Stella sat on her bed with her HoloBit on her lap. It was a small, flat, circle that projected a blue hologram into the air above it. She was reading information for a test she had in a few days from now. She sighed and stood up. Her friends told her that she needed to get out more, and invited her to a party. Stella walked to one of her shiny white walls and put her hand on a square button that was in the wall. It opened up to reveal a large touchscreen with a chute below it. She pressed the button that said dress, then she picked a short, sleeveless style and chose for it to be dark blue. She pressed "send" and walked to her mirror. It illuminated and turned into yet another touchscreen, where she chose braided bun. A dome covered her head, and a few seconds later it lifted and her hair and makeup was done. She walked over to the chute where her dress was waiting and reluctantly put it on. Stella took another huge breath, opened her door, and stepped on the WallTram, which took her to one of her friend's house, where everyone was meeting. She couldn't help but to be nervous, this was only the second party she had ever been to, and the first was nearly five years ago, when she was 11. She arrived at her friend's house, pressed the button to alert her and opened the door.
"Hey Penelope," Stella said with fake enthusiasm.
"Stella, you're here! I didn't think you'd actually come, because, you know," Penelope said as she emerged from her bedroom. She was wearing a short one shoulder dress that was a brilliant shade of purple.
"Yeah, well, don't expect it to happen often," Stella replied, just before the alarm bell rang.
"That must be Cecile!" Penelope exclaimed, and opened up the door.
Cecile wore a dress similar to Stalla's, except it was neon pink.
"Oh I am so so so excited for tonight we are going to have so much fun!" Cecile said hurriedly. "We might even get Stella a boyfriend!"
"I wouldn't count on it," Stella said, rolling her eyes. Stella believed that she literally repelled guys, plus she thought it was too much work and would rather stay in her room all day.
"Whatever. C'mon, let's go!" Cecile said, and hopped on the WallTram. Stella and Penelope followed, and soon they were outside one of the huge conference rooms. The doors were decked out with colorful lights and decorations of all sorts, and they could feel vibrations from the music inside through their feet. Stella gulped as the double doors opened, and walked inside.
· · ·
Stella decided to walk back to her room instead of taking the WallTram, it would give her more time to think. The party wasn't bad, but wasn't particularly fun either. Stella had just tagged alongside Penelope the whole time, while Cecile was busy making out with some guy she had never met before the party. Stella wondered if there was something wrong with her, something that made her so uncomfortable in social situations and things of the sort. She wondered what it would be like if parents stayed with their children. Here, parents just left their children to live in complexes divided by age and occasionally checked in on them. Stella's parents didn't come very often, but she was okay with that, she enjoyed her time alone.
Stella's thoughts were interrupted by a loud clanging noise above her. She looked up to the ventilation system, where one of the panels were missing. She heard mischievous laughter and saw a figure quickly crawling through the system. Something fell from the open area. The clanging got softer and softer, then faded away. Stella was perturbed. Nothing like this ever happened. She looked down to see what the figure had dropped. She carefully picked it up, curious. It seemed to be a sort of bracelet, but it was unlike anything anyone wore around here. It was simply a brown cord with rusty pieces of metal carved to look like, well, she didn't know. She observed one carefully. It was some sort of thing- it had four legs, and was sitting, and it had short hair all over its body. Another charm had rectangles, all thin, some tall and some short, with squares inside of them.
Stella decided to tell no one about what she had seen. She slipped the bracelet on her wrist. This was one secret Cecile definitely couldn't keep her big mouth shut about.
