Chapter I, Boots and Young Anticipation.

Chapter I
Boots and Young Anticipation.

The ground gives way underneath the flying feet of a mere boy, his beautiful white boots digging ruts in dry gravel. A cloud of dust has sprung up behind him as he throws himself up and down hill after rolling hill of Tennessee’s own Cumberland Plateau.
The night is young and warm, and the mid-September breeze coaxes the boy’s lungs into a lulling rhythm, contrary to the staccato fluctuation of his heart and the punching of his legs slamming into the bed of loose rock below. The moon watches timidly over the horizon, peaking over each hill as he casts himself farther and deeper into the shadowy purgatory of this comfortless road. The animals of the watching woods fix the blurry figure in his gaze and poise themselves to escape; for whatever could make a man flee�"force the subjugator of all things wild and deadly to run in fear�"was worth fleeing.
Perhaps it is the wind itself that’s making the boy run.
He calls himself Preston Franklin, and humans who are not called Preston have a tendency to call him this as well. He has yet to be called Preston by anything that is not human, save for a variety of computers. One, specifically.
Preston buries his mind in a sense of duty; and he thinks that maybe it’s more than the wind that’s coaxing him on down this dusty gravel path. His brain screams at him about aliens, which is strange, unless it can be assumed from the beginning that Preston is mentally unsound. However, he is not mentally unsound, and simultaneously, this is actually what he thinks he is running from. Maybe he is. They’re real. Aliens had been around for years, since… What, 2132? That would be two years after Preston was born, making him sixteen. The extraterrestrials who had come had been anticipated, humans and aliens had been communicating since the late 2080’s, but neither species had developed the technology to send members permanently from one home world to the next.
However, the aliens had finally created a big enough ship that they could carry a large population of their kind to Earth’s orbit, and they’d lived together for a while without any tensions. Well, sort of.
Humans had neglected to stop killing each other, much less unfamiliar alien beings from outside this solar system. Aggressiveness was widespread for a while, and it still is. But this morning, after getting fitted for a brand new pair of boots, Preston had looked up and seen the ship. The one the size of a speck compared to the giant moon in orbit at the same distance; now the size of a massive cloud looming straight overhead. 
 Maybe that was why he was running. Because he saw the shuttles coming down, and he saw the aliens running around with guns. That would explain a lot.
Maybe it’s what he’s running towards, or what he thinks he’s running towards. He thinks he saw one of those dreadful pods land in his front yard, and he hopes he didn’t see the volatile display of laser fire bursting in the windows of his home. But there’s no maybe here, he knows he saw that. He knows that his parents’ time had run out. 
 But now he had caught the evacuee tele-trans from Knoxville to Crossville, and now he was running towards the future. His grandparents had gone, presumably unhurt but indubitably in search of him. Preston knows, now, that there’s one thing left for him, and he doesn’t know why he thinks it will be more promising than sitting around at his grandparents’ house. However, he can remember that one computer, in particular, calls him Preston.
The time to come looks bleak, and perhaps the future would be very short, but right now, all Preston can do, in his mind, is run from a threat that he doesn’t understand, and run towards a home that he’s never appreciated. 
 Maybe it’s just the wind.
He breathes hard, his brand new boots like shiny white blurs across the landscape, following the two-way trail from confusion to uncertainty, and he’s not sure which destination he’s headed for. All he knows is that his legs burn like fires, and that the trail keeps going�"so he will too.
His knees wobble to and fro as he comes to his turnoff, a tiny passage into an alcove of brush. The way is hidden and barely noticeable, but there’s a wooden mailbox at the corner which has never in its life held a letter. This is the spot. Preston aches terribly, having run an unknown distance at a breakneck speed, unsure what motivated him to do so.
However, he stares up at a lofty treehouse; it’s massive compared to the treehouses that come to mind when one thinks of a ‘treehouse.’ It has three rooms, which is impressive for any treehouse, as well as eight foot ceilings and expertly upholstered furniture. Running water and electricity, too�"but such things are common in doghouses, nowadays.
With great stress on his muscles, the boy heaves himself up the lofty and steep set of stairs that lead up to this treehouse. When he reaches the top, he opens the door and walks inside.
The carpeted floor is littered with pieces of leaves that had blown in over the course of several years, and riddled with soda stains left by little boys who were too young to care at the time. The walls are painted cerulean blue, which complements the shades of moonlight creeping in through the shaded windows.
Preston flops down in fatigue, letting out an awful sigh. No one had been here in years, not since he had “outgrown” the wooden fortress. This was no place for a respectable teenager to be bringing friends, and it was certainly too creepy to be hanging out alone. However, what Preston had neglected all these years is that in no way was he alone here, and that’s why he had come.
“M-Melody?” He calls, sitting up straight, trying to fix his messy hair in order to reintroduce himself, “Melody, are you… s-still alive?”

Author's Note

Ignore formatting and the lack of holding and italics. Please tell me about any grammar or spelling issues. Any feedback is welcome!