Prologue

October 31^st, Halloween night

14 years ago

A group of dads stand in front of a neighbor’s driveway as their kids collect candy. One holds up his new smart phone; blaring a football game. They cheer as the home team scores a touchdown then suddenly the game is shut off and Jerry Patel (their favorite sports reporter) comes on. The dads suspect that a player from another team has been injured or something along those lines, but they couldn’t be so wrong. “Sorry to interrupt your game, but there’s some real breaking news tonight; a new constellation has formed in the night sky. Astronomers around the world are marveling at the sudden appearance of about twenty-six new stars appearing in the sky forming an obvious constellation.”

Daddy,” sings one the little girls in a fairy costume. “Daddy let’s go!”

“Hold on one second Fiona,” says the dad with the smart phone. He focuses his attention back to the broadcast.

“Astronomers have named this new constellation the papilio constellation or dubbed the butterfly constellation. Each new star to the right has another star that is identical and perfect distance on the left making the set of newly born stars symmetrical, hence the butterfly constellation. The phenomenon is still a mystery, but for all stargazers it’s a lovely sight.”

Little did these ordinary dads know that this one incident was the beginning of the end of the world.

☱

Royale Palace in Atlantis, September 6^th

7 years ago

“Happy Birthday Emery!” I lean over my cake and blow the candles out; all seven. My mother takes my shoulders and kisses my cheek. “Did you make a wish?”

“Yes,” I say with a smile creeping on my face. “What was it?” I look into her light blue eyes beaming with joy. “I can’t tell you, ‘cause if I do then it won’t come true.”

She smiles wider and hugs me tight. “You know I love you don’t you?” She kisses my cheek again. This time I blanch and wipe it away. She laughs. “Mom! I’m seven! I’m not a little boy anymore,” I protest.

She laughs harder. “You’ll always be my little boy,” she whispers in my ear. I look across the table to see my big sister glaring angrily at me. My father sets his hand on my shoulder. “After you eat your cake, it will be time for bed,” he says sternly.

“Yes father,” I answer obediently back; the way I was taught. My mother takes my father’s hands. “Dear, it’s his birthday. I think he has the special privilege of staying up late tonight, don’t you think?” she asks him sweetly.

My father looks over at my mother and tucks a strand of her long brown hair behind her ear. “I guess it couldn’t hurt,” he turns sharply to me, “but I want no grief in the morning, understand me boy?” I nod enthusiastically.

A guard enters the room. “Sir,” he says, “we have been given critical information from the royal parliament of Utopia. We were given strict orders from the Queen herself that you read this first.” My father sighs. “Very well, I wasn’t interested in having any cake either way,” he says grumpily and stalks out of the room.

My sister stands up quickly. “I’m going to bed,” she says shortly. She stares me down as she walks by. When she gets to the door she sticks her tongue out at me. “Amelia!” scolds my mother. Amelia scurries out of the dining room.

“What is wrong with that girl?” she murmurs under her breath. I snicker and take a bite out of my birthday cake. My mother looks down at me and smiles radiantly. “You know,” she says as she opens a high cupboard and peers inside, “I got you a birthday present.” One of the kitchen maids opens another cabinet and takes out a very big rectangular block wrapped in blue wrapping paper with a blue bow on the top; my favorite color. My face lights up in excitement. My mother smiles at the kitchen maid. “Thank you,” she mouths. My mother always knows what to get me. She takes the seat next to me and hands me the very heavy present. I set the present on the table with difficulty. I take the blue bow made of ribbons and stick it on top of my mother’s head. She giggles and watches me with anticipation. I unwrap the present to find six large books set on top of one another. I read the first title. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

 I stare at it in marvel. I lift it up and flip the pages.  The air from the pages being turned quickly gives off that ‘new book’ smell that I love. I look up at my mother in awe. “Do you like it?” she asks.

