Chapter 1
Meetings and Meteors
As Tiergan sat in the park, letting the warm sun hit his skin, his thoughts went back to his little sister. Man, he thought, Getting a cold in the first week of summer vacation? I feel so sorry for her. Tiergan brushed his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes and adjusted the headband he wore to keep his hair out of his eyes, an nearly impossible job, as the large, brown mass always appeared as if he had just rolled out of bed. His mother had told him to get a haircut before the summer had started. "A 12 year old boy should be able to at least see what he's going to run in to," she said. But Tiergan hated when his hair was short. It just didn't feel right.
Tiergan lay back in the cool grass, when suddenly he heard a voice call to him. "Hey, Tiergan!" He sat up and looked around to see who had made the noise. It was Fia, a friend of his. They had met when they lived in the same apartment building about 4 years ago. She was a pretty girl, but Tiergan was too young to notice that sort of thing. She ran over the him, almost loosing the stocking cap that she always wore. As she dived to retrieve it, Tiergan let out a short laugh.
"Ha, ha! Nice grab, Fia. You should play for the Yankees," Tiergan teased.
"Very funny, Tiergan," Fia huffed back, both annoyed by his laughing and slightly out of breath for running over there. "So, I see that you're enjoying yourself."
"Oh you know, I try," he laughed. "So, what's up? I haven't seen you around the park for a while. Too busy being a girl?"
"And what's wrong with being a girl?" she snapped back. "I bet that I could still beat you at soccer."
Tiergan laughed again. He had known that this would get a raise out of her. Fia was a serious tomboy, always playing soccer, racing bicycles, and, besides obvious differences, just being one of the guys. "I'm just teasing, Fia"
Suddenly, they heard a loud commotion behind them. Turning around, they saw two young boys, one about their age, the other about 7 or 8, fighting loudly, creating quite a scene. Tiergan and Fia looked at each other, then rolled their eyes. They knew both of these boys. They were Darwin, the older brother, and Kiran, the younger one. Both had the same blonde hair, though Darwin's was slicked to the side, while Kiran's was only visible through the strap of his backwards baseball cap. Despite looking almost the same, apart from their difference in height, they were completely different people. Darwin was cool and distant, not exactly unfriendly, but not exactly a social butterfly. Kiran, however, was always smiling, a smile that could very well have melted an iceberg.
But his smile was nowhere to be seen now, as he was too busy yelling at Darwin. "Come, Dar, let me go play with my friends!" he screamed at his brother.
"Absolutely not!" Darwin fired back. "Mom said that I'm supposed to make sure that you're okay, and how can I do that when you're not even here?"
"You're the worst big brother ever!" Karin cried, tears streaming down his cheeks. Really?, thought Tiergan. Not this again. Ever since their parents had divorced, the brothers had hardly ever seen each other. But when they did see each other, Darwin tried to make up for all the lost time that he wasn't watching Karin by being overprotective of his little brother. This caused many problems, as this situation proved.
"I'm running away!" Karin shouted. "Goodbye forever!" He turned and ran into the woods on the edge of the park, through the underbrush. It was at this point that Fia looked at Tiergan questioningly, and he nodded back stoically. Both of them ran over to Darwin, was standing there in a kind of silent panic.
"Hey Darwin," Tiergan said as he reached the place where the fight at taken place. "What happened with Karin?"
"I really don't want to talk about it, alright?" Darwin snapped at him. "It's my business and my business alone. I don't need you guys putting your big noses in it."
"Hey, Dar. It's okay." Fia said. "We're all friends here. We're just trying to help out, but if you want to do it alone, then we'll let you."
Darwin lowered his head in shame, and sighed slightly before he spoke. "No," he said. "That's okay. I was just angry with Karin for running off and making me look like a bad brother. Honestly, I wish I knew what to do to make that kid act like my brother."
"All you gotta do is show him that his your brother, not a little kid," Tiergan said. "And he'll treat you like the best big brother in the world."
Darwin smiled. "Thanks, Tiergan. I needed that."
