209 ACI. (After the creation of the Sky Isles)
Aiden and Kai used to dream about the future in Mr. Crickets' workshop. They'd stay up all night talking about leaving Crook Hill when they got older to live in the capital, where they couldn't hear Mr. Cricket lectures about the mess they made in his library.
Future wasn't something two peasant children were supposed to be looking forward to anyway. In fact, they should've dreaded it. They would have worked in the fields, somewhere down in the low atmosphere sky isles, too close to the underground, too low to be esteemed as citizens. Just poor workers who have low salaries and lowly rags for clothing. But that didn't stop them from dreaming.
Kai wanted his own library, with a view of the capital's river, or a view of the palace. He's never seen nor been to Hera's Castle, nor has he ever stepped foot on Novyain soil. But it was his dream to live there.
Aiden wanted to get married and have a gazillion babies. She wanted a family. She wanted her kids to grow up in a dashing city with lights and silver buildings and views of the world, somewhere in the Privern region, away from the underground and poverty.
"I want to marry a prince," Aiden chuckled.
Kai rolled his eyes. "Princes get married to noble girls, not some bastard orphan."
Aiden furrowed her brows, pushing Kai and pinching him on his arm. His pale skin turned red.
"Ow!" he yells.
"You're so mean," Aiden frowned.
"You're the mean one."
Aiden gets up from the floor, brushing off the dust from her dress. "I'ma go get us something to eat."
"I want some salak's," Kai smiled, showing off his crooked teeth. To Aiden, he was an ugly-looking child, even though most of the people on the small isle said that he was beautiful. Beautiful for a Chini anyway.
Aiden nodded. "Salaks are hard to catch, I'll get us some cheese berries."
Kai nodded, disappointment on his face. He was a brikit for salaks.
Aiden left the library, walking right out the door of the cottage. She ran down the valley of evergreen flowers that only grew in the eastern isles, far from the capital.
Even from the small sky isles the capital, Novyain, was high in the sky, beyond the little Crook Hill's atmosphere.
Before Aiden's mother died, she told her the stories about the underground, where the gods lived, as well as the devils. Aiden's mother was a Diver. A windbreaker Chini. Her mother never told her much about the underground, just that it was a dangerous place and was roaming with devils. She never mentioned gods though.
Aiden stopped in front of the berry bush, she forgot her basket so she lifted the hems of her dress and started picking berries and dropping it on her dress like a cotton bag. When she finished picking she rolled up her dress so the berries wouldn't fall out.
Some of the berries did fall so she had to bend down to pick them up. She groaned, bending down on the muddy grass.
It was the sunny season, the gods of the sun had cast heated light on the earth. A gift for the crops to grow.
This is why it was weird to her when she shivered. It had felt awfully cold when she came outside, she noticed the blue skies from earlier had now been dusted in gray. There are no storms during the sunny season.
Aiden turned around to look back at the shack, she spotted the roofs tiles blowing off, each red long tile blowing with the wind that was heading west.
She rose from the ground, the berries on her dress falling on the muddy grass. She looked west, far into the distance of the valleys village, far beyond the small forest of bushes, far beyond the cliff where the sky isle stops.
A cyclone of darkness, with lightning and fire, hovered itself down the west valley, annihilating the forest bushes and the southwest part of the bridge.
The sky was dark, the sunny blue sky turned into a dark gloomy night, thunder roaring, and bursts of fire flying like meteors through the isles.
Aiden suddenly started running, dashing towards the house where Kai is. She spotted him through the open window, looking towards her as she runs back to the house.
She saw the whole village crumble underneath the cyclone, the thunder tearing it apart. She didn't really see. But she did.
Ms. Evendoors flower shops, the markets stalls, the schools, Cleo and Sandra's shack, her apple tree, Mr. Crickets chemical lab, Mr. Cricket. All of them are gone. In just a blink of Aiden's eye.
She ran faster, shouting at Kai to come out of the house. But her voice was distant, and so was he. From the loud noises of thunder, she didn't hear the fire meteor that had flown and crashed into the cottage, causing a fiery explosion before her eyes.
She flew back, the wave of shock and friction forcing her to the ground. She stared at the once cottage, now in tatters. She looked around at the once beautiful sky isle of cheese berry bushes and lavish valleys, now in nothing but a sky isle of blazing fire. Crook Hill was no more.
The cyclone was gone. But the dark clouds were still there. The monster cyclone had disappeared into the south, looking for its next victims.
Aiden cried in weeps at that same very valley. Mourning her home, the villagers, Mr. Cricket, and her best friend, who were now gone forever. Crushed like her very dreams.
But she didn't know that a number of pages were being crafted, ink was being splashed on paper. That the very first chapter to her story had been turned. And there were still plenty of pages to turn, still more to read, and still more to be written.