The morning sun is blazing down on a somewhat small suburban neighborhood. It's quiet here. Most people are staying inside because of the humidity. It usually rains a lot this time of year in Jacksonville, Florida. Today however, is a sunny summer day.

My mom, dad, little sister and I are trying to get things packed and into a moving truck. We have two neighbors helping us. They're the 'Canons' – the only people we ever talk to, really. Everyone else just does their own thing. They keep to themselves.

My family is quite desperate to move, considering the pressure of having to repair a badly damaged house. It's a burden too much too bear – financially and physically. However, I can say our lives haven't been too bad – at least we had great neighbors living beside us.

Forgive me; I haven't introduced anyone besides the neighbors. I'm Rachel – I'm 17. My sister's name is Meagan and she's 14. We live here with our parents Janice and Quinn. Meagan and I are pretty quiet and study a lot; we're homeschooled. Our family is not your average everyday family of today, I would say. It's more like old-fashioned American living for us, which I can appreciate.

I've gone into my room to have a last look at it while everybody else is finishing up. I think Meagan is in her room. Most of the furniture and other belongings are in the truck by now, thank god. We have it parked in our huge backyard, which our grandmother used to call 'the field'. For the longest time I didn't know why she said that but I know now. It's all grass and there's a small red building in the back at a fence that separates our yard from the interstate. The building was used for storage.

Right now, as I think about that, I'm sitting on my bedroom floor staring at something I hold dear. It's a picture of our grandparents just before they died. It looks as though they were at some picnic area while on vacation in West Virginia for a family reunion. My family and I were never invited to any of these reunions; it upsets me a little.

I close my eyes, shake my head of this memory and decide to pull the last bag close to me so I can stow the picture away for the journey to a new home.

I hear someone stop in the doorway. Instinctively, I glance over at it and find Meagan.

"Hey, what are you looking at?" she asks.

I put my hand over the center of the picture and slowly rise. "Just a memory." I show her and then put it in the bag. She crosses her arms over her chest, "I miss them too, Rach."

"Yeah..." I say, "So are mom and dad ready to go?"

She nods to what I say and tells me, "They're saying goodbye to the neighbors. We should join them."

I smile softly, readjusting the bag over my shoulder, "Ok then. Let's go." I follow her out and find dad just outside the screen backdoor.

"Are you two gonna say bye?" he asks.

"Yeah, we're headed that way." Meagan tells him. I nod once and keep going, with Meagan soon trailing behind.

We go around to the right side of the house where the moving truck is and find Mr. and Mrs. Cannon standing there talking with mom. They stop once they see us.

Mr. Cannon smiles warmly. "You girls be good now, you hear? Take care of your momma and daddy." He walks up and hugs us as Mrs. Cannon puts her hand on her hip, also smiling.

I hug her and him, and Meagan says with a small laugh, "We will."

We then see Dad coming back to the truck.

He shakes hands with Mr. Cannon, "Ok then. Thank you sir! How much do I owe ya?"

"Alright. Ohh come on! You don't owe us a penny." Mr. Cannon chuckles, "Don't forget about us. Ya'll should get on the road now. This is your final trip, right?"

"Don't worry, we have your number!" Mom says, "And yes it is."

"Geez... how quickly these 3 years have gone by." Mrs. Cannon scoffs.

"I know." Mom nods her head in amazement.

Dad jiggles the keys in his hand, "Well alright folks, we'll be seeing ya." He looks at Meg and I, "Girls?"

We glance at him, then at the Cannons with a last smile. They do the same in return and start walking back to their house on the right, across our yard and over a small wire fence.

"Ok, so who's riding with me?" Mom asks.

"I'll go." I say as I go to find our mini van.

Mom looks at Meagan, "I guess you're goin' with your Dad. Have fun!" She laughs and follows me. Meagan shrugs and starts strolling over to the truck.

***

We're driving past many trees lining the road, and I finally realize after staring into nothing that by now, I would have asked for the radio to be turned on. It's strange I haven't because every second of my life must be filled with music, but perhaps not in a moment like this. Something is telling me, whatever life is going to be like in the future, it might be exciting.

Eventually, I smile and lean my head against the window. I can't wait to see how life goes for me; it might end up amazing. I close my eyes, eventually falling asleep.

Suddenly, after what seemed like minutes, a loud horn goes off, waking me from my comfort zone. I quickly jerk in my seat and then turn to see who did this. It's Meagan. I glare at her as she leans over the steering wheel to reach for a brush on the dashboard. "Meg..." I say.

