Starlight: An Among Us Story (Book One)

Prologue: Blast Off

The next 8 weeks were supposed to make less history than it did. While, yeah, Mission: AXIS was already the largest, most expensive mission to get go into space, nobody thought that... nobody thought that anybody would...

Here, let's start from the beginning...

I am Noah Wood, 14 years old, and couldn't be more single. My science teacher, Mrs. Nosbury, is one the greatest humans I've met my entire life. She was interactive, and she was the cool class in school I ever actually cared to go to! She went to extreme lengths to teach us things, and when I mean extreme, I mean it. On the first day of school, she said we would have the best years of our lives.

When she said this, or that we'd make history, we didn't take it seriously; thought she was making stuff up, getting us hyped for the class, but then, early March, we were given a field trip permission form.

"Mrs. Nosbury, what is this? A field trip for 8 weeks?" It was Maddie, the girl that willingly sits next to me everyday. (Yes, she let's us pick our own seats each morning. Can't get better than that!)

"Yes, indeed, Maddie." She points to the line at the bottom of Maddie's papers. "Your parents need to sign right here.

"My mom would never agree to this," said Michael, my best friend forever. We've been through a lot.

"Oh hell nah!" yelled Luke.

"The form doesn't even say where we're going?" said some nerd named Diego. Mrs. Nosbury stood up tall, her heels clacking as she went up to the front desk.

"This will say all it needs to." Slapping a key on her laptop, the projector on the top of the classroom revels itself on the whiteboard. It was YouTube video pulled up, titled Mission AXIS: The biggest space mission to date, set to happen in two weeks.

"What does this have to do with anything?" It was Luke again, who constantly annoyed me so badly I would kill him if I got the chance to (not really). He always hit on Maddie too, who clearly says, always, that she isn't interested. When asked why not, she always says she likes someone else and he runs back to his desk. Her and I were basically in a relationship, but it hasn't gotten incredibly serious or spoken out loud about yet. I desperately hope it's not just in my head.

"Just wait and see, Luke, boy." Mrs. Nosbury clearly didn't love Luke either, which makes her even better.

The spinning loop on the YouTube video fades and the news segment begins playing. It was an old man, with a picture of a bulky space ship in the top right corner of the screen.

"This is the Skeld, the largest space shuttle ever created, for Mission: AXIS, the most history-making shuttle to ever blast-off! Why, you may ask?" The image of the ship grows over the entire screen and changes to a picture of... my school? "This is Asbook High School, and here, Mrs. Nosbury, voted Teacher of the Year last year for teaching science, has invited 21 of her students to go into space with her, with no professional astronauts. We trust that in the 8 weeks of the mission, the students and Mrs. Nosbury will be brought back to the ground safely." The video asks to replay itself, and Mrs. Nosbury clicks no and closes her laptop.

"We are going on a space mission. The biggest one, ever."

In two weeks, only 10 student's parents allowed them to go. Mine, Maddie's (perfect!), Michael (yes!), but, unfortunately, Luke's, too. Abby, Allison, Diego, Maria, Rylie and Rose are also attending the... field trip? We're calling this a field trip?

Mrs. Nosbury and the 10 of us behind her wearing rainbow colored astronaut suits 'cause it's cool' are walking down the street with crowds of people of all ages on the sidewalks on each side of us. Camera crews everywhere; you can't look in any direction without meeting face-to-face with a red blinking camera. We were on our way up into the Skeld.

It went by so quickly, opposite to what I was expecting. Within what felt like minutes, the ship was thousands of feet in the air and the entire earth was watching us on live television. How life can change so quickly so fast astounds me. But little did I know, the next 8 weeks would be everything but fun.

Murder.

Crying.

Trapping.

Fighting.

Yelling.

Running.

Explosions.

But you can't turn back now.