Jīvitaya walks down the narrow street with quick and silent steps, glancing around her in all directions as she moves hurriedly in the direction of her house. The wind whips her silky ebony hair into her face and she quickly swipes it aside to clear her vision, not even stopping to do so. You could never be too careful, too cautious, too anything now that planet Earth is occupied by aliens. Humans aren't at the top of the food chain anymore. Everyone knows that aliens are on the planet, but no one has ever seen them, at least no one who has lived to tell the tale. But Jīvitaya knows the truth, she saw the invasion when she was eight. She supposed eight more years had passed, considering she is now sixteen, but it doesn't feel like that many years had passed, it felt like both many, many more and so many less than that had passed, leaving her mind and body to feel at odds with one another.

She finishes making her way home and hurries up the steps into her house, closing the oak door behind her with a soft click as it locks once more. She shucks off her shoes with a quick and practiced motion to leave them in a tiny heap beside the door before meandering with padded feet over to the window that takes up almost all of the back wall of her living room. She drops onto the plush window seat with a barely audible plop, staring out at the vibrant forest surrounding her home with glassy eyes. Her ears strain to pick up any sounds from the forest, but the thick glass of her windows mutes all sounds except those within the cream-colored walls of her home.

Jīvitaya's house is on the outskirts of the city, mainly because she loves nature of all kinds, but especially because she is an introvert. Besides, it is easier to buy and maintain a house in the outskirts of a city than inside it, especially if you live alone. Her eyes clear and she pops open a panel at the bottom of the window before she continues watching the forest, sighing peacefully at the quiet sound of chirping birds and rustling leaves now wafting through the opening revealed by the panel.

The world was almost destroyed in the past, when humans ignored the effect their actions had on the planet. The ice caps were drastically melting, the sea was rising and becoming more acidic. The number of natural disasters rose exponentially, and animal populations were dying off at an alarming rate. Luckily, one person in power fully realized the dangers and miraculously persuaded every country on the planet to do whatever they could to save their home. Almost three decades since that miraculous point in time, almost everything is run by renewable energy. Of course, there are some people who pay the government a fortune to use non-renewable energy, even though renewable energy is free and better for the planet. Jīvitaya frowns at that thought. Why would you want to pay to use fossil fuels if you could get renewable energy for free? It's just not the smartest idea. But at least now the planet is back to where it was before humans ever started polluting now that people have actually become invested in taking care of it.

Jīvitaya stares out the window for a minute longer before unfurling her legs and walking towards her bedroom. It was similar to a tower in a castle in the sense that her room was, in fact, in a tower. Three-quarters of the curved walls were painted in such a way that they created the feeling of being surrounded by hundreds of trees. The last section of the wall juts out to create a small antechamber, the floor of which slightly dips to compensate for the mattress of the bed that covers the antechamber floor. The wall of the antechamber is a giant, floor to ceiling window that faces the forest a few hundred yards away.

Jīvitaya finishes walking up the spiraling stairs to her room and flips the trapdoor open, causing it to swing upward into her bedroom. She softly pads across the floor that is carpeted with a forest floor pattern towards the electronic bookshelf. In the past, books were physical, with paper pages and thicker pages or cardboard for the binding. Now, each book is on a thin tablet instead. The tablet protects the book from any type of damage, and also enables more of them to be stored in a smaller place. Each book can also be transferred to a personal tablet upon request. Jīvitaya slides the tablet for one of her favorite books off the shelf and pads over to her bed, curling up amongst the comforter and fluffy blankets. Five chapters into the book, she dozes off to sleep, clutching it in one hand.

When she stirs, she slightly opens her eyes to gaze out the window. At the edge of the tree line, she sees a tall, pale, white-haired man lingering at the edge of the trees and watching her intently through the window. He starts walking towards the house, and by association, Jīvitaya herself. After he has walked maybe a dozen yards towards the house, with no sign of stopping or slowing down, she moves as if she were just waking up instead of having been awake for a while. He halts in his tracks and she sits up, stretching. Without opening her eyes any wider, she watches him vanish into thin air. Her eyes widen, her pulse quickens, and her face pales. That male was no man, he was one of the aliens, because humans can't just disappear into thin air like that. Could the aliens that have taken over the planet teleport?