She moves away and slightly smirks, "Well, I'm sorry to wake you, but... we're here." She points to the house. I look over and once again fall in love with it. It has a nice large forest of evergreen trees in the backyard.

"Rach, you're staring again."

I blink, then look at her and start getting out.

"Yep..." she sighs softly, "We're going to live here now. You going in or staying out here? Mom and Dad are already putting stuff away, and they need your help."

I open my mouth to speak but she doesn't wait any longer. She runs off to the house and a corner of my mouth rises in a bit of amazement. I can't believe I fell asleep and nobody woke me up.

I get out of the van and Dad steps outside, looking for me.

"I'm coming!" I quickly say. He does a sort of impatient gesture and goes back inside.

Wiping my eyes, I shut the door on the van and go on my way toward the house.

On my way, I admire everything about this place. It's so very beautiful. White panel board with stone at the bottom of the walls, a grey roof, colonial windows and French doors. I've seen many houses with the same design and it's really no surprise to see that we are moving into a place like this, but I've always loved that style. Mom and dad always seem to like these kinds of homes too.

My favorite part of the yard is the flowerbed of pansies, hibiscuses, poppies and Cherokee roses crowding along a short white trellis-like fence that stands alone and not too far from the front door. The grass is a lot greener than back at home. Strange for Georgia, I must admit. Everything is remarkably breathtaking.

Once I reach the white front door, I look down at the golden handle and turn it. Instantly, as soon as I open it, the familiar smell of fresh paint hits me in the face. I search the kitchen and then go farther inside.

When I get to the living room, I see mom and dad sitting on the floor eating pizza at the coffee table. That's nothing new. And Meagan is putting her drink down on her end of it.

I raise a finger, turn away and go to wash my hands in the kitchen. Meagan follows me.

"Hey Rach, I found this trail leading into the forest in the back. After dinner, I'm thinking about having us all go for a walk. What do you think?" She rests against the stove handle. I raise an eyebrow and peer over my shoulder at her, "I don't know. Well..." I finish and walk over to her, "if we do that, we'll have to finish unpacking our stuff in our bedrooms later. It's getting dark out there, so we better hope dinner will be a short one." I look at her almost like she might want to reconsider, then I walk out to join the rest of the family.

"Hah, yeah." Meagan says to herself.
Where does it lead?! She screams in her mind.

She returns to the living room and notices mom and dad aren't happy. I'm casually sitting down with my plate of pizza.

"What were you doing in there, having a washing contest?" Dad asks.

"No. Hey, I got something to tell you!"

Oh no – bad time to bring it up Meg! I widen my eyes and start to wave my arms as if I'm swimming the back stroke. Even though this looks really stupid, I don't really care at the moment. I don't want Meagan to say anything about that path – not yet! Meagan doesn't seem to get my gesture. She rolls her eyes, thinking I'm just having one of my many crazy episodes of trying to get everyone's attention and have a good laugh afterwards.

"Fine, you got sixty seconds." Dad says and mutes the TV. He rests the remote at his side and then folds his arms, waiting for the hesitant Meagan to respond.

I hang my head low.

"Ok, well..." she says, "I kinda went into the forest-" Dad suddenly interjects by raising the hand with marinara sauce on his fingers, "Did you kill something for dinner?" He's joking.

"Dad... please let me finish!" Meagan sighs.

"Alright, I'll shut up. Sorry sweetheart." He laughs a little and nods.

"There's a pathway that goes into the forest behind the house!" I quickly blurt out and clamp my mouth shut with my hands, then scan everyone's faces as they slowly raise their eyebrows at me in question.

"Okayy... Well, after dinner, we'll go check it out, alright? But in the meantime, can we finish eating?" Dad asks. The room falls silent for a moment.

"Dinner is getting cold! Cold pizza is never good! I don't know about you, but I like my pizza hot." Mom says and starts eating again. Everyone sighs.

And so, we do what she said.

After dinner, we start walking up the path. Meg and I are ahead of our parents, talking and joking with each other. They're moving a little slow. I assume they must be discussing business.

"Rach, come on! Don't worry about them." Meg grabs my arm.

I look straight ahead, "Yeah, you're right." I begin to eye everything in front of us; we're coming up to a circular clearing about as wide as a city street. This seems quite odd, considering we're in the woods. Maybe there are some guys out here from the phone company putting up another tower. I know that sometimes they work in the woods and leave their equipment. But not this time...

There's nothing here but flat ground and little patches of grass here and there.

"I can see the path is on the other side – let's go." Meagan says.

