The High 5

Chapter 1: Is Anybody Out There?

The late night September air was still, humid, and hushed.

Aivie Mercer sat outside on a flattened portion of the roof, just next to her bedroom window. She lived in a small, three-story mansion on Azure Lane, and she lived there alone ninety-seven percent of the time due to her parents always going abroad for work.

And Azure Lane was an odd street in the town of Neoaville (Neo-way-ville), Vancouver. One side was inhabited by only small mansions, where the wealthiest of Neoaville lived. The other side was home to regular houses (some smaller than others), where most of Neoaville's middle class lived.

Aivie and her four best friends all lived on Azure Lane, but she had only lived there since the day after she was born. She twirled her wavy blue-dyed hair as she gazed bewitchingly at the star-filled sky. It was the night before the first day back to school — senior year to be exact, but all she could think about was life after that.

Since she was just six years old, Aivie had begun to have overwhelming feelings that she was destined for something greater. And as she had started to meet her best friends along the way, she began to feel that they too, were destined for something greater, leading her to refer to them all as 'The High 5'.

Although, she wasn't sure if that something was necessarily good or bad. Just greater.

This vague notion had been transmitted to her by some unknown and mysterious entity that dwelled somewhere up in outer space. And so, whenever she felt antsy about the future, she looked to the sky, for anyone out there that might be watching her, for advice or direction or an answer to a question she hadn't even asked yet. One of the few things she was sure about was that this destiny would finally come to pass some point after high school was over.

There was radio silence from up above. Had been for the past forty-five minutes. With a sigh, Aivie got up, then crawled back through her open window. She landed atop her sky-blue comforter which had been pushed aside to a corner of her bed. Much of her room was a different shade of blue, as a matter of fact.

"Back so soon? Did them aliens still not reply back to you? Not cool," joked Mace Verdant. He had dark skin, short black hair, and a faint Jamaican accent. His name was really Mason Verdant, but he preferred Mace better, much to his parents' chagrin. He sat on the floor, legs spread open, and leaned against Aivie's bed as he played a video game on a console connected to a large black flat screen attached to the wall.

"Bite me," Aivie replied, her tone lovely-sounding. She playfully smacked the arm of the person next to her, who let out a mock growling noise; Rion Chandler.

Rion's skin was a warm ivory, and his dark brown hair that ran to the top of his shoulders, was untamed yet slicked back at the same time. He was sometimes called Rubix by people who knew him, because his unorthodox behavior and personality were usually hard to figure out. On his right arm was, a circular dark cloud with lightning strikes was strewn around it, while at its center was a colored Rubik's cube. His left arm possessed an exhasutive tattoo of the Orion constellation. He sat cross-legged on Aivie's bed while he played the same video game, along with Mace.

"And for your information, I didn't even ask for anything first. I just wanted to see if there was anything important I should know before school starts. And don't assume how many of them there might be, or if they're even aliens for that matter. Assuming the species of someone you haven't even met before? Not cool," Aivie concluded.

Rion uttered something of a sizzling sound while Aivie had her victory grin plastered on. Mace looked about ready to come to his own defense, when someone else entered the room.

Sun Daye strolled in while applying a white moisturizer to his slightly damp face. Like Aivie, his skin was fair, and with his silky blonde side-parted hair and deep blue eyes, he was an ideal poster child for some beauty or model enterprise.