"Well, now that we've settled that," Fia exclaimed. "Let's go find Karin." So the three of them set off into the forest. It was a dark forest, the trees growing together and crossing branches so that very little light could get through. The grass was patchy and pale green, growing only where there was enough light to sustain the necessary energy for photosynthesis. Fia looked up, where the light shone through the green leaves like they were the water of the ocean, turning everything blue-green. How beautiful, she thought to herself, smiling slightly at the wondrous sight.
Looking back to the front, she saw that Tiergan and Darwin had ran ahead of her, and they had reached a clearing. Fia quickly started to run to keep up. As she neared the two boys, she noticed that they had met up with another group of kids. Fia recognized them instantly, as they had all gone to school together. Two of them, Landon and Memphis, were a year younger than her, while the other, Parkin, was a year older. Landon was a shorter boy with flaming red hair and eyes that had become slightly beady from looking at a computer screen for too long. He was the local "techie", and he relished the title. He was always up on all the latest gadgets and gizmos, and he could make a computer do anything.
Memphis was a blonde haired girl in a pink dress with a large matching sunhat. She was one of the most beautiful girls in school, and she knew it. She hoped to one day be a model in magazines, so she spend a good deal of her time making eyes and poses into a mirror. She was an only child, and spoiled rotten, getting everything she wanted, whenever she wanted. Needless to say, she wasn't very popular with some people.
Then there was Parkin. He was about six inches taller than all the rest of the children, but he was lanky and awkward as well. His black hair was parted off to the right, yet he kept swiping to the side. His glasses were large for his face, and he had a slightly nervous look about him. Over this shoulder, he carried an emergency kit, which was a kind of security blanket for him.
As Fia reached the group, she noticed someone else in the middle, crying and holding a scraped knee. It was Karin! "WAAAA!" he cried. "I want my mommy!"
"It's okay, Karin," Darwin said. "I'll make it better." He turned to Parkin. "Hey. Hand me a bandage and some antiseptic spray."
"Oh come on!" Parkin replied, looking slightly angry that such a thing would be asked of him. "These are for major emergencies, and this isn't one of them."
"Ah, lighten up, Parkin," Tiergan said. "It's not like the world is gonna come to an end anything soon or anything."
Just then, a shadow was cast over the group of children. They looked and saw a large dark shape over their heads. It appeared to be falling towards the Earth quite quickly.
"Ah, a large amorphous pile of rock and other space debris!" Landon cried out loudly.
"In English please!" everybody yelled out in unison.
"Meteor!" Landon shouted. "And it's headed right for us!"
"Oh now!" said Memphis. "I'm much to young and beautiful to die!"
"Oh, brother." Fia replied.
Suddenly, the meteor seemed to break off into many different pieces, and seven beams of light all came from it. They all touched ground in front of each one of the child, and then a mysterious shape emerged from the light.
Tiergan reached for the object cautiously, flinching a little as his hand broke the beam. Noticing that his appendage was still attached to his arm, he closed his hand around the thing, and the light beam disappeared. Slowly, the others decided to do the same. They all examined the devices in their hands, wondering what they were.
"Hmm," Landon pondered. "They appear to be some sort digital data container or something like that." No one argued that point. They definitely had something to do with computers, and Landon knew everything about computers.
Tiergan examined his closely. It was a white device, about the size of one of those virtual pets that girls played with all the time. It had a screen that was, for the time at least, black, with one button on the left of the face and two on the right. In the top left corner, there was a small antennae, and on the back, a belt clip. What's this for, he wondered.
But his thoughts were quickly drowned out by a sound. A loud crumbling sound. He looked down at the ground, only to see that there was not as much there as there had been a moment ago. A tunnel was opening up beneath their very feet. "AAAAAAAH!" they all screamed as they tried to run, but the earth beneath them suddenly collapsed, and they all started to fall in the pit.
There was so much wind and chaos, it was hard for anyone to know which way they were falling. There were shouts of "Help!", "Oh gosh!", and, from Karin, "MOMMY!". The seven kids fell for what seemed to them to be ages, when suddenly, they stopped. Exhausted for the fall and screaming, the group all fell into a deep, deep sleep...
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