I glimpse at her out of the corner of my eye, "Don't you think this circle out here is a little strange?"

As she walks away from me, I see a light starting to glow in front of her – a large globe of light just sitting on the ground. It's about 15 feet tall – not very bright though.

"What the heck?" She slowly says.

I lift a hand, "Wait. Stop."

She pauses in her tracks.

I remember watching ghost shows about this kind of stuff. From my memory of those, I would call this an 'orb'.

I tilt my head, "Maybe there's a ghost in there Meagan?"

"Oh my god..." she says under her breath. The light begins to flicker and we suddenly see a tree in the middle of the big ball; little firefly lights are all around it too. Meagan jumps back a little and looks around for mom and dad but they're nowhere in sight.

"Where are they? Rach have you seen anything like this before!?"

I can't stop staring at it. I'm motionless. I'm so scared I can't move! I point at it, "Meg, look what else it does!"

She shoots me a crazy look, then she turns back to it. Her eyes grow. The brightness is fading and the light is falling like a mist to the ground, creating a pool of water around the tree with grey bricks containing it all. A mark appears in the middle of its trunk, glowing. I gasp. It's identical to our birthmarks. That same mark is on our heads just above the hairline on the left side.

A memory suddenly flashes before my eyes. I remember about 5 or 6 years ago, I found my birthmark by accident. I was scratching my head and felt a lump up there, so naturally, I went up to a mirror and pried a small spot of hair away from the itchy place, and then... I uncovered it. It's an outline shape of a dove. Still, even to this day, I peer into the mirror to look at it, wondering why it looks so perfect. The day after Meagan turned 6, I distinctly remember her running up to me sometime during the afternoon, and out of the blue, she showed me her birthmark. Oh she was excited! She thought that I was gifted with one and she wasn't. When she revealed it to me, I was put into a great state of shock. Always from that day on, I have been questioning why they're in the same spot and look identical. Coincidence perhaps?

I hear Meagan say, "Rach, we need to get a picture. I want to take a picture of this with my phone! You think it might be too dark?" I blink, back into reality. She wants to do what? Wait. No! I quickly walk up and grab her shoulder, "What if it's a bad idea? What if you have the flash on and it scares it? It might be extremely dangerous!"

She rolls her eyes at me, "If it were dangerous, it would have done something by now."

"I don't know Meg..." I warily shake my head.

"We can run and hide if it does anything." She mumbles and walks closer to get a better look.

I frown, then carefully follow her. "Please be careful Meagan, we don't know what this is!"

"It's a tree, stupid."

"I really hate it when you say that to me Meagan." I grumble.

Ignoring me, she gets to the bricks and starts taking her shoes off. "See? This looks harmless." She shrugs. I watch her test the water with her big toe. This is so unreal...

"Oh wow... this feels great! Rach – try it! Don't be scared!" she says.

"No, I'm not crazy!"

"Rach!"

I look back for mom and dad. "Where are they already?!"

"Try it!" she presses. I growl and take my shoes off, "Fine. Fine! But if anything happens, it's all YOUR FAULT!" I glance back again. My eyes light up. Mom and dad! They're coming but are still at least 100 feet away on the path.

"Hey, what's all that?" Meagan mutters, pointing into the pool. I look down at it, "What in the world...?" There are large stepping stones on the bottom of this pool with strange writing on them – like Japanese or something.

"Let's get a closer look." Meagan says, stepping in and tugging me along.

I pull back a little, "Wait-!" Just then we hear Dad yell, "Wait a minute!" I turn around to look at him and suddenly a whoosh of warm air and a mist of water rises from the pool, creating a curtain that we can't see through. Everything has just gone black and dead silent for me. The only thing I see is the tree with that glowing symbol in its bark. Meagan isn't here. I quickly try to move my arms out for her, hoping she would find them. I attempt to shout her name. My voice isn't coming out! Why?! This fear of the unknown is starting to overcome me.

I think I'm about to go into hyperventilation. Where is she? Where's mom and dad?! I blink and gulp, eyes zipping around but then stop at the tree again. It's beginning to move away from me as if I were looking out the back of a moving bus. I don't... I don't understand! I see light out of the corners of my eyes and I hear country music playing low but getting stronger. I blink again and then suddenly, I'm in a roadside restaurant with Meagan at a sitting booth.

I gasp, "Meagan!" My voice is back! What the hell is all this?! I see her eyes are watery but she's extremely happy to see me. "Rach, where were you?!" she tries to stand up. Something is holding her down. We both look around. The music is coming from a jukebox and the place is empty.