But why would this one be interested in her? What had she done to draw his interest or that of his people? She couldn't think of anything that she had done that could have even remotely drawn their interest. Jīvitaya holds a hand to her racing heart, trying to calm it down to a more normal speed. Slowly, her thoughts stop whirling and quieten. Knowing that the alien male could and probably would return, she pulls the tapestry curtain that is embroidered to depict a forest around the rod so that instead of closing off the bed from the rest of the room, it is blocking the window. Then she heads down to the first floor, which is where the entrance to the back of the house is located.

The front entrance is on the second floor, since the house is on a small hill. Instead of going out the back door; however, Jīvitaya locks it and goes down a hall, stopping before the door of the farthest room. She opens the door and quickly steps through, closing it behind her. Crashing and banging noises reach her from the side of the room with a large cardboard castle. The noises stop as the door clicks shut and two blurred shapes barrel towards her. One is coppery and one is silvery. They are each about the size of a small book. Jīvitaya crouches down to meet them and they jump on her, causing her to fall backward, laughing hysterically. They are baby mini satin rabbits.

Talking to the coppery one, she says, "Copper, fetch the button ball!"

Copper runs off towards the smaller castle near the door.

"Silver, stay."

Silver flops onto her side in happiness. Jīvitaya walks towards the corner of the room next to the larger castle. She carefully steps over and around the spilled food before kneeling by the copper painted food bowl. She picks it up and carefully feels along the inside ledge on the bottom of the bowl for a tiny button. Jīvitaya finds it and presses down. She hurries back over to where Silver, and now Copper, are waiting. Jīvitaya takes the button colored ball from Copper before giving her a treat. Copper eats the treat happily and Silver looks up at Jīvitaya sadly until she is tossed a treat as well.

On the bottom of the ball, one of the buttons has lifted up. She feels along the bottom of the button and presses down when she feels a tiny bump. Then she turns the ball over to where a large button had lifted up and slid to the side to reveal a tiny compartment. She then presses another tiny button along the side of the compartment. There is a click, and a small portion of a chain slides out of the compartment's bottom. Jīvitaya pulls on it, and the rest of the chain comes out. At the end of it, a tiny old fashioned skeleton key dangles.

She feels along the stem of the key and presses the highest of four microscopic buttons. The section of the floor the large castle is on rises silently to reveal a set of narrow, spiraling stairs that lead down to the panic room. Jīvitaya goes down just far enough that her head is below the floor of the room. Then she presses the second button and the section of the floor lowers. Lights activate and glow softly, illuminating the stairs. Jīvitaya places the chain around her neck before continuing down the spiraling steps. When she reaches the bottom she goes down a short hallway until she reaches the door at the very end of it. She opens it and enters the small, plain room that is just big enough for a bed, a table, and a small dresser.

Jīvitaya walks over to the dull gray bed, her fingers skimming over the cold stone walls. She sits on the bed and pulls out her personal tablet. She quickly turns off everything on her tablet that could enable someone to pinpoint her location. Then she tells her tablet to make a master chip containing all its data. The tablet whirrs before spitting out a small chip, leaving itself with a lesser one. Jīvitaya taps on the master chip, causing it to extend long, elegant, silvery-blue tendrils that wrap around her wrist in an elaborate design, leaving the chip at the focal point of the design in its spot at the center of her wrist.

Then both the chip and the tendrils melt into her skin to create the semblance of a very detailed tattoo bracelet. Turning her attention back to the tablet, Jīvitaya looks on the WorldNet for someone in the area who might be able to help her with the aliens. The only result is a Mr. Aro Daniels. According to the info provided, he is someone who specializes in research about the aliens. She contacts him and they agree to meet at 11:00 the next day at his office. She cuts off the comm-link and checks the time on her tablet. It is 22:45. She yawns and crawls under the warm covers before the lights dim to plunge the room into darkness.
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How do you guys like this first glimpse of Stars Of Memory? Why do you think the alien male is there? What do you think will happen at her meeting with Mr. Aro? Tell me your thoughts!

For those of you who got a bunch of crazy messages about chapters being posted, or the book being unpublished, or the story not being found, I'm sorry. I was updating the story because I finished my first round of edits - yay! - and I had to unpublished it temporarily to do so. It took a while, three hours at least, but it's done at last.

This chapter is dedicated to Pritika1106

Happy reading and I'll see you all next chapter!

~The Goddess Of Fate, signing out