I smile happily and nod. “Thanks mom.” She smiles widely; she has that sort of smile that’s completely infectious, so naturally I smile right back at her. She draws me close and strokes my hair. “You’re welcome, sweetheart.”

☱

“Someday I’ll wish upon a star
Wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where trouble melts like lemon drops
High above the chimney tops that’s where you’ll find me
Somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly
And the dream that you dare to, why, oh why can’t I?”

My mother stops singing to me as my eyelids begin to droop. I may be seven, but I still love when my mom sings me to sleep. She tucks my sheets up to my chin and kisses my forehead. “Goodnight, my birthday boy,” she whispers. Just then my bedroom door crashes in. My eyes snap open as my mother gasps. Three men in strange uniforms walk in. My mother yanks me out of bed and puts me between her and the wall. “Madam Jessa,” says one of the men.

“What do you want?” asks my mother fearlessly. I peek around my mother and look at the strange men. “We want the boy,” says the middle man.

“Well you can’t have him!” she says frantically and tightens her grip on my arm.

“I’m afraid you have no say in this Madam. We were given firm orders to kill the youngest child of each royal family in all the colonies.”

“Who gave you those orders?” she asks horrified.

“The Victori; the leader of the Ater Militus.”

“Ater Militus?” she asks puzzled.

“A new order that will dominate your Empire of Magical and Mythical beings.”

“Who dares-,” sneers my mother.

“Enough of this small talk Madam. If you do not step aside then we will have no choice but to kill you as well.”

“I will not step aside.” My mother reaches into the drawer of my nightstand and takes out a wooden box. I never really knew what was in the box and I strictly forbidden from knowing. Mother opens the box and throws whatever was in the box at the men. A shiny powder flies out of the box and lands on the men.

Is my mother crazy? What will powder do to three grown men? Just as that thought pops into my mind the men scream out in pain. They try to brush the powder off them, but it’s no good; the powder covers them almost completely. “Emery run!” yells my mom as she takes my hand and yanks me with her into the hallway.

“Come on!” she rushes down the hallway towards the entrance doors of the palace pulling me along with her. I fumble as we run, especially when I look back to see the men are stumbling out of my room and after us.

“Emery,” speaks my mother sternly in that scary mom scold like if-your-room-isn’t-clean-when-I-walk-in-you-are-in-a-heap-of-trouble-young-man. “Don’t stop running and don’t look back!”

“Yes mother.” I follow her instructions dutifully. She groans. “Your father is sleeping on the couch for that. You are not a dog.” Suddenly more men round the corner my mother and I were approaching. Mother skids to a stop and turns to run the other way, but stutters to a stop when she sees that the men she injured with powder are right on our heels. The powdered men grab me and yank me away from my mother. “Mom!”

“No! Emery!” My mother reaches for me, but she’s too far away. The new men have my mother and pull her away from me. They drag her towards the corner and me towards my bedroom. “Emery!”

“Mom!” I cry. “Mom, don’t leave me!”

“I’ll never leave you! I love you Emery,” she calls to me as they haul her past the corner.

“MOM!” I scream. One of the powdered men picks me up and throws me other his shoulder. I scream and kick and pound on the man but he doesn’t seem to mind. They run down the hall, past my room and to the kitchen. “Let me GO!”

“Freeze.” We stop moving. “Put the Fuhrer’s son down and step to the side,” says a deep voice, though not as deep as the men carrying me. The men hesitate before setting me down. The moment my feet touch the floor, silver objects sail past my head and implant themselves in my abductors. The cry out, but it’s cut off as they disintegrate into ash. “Monsters?” I wonder aloud.

I look at the shiny objects in the ashes; silver daggers. I get it now, they were werewolves. The powder my mother threw must have been silver powder! “Em?” The moment I hear the familiar pet name I turn and run to the woman guard beckoning me to her. She gathers me in her arms and holds me tight. “Where is she?!” she asks.