"Why can't I move? Where are we?" she quickly asks.

"Meagan..." I quietly say, "Please tell me you can hear me. I need to make sure."

She blinks at me. "Of course I can hear you! Now why can't I get up?"

I stare back at her, "I don't know... Is this even real?"

We both hear a noise at the other end of the restaurant and see an older woman in her 50's with blonde hair, dressed like a waitress and carrying two plates. She walks up to our table and says, "Here's your pie! And did you want whipped cream with that?"

Meagan and I stare blankly at her, then Meagan raises a finger and starts to speak but the woman cuts her off. "Oh I'm sorry! I forgot something, didn't I?"

I make a confused face, then ask, "Where are we, please?"

The waitress smiles and places the plates on the table and asks me to scoot over. I do, and as she sits down beside me, Meagan and I see her appearance changing. Our mouths fall open to seeing she's now at least 25 years younger and dressed like a secretary in a law office.

"I don't do this very often and it's always awkward. My name is Qadira. Everything you are seeing right now is from your collective memories. You are actually caught in a time bubble I created. We are having this conversation in private because I need you to do something for me." She says. I swear, my mouth is hanging wide open and Meagan is the same way. The woman's eyes change color from brown to blue as she continues, "You see, I am a Galaxian. When you look at the night sky, you see stars. That is what you call the Milky Way Galaxy. I am responsible for this Galaxy and all that is in it."

I close my mouth and become quite fascinated by the conversation and her appearance. "Are you a God?" I ask.

She smiles again, "I am many people, but I am unknown to humans. I like to keep it that way."

I slowly nod with an 'uh-huh'.

Meagan then asks, "...Where are our parents?"

Qadira raises her eyebrows, "Oh, they're fine. They will panic and look for you and call the police and the fire department and talk to the newspapers and-"

I give her mean eyes, "What is wrong with you?! You are scaring us and I really don't believe what I am seeing or hearing!"

Qadira abruptly stands up from the table, "Your name is Rachel and you are 17, and this is your sister Meagan and she is 14. You are from Jacksonville, Florida and your parents are Quinn and Janice. You both have a birthmark on your heads in the shape of a dove just above your hair lines both on the right side of your foreheads, right! How do I know this?! I put those birthmarks on both of you when you were born. Those marks made it possible for you to be here now. The tree you saw and touched was a transport device put there for you. When you stepped on the stones, you activated it."

Meagan begins to cry a little and I am becoming furious. "What right do you have taking us from our home like this?" I snarl, then see Qadira beginning to change again to a more angelic being. The restaurant is darkening as a light aura starts emanating from her head and her clothing is turning white. "My dear girls, I chose you two before you were born to save this Galaxy. It's your destiny." She says.

"To save this galaxy? What?" I choke. I then shake my head at Meagan, "This is not real. It can't be."

Meagan wipes her eyes and we both look around, now noticing the restaurant is completely dark and a light is shining in from outside the window. We see two figures coming into view. They look female but not human. They're slender and tall. They have red eyes, and noses like rabbits. Their ears are pointed like a deer's and are sticking out of their long blondish hair from the sides of their heads. They are both wearing full body suits that are a pale yellow color and have a smooth texture like silk. One's face has sharper features and the other appears younger by her slightly rounder face and the look in her eyes. What even...

"Rachel and Meagan, meet Arinna on your left and Euria on your right." Qadira says, "They are called Frawn. They are the greatest warriors of their kind and will be your guardians. They are very wise and will help you on your quest."

Meagan hesitantly looks back to Qadira, "Quest to do what exactly? To save the galaxy you say?" She sees Qadira's translucent now, and fading. But Qadira tells her, "After you meet the Frawn and settle, I will speak with you again."

I finally stop staring at these creatures and look for Qadira again but she's gone. "What? Meagan, where'd she go?"

"She disappeared." Meagan slowly utters. Quickly, I switch back to the Frawn, and she joins me. They look extremely beautiful actually. They're not moving though. It's like they're frozen.

"Why aren't they moving?" Meagan asks. I take a closer look at them and remember Qadira said we were caught in a time bubble.

"We are in a time bubble Meagan. Maybe that's why."

"Oh my god, yeah..." she nods slowly, "Yeah, that's right."

The Frawn fade from sight as the lights in the restaurant brighten. In fact, the lights are getting so bright we both have to shut our eyes!

"Oh no, what now?!" Meagan whines.

A moment later, I sense the light isn't so bright anymore, then I open my eyes.

I gasp; instant shock and anxiety fills me.

This time it's extreme.