CHAPTER 1

WAS THAT A METEORITE?

-Max's Bedroom-

Max sat on his windowsill looking out to the dark night sky and the stars that lay gently upon it.

Max was a boy of 11 years of age. He had scruffy black hair that lay just over the tops of his eyes so he kept having to push it away from them. He had deep blue eyes which his mother had always told him reminded her of the deep blue ocean that you swim in at Scarborough in Northern England from the time they had gone there on holiday once but as far as he could remember, the sea was of a dirty green colour.

He quickly looked over to his digital alarm clock: it was already midnight "Good job it's the summer holidays he thought" to himself "No need to go to bed early. I can sleep in till whatever time I want!" He gently smiled at that thought of the sleep in. It was only the beginning of the holidays so he had many more of those to come.

He looked back out of his window to look out over the beautiful city of London and then just behind the silhouette of Big Ben he saw something moving across the sky at a fast pace. "Whoa!" he exclaimed upon seeing it "Is that a meteorite?"

He watched it as it descended into the busy streets of London. "Should I go investigate?" He decided upon "Yes" as he jumped up off of his windowsill, looked out of his window one more time to study the place that the meteorite had landed to get a rough area of where to search and then he ran over to his wardrobe, opened vigorously, grabbed a jumper of some sort to keep in warm as it was a bit chilly outside and a t-shirt and shorts wasn't going to keep him warm enough and then slipped on the jumper his head. He grabbed his addidas trainers that were beside his bed and rammed his feet hard into them in order to put them on.

He then slowly made his way over to his bedroom door so not to make a sound as his parents and little sister were fast asleep as far as he knew. He gently opened the door and slipped out of his room. He walked past his sister's bedroom which was next to his and he glanced at the door. Upon it was her name "Tracey" in the large clown letters that you were able to get a few years back.

Then he stood on the creaky floorboard. He quickly looked down at his feet and his eyes opened wide "Dammit! I knew I should have missed that one!"

Then he heard rustling coming from Tracey's bedroom. She was awake "Oh no!" thought Max as quickly attempted to get towards the stairs and down them but she was already out of the bedroom by now. "God, she's quick" he thought annoyed at himself, partly for standing on the floorboard and waking her up in the first place.

"Where are you going Max?" she asked whilst she stood looking at him in her Bratz pyjamas

"Out. Now, go back to bed Tracey" he whispered annoyed at her

"No" she objected

"Yes Tracey! Go to bed" he demanded of her

"If you don't let me come, I'll tell Mum and Dad that you were sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night" She gave a little devious smile knowing that she was pretty much blackmailing him into letting her go

"Ok but you have to be quiet!"

Tracey ran back into her room and emerged 5 minutes later dressed with her hair done and make-up on ready. Max stared at her for a moment in amazement that she could do that in 5 minutes.

"Tracey, do you really have to do that? You're 8 years old for one thing and it's the middle of the night for another" She slowly nodded her head "Ok then. Let's go"

They then both went slowly down the stairs together.

-The streets of London-

Max and Tracey quickly slunk along the night streets of London where drunken men and women roamed at this time of night.

They were near Big Ben which was the place that the meteor struck Max remembered.

The brother and sister were running down Whitehall when they ran past something which caught Max's eye. He stopped and took a few steps back and looked down a small alleyway. Down there he saw something brightly glowing and a few people crowded around it.

"Down here" Max lead his little sister down the alleyway towards it

"What is it?" they heard emitting from the group that was already down here

"I don't know" another voice came

Max then shoved himself and Tracey into the group.

"Who are you?" someone challenged them

"I'm Max. This is my sister Tracey. Who are you?" Max shot back at the person. The boy of about 13 looked shocked that Max had actually answered his question so quickly.

"I'm Stephen" replied the boy "So did you see this as well?"

"Yeah. Why?" Max looked around the group and counted. There were 12 of them including himself and Tracey

"We all saw it too" An Asian girl across from here said to him

Then, the thing in the middle of them that was already glowing began to glow even more to a bright light that made them shield their eyes.

Then out of it flew 12 shots of colour: Red, Orange, Navy, Sky Blue, Green, White, Yellow, Deep Purple, Violet, Pink, Brown and Grey. Each shot of light hit one person in the group knocking them all down to the ground.

Max slowly got up "What happened then?" He looked at the thing that had hit him which he was now holding in his hands. It was a bright Red, almost mobile phone like, device.

"I don't know but what are these things?" A young black boy said as he was getting up off the floor showing to the group his Green device.

"Mobiles?" said Stephen, the boy who had previously challenged Max, looking at his Navy device.

"What should we do?" asked Tracey as she looked to her White device.

Then all together the 12 devices all glowed together and as did the central original source of the devices. Suddenly the central source began to emit a high pitched sound and suddenly the 12 children were sucked into it and all blackness occurred.