awful. They said it was the first violence we'd ever seen as a race from the beginning of our existence. In a single moment, the life we knew on our planet Danahti, changed. We were forced to run from the massive beasts we knew as our protectors, the Va'car. We narrowly escaped the implosion of our world. We lost everything that was familiar and had to begin again somewhere new. Where though?

     I was only five when my parents and I came to Earth, fifteen years ago. We lost the leaders that landed before us, to establish a relationship with the natives. Since then, we've managed to remain hidden and undetected, aside from Nelieve, who has narrowly escaped imprisonment more than once. She has risked herself to help us land safely and give us the beginning of our new lives. Some of them know we're here and they are looking for us. Life has continued on anyway despite our struggles. As daughter to the captured leaders, Nelieve was inaugurated as Queen in her parents' stead and has been raising me since I arrived.

     She moved us to Washington DC shortly after I landed with my parents, to "keep an eye on the nest of our predators", she said. She thinks hiding right under their nose, in plain sight, is the best and quickest way to keep up to date with the government agency that is hunting us. After we landed, the EXT Bureau was founded to put the citizens at ease they were safe from intergalactic forces, but they also covered up our arrival, as a "meteor". No average American citizen is the wiser we live among them, or that we even exist.

     Our identities have even been stripped from us. Our names sound too different, unearthly. They'd bring suspicion on us. It was Nelieve's bright idea to change them, like she has done for so many other Dhantri she has helped make a new start here before me. I am no longer Seir'ska. Instead, I've been named Circe and Nelieve has changed her name to Nelle.

      We're making do with what we have, adjusting as we were born to. Our best chance at surviving right now is to stay separated. The Elders say it's what's best for us. That this is the only way to ensure peace and our survival. No one ever argues with their decisions. They're older, more experienced and more knowledgeable in the greater facets of the universe.

     So then, why does it seem like I am the only one not comforted by their wisdom?

~~~~~

     Music filters into my ears at exactly 9 AM, signaling me to get out of bed. Misery undertones my grumble when I reach to smack the noise box to the off setting. My senior year of college begins today. My final year playing the role of an average human student. I trudge out of bed, hurriedly shower and dress into a pair of jeans that hug my figure yet are not too conforming.

     Whoever invented jeans is a genius. They've become my favorite pants throughout my youth. We never had anything like them on Danahti. Bras on the other hand, are a completely different story. They're constricting and uncomfortable with the angry little wire of metal that supports the chest. I always know when I need Nelle to buy me more, when they start stabbing me for all my curses on them.

     I twist and grunt through the process of shimmying into the strip of cloth padding and metal, cursing the entire time under my breath. Then, I throw on a white blouse before I begin the horrendous process of putting in my contacts. The price of blending in is masking our natural eye color. I chose brown because it's the darkest. They resemble marigold against the placid tone of flesh and lengthy waves of blonde. Naturally, our eyes have a halo surrounding the iris that is the most electric shade of aqua.