I don't own anything but Alexis.
Alexis was woken by a loud hiss and growl by her head. "What's wrong Tiger? It's just someone mowing, it's never bothered you before." she asked groggily as she lifted her head to look at the cat crouched her pillow, by her head. "I finally take a day off and get to sleep in and you have to wake me up over a mower." Alexis said as she reluctantly got up and got dressed.
As she came back into her room she walked over to the desk that she had set up in front of a big picture window where she could watch the birds and squirrels in the two huge old maple trees that stood in front of her apartment.
After moving to Tokyo from the mountains and forests of Idaho to spend a year doing research on dragons, the trees and animals seemed to be her greatest comfort when she was feeling home sick and couldn't stand being in the city.
Pulling open the curtains Alexis gasped and ran for her front door. "What do you think you are doing?" she demanded as she stepped out on to her porch and glared at the man who was controlling a lift truck so another man could cut branches out of the top of one of the trees.
"We're removing these trees so a new sewer system can be put in." the man told her.
"What do you mean? Why can't you just fix the sewer system that's already here?" Alexis asked trying not to sound desperate.
"The city officials voted to just put in a new one and this is where they want it." the man told her.
"What about the animals that live in the trees? There's a nest of squirrels in one of the hollow branches." she told him, hoping to at least stall the destruction of the trees until she had time to see if she could stop it somehow.
"It's late enough in the season they can leave, it'll take us a couple of days to get these down and in that time they can leave. Now if you'll excuse me we have work to do." the man told her as he turned back to the controls.
Frustrated and angry Alexis somehow managed to get back into her apartment before tears started running down her face. She was loosing the one thing that had calmed her when she felt homesick for the forests and mountains of her home. She would loose the squirrels who she thought of almost as pets, they would often come stand on the branch outside her window when she was sitting at her desk and sit there twitching there tails and chattering until she took out an ear of corn or handful of nuts for them.
She walked over to the window to shut the curtains so she at least wouldn't have to see what was happening. As she reached for the curtain she noticed one of the young squirrels dash out of the nest that was a few feet below where the men were cutting. As it dashed across the branch towards a branch on the other tree, the branch that the man had been cutting fell hitting the branch the squirrel was on and making it plummet twenty some feet to the sidewalk below. Alexis cried out as she watched as it's tiny body twitch a few times then stilled. Shutting the curtains, Alexis grabbed her iPod, put the ear pieces in her ears and turned it on as loud as she could stand so that it would drowned out most of the noise coming from outside then she threw herself into several hours of frantic house work to try to distract herself from what was going on outside. It didn't help, by the time the men had finally left she had cried longer and harder than she could remember having ever cried before and felt completely emotionally drained.
After managing to calm herself, Alexis walked out onto the front porch with a small cardboard box and a shovel. Her heart broke when she saw the mother squirrel come down out of the tree followed by her remaining four babies. Each one stopped to sniff at the one that had been knocked out of the tree, the mother stopped and tried to drag it with her, as if unable to accept that it was dead.
Alexis got within a few feet of it before the mother finally left it and lead her remaining babies down the street to another tree.
Fighting back tears Alexis carefully placed the dead squirrel in the box and carried it behind the apartment building and buried it.
"It's such a shame the way so many people have no respect for the natural wonders that surround them in their everyday lives. They kill the most innocent lives without a second thought, they destroy the trees that provide the very air you breath. Someone should teach them a lesson, someone should undo the damage they've done and make them pay for it. You could be the one to do that, you could make this stop." a woman said from behind Alexis as she finished placing the last bit of dirt on the fresh grave.
"What can I possibly do? I'm just a visitor to this country, do I even have a right to question what they do?" Alexis asked resting her hand on the small mound of dirt for a second then turned to look at the woman who had been talking to her and instantly wondered why someone in a ballet outfit would be running around her neighborhood.
"It may not be your country, but it is your planet and if you won't protect it then who will? Someone has to put a stop to this destruction." she said holding out an odd looking purple thing.
Alexis started to take a step back, but wasn't fast enough, the thing suddenly attached to her forehead. Alexis screamed as she tried to pull the thing off then gasped as she swore she could feel the thing invading her mind, and trying to take over her body, forcing her to nearly blackout. She continued to fight a mental battle for control of herself until she heard the woman say, "You have a very strong mind, but you will not win." the distraction of the woman's voice was all it took for the thing to finally over power her mind and take control, sending Alexis into darkness.
Dedicated to the family of squirrels that use to live in the trees in front of my house. I don't know if they have maple trees or squirrels in Japan and normally I would do the research to find out, but this first chapter is based on things that have recently happened at to me. None of the squirrels were hurt, but they were trapped in a the tree while people were cutting the branches out of it. The squirrels coming up on the branch outside the widow and asking for food is also true as well as the desperate attempts to drowned out the noise and distract myself from what was going on out side. It was during that time that I figured out how I was going to start this story and introduce my OC to the other characters.