“There were others; they took her towards the throne room,” I choke out. The other guards take off down the hallway. The guard takes my hand and together we run out of the palace and to safety. My father and Amelia are already out of the palace and stand at the bottom of the steps. My father races to me. He takes my shoulders and shakes me. “Where is Jessa?! Where is your mother?!”

“She’s in the palace sir,” says the guard. My father looks up at her in bewilderment. Then his eyes shift to the doors of the palace. A guard is walking down the stairs. He stands in front of my father. “Is she…” The guard shakes his head and stares at the ground. “She’s gone sir. They took her. We can’t find any of them.”

My father roars in rage. He looks down at me in fury. “YOU! YOU COULD HAVE SAVED HER!” he bellows. I shrink against the guard. She takes my hand and stirs me away from my enraged father. She kneels in front of me and takes my face in her hands. This specific guard has always been kind to me. Her name is Kat. Kat has been my personal guard since the day I was born; she’s the only woman soldier in Atlantis. She’s something of an aunt to me. “It’s ok to cry sweetie.” I wrap my arms around her neck tightly and cry into her shoulder. She strokes my hair as I cry, which I find comforting. “It will be ok Em.”

☱

Saint Petersburg, Russia, September 6^th

7 years ago

The sirens are so loud they echo in my skull. The heat is so severe that I can feel my clothes smoldering. I open my eyes and see a silhouette of a car covered in orange flames. I look up to see a woman above me. She smiles sweetly at me and speaks to me soothingly. She’s talking in a language I don’t recognize at first, but then I realize is Russian.

“Good,” coos the woman, “do you know your parents’ names?” She hovers over me with a stormy sky above her. I’m laying on a squishy bed with wheels and two men roll me up to a square truck with flashing lights on the top. There’s already another bed like mine in there. A little girl with black hair lays unconscious. Her hair is singed and her skin is covered in burns, scraps, cuts, already forming bruises, but mostly blood. I swallow the bile rising in my throat and look back up at the woman.

“No,” I finally answer her question. I blink my eyes hard trying to think; trying to remember. “Do you remember what they look like?”

“No.” I look at her in puzzlement. “Where am i? Who are you? Who-who am I? Why are you speaking Russian?” The question shot out of my mouth in a rapid fire.

The woman’s eyebrows arch and her big brown eyes widen. “Did you hit your head?”

“I- I don’t know. Who are you?” I ask the questions again. “Where am I? How did I get here? What-,” I look at my hands not recognizing them. “What’s my name?” I start to feel tears rolling down my cheeks and stinging cuts and scrapes I didn’t even know were on my face. “Oh that’s ok sweetie. Do you remember anything else, anything at all?” My vision starts to go fuzzy and I feel myself slipping into unconsciousness. I look at the injured girl now beside me. “I have a little sister,” I whisper and the darkness consumes me.

☱

Luckily the woman asked me my sister and I’s name before I started to forget. She was even smart enough to have me spell them and give our birthday. That clever, clever woman.

My name is Aleksandr. That was about nine years ago when my family got into a terrible car crash that left my little sister and I, with severe cases of amnesia, no parents, and to top it all off with a juicy red cherry, Vira has a condition that makes her fragile and weak.

We remember nothing of our lives before we woke up on that street, but our names, our birthday, and the fact that we have each other.  We were told that our family car crashed into a poll and the engine exploded. Vira and I were expelled from our seats and our parents were reduced to ashes. Now Vira and I are fourteen and we’re sophomores at Viktor Prep. We live at St. Petersburg Orphanage in Saint Petersburg, Russia. This is not a story about me; this is a story about my sister. I’m only temporarily narrating for now, but I’ll be heard after this too as will some of our friends, but like I said this is about my brave little sister and the woman she becomes. Our story begins now if you dare to read on. Wow that was lame.

Author's Note

Just comment I guess. This is my first time actually sharing this. I hope you enjoy.