CHAPTER 1-A Starlit Path
She was nothing but a normal thirteen year old. There wasn't anything particularly striking about her, with her dark raven locks and deep brown eyes. She was no one but Ashley. Just Ashley. Nothing strange about her at all.
In the mornings, she ate cereal, put on her shoes and slung her backpack across her shoulders to trot outside and greet the frosty grey-blue morning above. After school, she would then come home, do homework, study, and eat dinner.
Her regular routine. She never thought that it would ever change. She was most certainly and positively normal like any other human girl.
But when she was alone in her own little room, she let her dreams take flight. She would delve into her fantasies like a diver, swimming into the unfathomably deep ocean where animals talked, forests became jungles, the sky turned white, and characters came alive. The room became her kingdom and she became the conqueror.
On most nights, she sat in front of her computer, typing away at stories that she had dreamed up. She imagined the pages as white doves that fluttered from the screen to soar around her room.
That was what she usually did, day by day, without break.
But tonight, for once, was different. She lay in her bead, her head resting on her pillow, staring up at the off-white ceiling. There was a feeling of melancholy deep inside her. It was something she couldn't really describe. It felt like life hadn't been very fulfilling lately. Even if she could dream up impossible worlds, what did it matter? When her dreams ended, she always found herself back in her dreary realm of reality where the sky was always the same blue, where she was just a regular girl like everyone else. She didn't want her dreams to ever end.
As she stared, lost in thought, the cracks in the ceiling entwined and joined fingers, and to her, they looked almost like the outline of a cat.
Her eyes rested on her shelf stacked with Warriors books. She had read them so many times that she felt she could recite them by heart.
Firestar's prophecy. The Sun-Drowned-Place. The power of three.
She closed her eyes and thought, I wonder what it would be like if I were a warrior. Her heart fluttered at the thought. I'll be able to join a Clan, fight in battles, go on journeys, and fulfill prophecies.
Ashley suddenly sat up. Don't be stupid. That'll never happen.
The mere thought of it was absolutely ridiculous, she knew. Yet, she probed in her secret thoughts, the ones in the back of her mind that no one else knew but her. Ashley closed her eyes and imagined herself, all whiskers and fur, claws and tail.
She would sun herself on a warm rock, her black fur soaking in the rays. She would crouch and hunt in the undergrowth, her narrow eyes tracking down the living things scurrying and squeaking through the leaves. Her paws crunched on the foliage and her tail swayed behind her like a steady pendulum. She would be a part of the forest, smelling of autumn and the wilderness, warm and natural, fresh and raw.
Ashley's eyes flit open as quickly as curtains, and immediately her imagination closed shut like a book. She was back in her room again. And she was still, no matter how hard she thought otherwise, a human sitting in her house at night. She would never be a warrior, because warriors didn't exist.
The echoing feeling in her chest grew stronger until she felt that it would burst. The same melancholy came back to haunt her.
She knew what she wanted. She wanted a break from reality. No more school, homework, or chores. No more being human.
The girl sighed and drew her covers in closer around her body. I wish…
The clock on her wall read 10:46. Sleep made her eyelids droop, and the ache in her chest was replaced with the urge to lie down and doze. But the longing in her soul never stopped.
OooOOooooOoOooooooooooooooOOooOooOooOoOO
Ashley discovered, with fascination, that she was dreaming. She was in a place she had never been to before. The ground below her was washed with silver and glowed faintly. The stars above her head pulsed and quivered, radiating a gentle light that bathed her white from head to toe.
Her eyes widened in awe. She had never seen so many stars before! Even if she added up all the ones in the Milky Way, she was certain that it wouldn't even amount to half of what was in here.
The dark velvet night was practically covered with them, a canvas splashed and draped and painted with so many yellow and white glowing orbs.
She felt herself shrink. There was a light feeling to her limbs that made her feel like she was floating. The starlit dreamland suddenly began to dwindle, smaller and smaller, and her eyes began to grow heavy once again.
She closed them and stretched, and waited for morning to come.