The Stargazers

I woke up with the sun shining through my east window, the lights off but the room bright, the covers slightly too hot as the fan blew at top speed. I pushed myself out of bed, and lay on the floor; this was a normal routine for me. Ever since I was really little, my back had hurt when I woke up. I found that, oddly enough, laying on the floor helped this problem.
"Maybe I should see a doctor about that one of these days," I muttered, pulling myself up and giving the door a light nudge; as it slid open, I saw that everything out side of my room was slightly too quiet.
"What? Sonic?" I called for my brother, realizing there was not another sound in the house. I ran down the stairs, taking them three at a time. When I pivoted into the kitchen, horror struck my face.
My brother was laying on the ground, his breathing labored.
"I just put my emerald down...I didn't see yours...and then...."
I reached over to touch his shoulder, and it was hotter than it had ever felt before.
"Lemme take your temp--" I tried to say, but was cut off by the ball of energy beginning to form in the middle of the space between us.

When I was younger, I had a friend named Jared. He was the closest friend I had, and someone I could always rely on. I was young, and naïve, thinking that he would be the person that I would grow up and marry and start a family with.
Jared and I met in day care, when we were less than three years of age. He lived a couple houses down from my first home, and he would come over almost every afternoon—to have lunch, or play, or make many dead end attempts at stories with my brother and I. On my fourth birthday, he was supposed to come over for lunch and then stay for cake, but he had swimming lessons and wasn’t able to make it. My parents scheduled the day after our birthday with his family, and just had our own little “party.” At the time, I bawled like I never had before, but now I thank my lucky stars that he wasn’t there.
When the fire was put out, and my parents were taken off to the hospital, Jared was there watching. Panic was on his face when they concluded that there was no one else in the house—that there had never been. All the evidence—well, almost all—had been burned down, and they had to wait for the crime scene team to show up before moving anything except for the people.
Jared then ran up to the burnt down mess, then missing its roof and most of its second floor, and suddenly began tearing up debris from everywhere. His mom watched him in shock—she assumed my brother and I had fled, and was still too nervous to prove the team incorrect—and the rescue unit started screaming at him and trying to pull him out. He let out a yelp as one grabbed his arm, and shrieked as the other man began to pull him off of the closet door to which he clung.
“Stop! STOP!” he screeched, kicking and wriggling out of their grasp.
“Move away from the door this instant, young man, or else we can send you to a juvenile detention center,” one of the units declared. The man wasn’t even sure whether the boy was old enough to go to Juvenile Hall yet—but they could probably make plans for the future.
“No!” Jared protested. “Sonic! Ash! Come out! I know you’re in there!”
The men let go of him, and watched in shock as he tried to pry the door from the scorched wall.
Just like us, Jared had “powers.” His powers weren’t fully developed, as mine weren’t either. The only thing we knew of at the time was Jared’s super sense of smell—like a Bloodhound, he could sniff out a single person from miles away. His dad’s ability to know what happens in the future—except for deaths—predicted that by the time he was 16, he would be able to sniff out someone from anywhere on the earth. He planned to join a search and rescue team.
Jared had memorized everyone in my family’s smell. He could smell my brother and I inside of there, even though our scent clung to almost everywhere in the house. Finally, he was able to tug the door open and everyone—including my best friend—was shocked to see my brother and I laying unconscious in the small coat closet, completely unharmed—due to the fact that we were surrounded by a light, glowing purple ball: my first force field.

Jared and I stayed close friends until I was about ten. He was the one who helped Sonic and I cope with the loss of our parents, and we stayed with his family for about five years. Our favorite hobby was, naturally, stargazing. Every clear night, we would lie on the pool seats, lay ourselves down and look right up at the stars. We filled our rooms with star charts, would have competitions to see who could name and point to the most constellations in the shortest amount of time, and do space projects together every month.

It was when we turned eleven that he was diagnosed with cancer. He lived one year longer.

I found myself in a strange situation. My brother was staring at me with a look of pure rage, but the stars looked so inviting tonight. I tilted my head up, and he grabbed my wrist with both hands just as I was turning at him, he pulled an Indian burn on the skin of my arm.
I tried to scream, but realized that neither of us could talk. I looked around, and realized that all there was around us was a night sky. I had never seen anything like this before, and believed that we were in some state between two places.
I continued to stare at the stars, thinking only of one person until the world around us began to swirl and I returned to unconsciousness.

It feels quite strange to wake up in the arms of a construction worker, especially if that construction worker is from another planet. The way he was looking at me: less “Oh my God, what in the world is that,” and more of a, “what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in school?”
The man looked down at me, and gave me a glare—one that some people might consider scary, if they haven’t seen mine—that I easily shook off without blinking. “Why are you here? This is a private construction site…and don’t you have school?” he asked.
I didn’t know whether to make this man my friend or my enemy. “Well…” I said, trying to pull out a story from my long, memorized list of excuses, “I’m…homeschooled, and I had to run some errands for my mom, when I tripped on a rock and hit my head, I think. I don’t know….” I said, trying to seem dazed.
The construction worker set me down, and I backed up to where the rest of my friends were standing.
“Are you all…related?” a construction worker in a red hat asked.
‘ “No,” my brother cut in, “but our parents work together to make one big homeschooling group.”
Another man muttered under his breath, but the man in the red hat rolled his eyes. “Doesn’t that take away the point?”
We turned around and stalked away, me in front as usual. I looked down at my hands to check one more time that I was still human. Carefully, I checked to see if the construction workers were still watching us. To my relief, they had returned to their business. Checking the area around us for any more people, I nodded lightly and the group split.
I didn’t even take a moment to count all the people that were there—it was a miracle that we all woke up in the same place. The friends I had with me now were the ones I always had on the top of my head: Sonic, Will, Tails, and Amy. I heard a buzzing by my ear, and dodged out of the way, thinking it was a bullet, and then realized how stupid that was. These people didn’t look like gun shooters…I was just too caught up in “other stuff” and the books I were reading.
I felt a brushing sensation on my fingertips, and glanced down to take note of Kiara. I had no idea how she managed to get into the same place, but then I remembered that as I was walking down the stairs this morning she had slipped into my pocket.
We met up at the back of the housing development. “What’s our plan?” Tails asked.
“I’ve got a good idea,” Amy said. “I think we should go to school.”
A group of kids flooded down the street. “Looks like we’re good,” I said, and we followed the kids down the street.
“Let’s go,” Sonic said, and we followed him into the mass of kids dashing down the street.

The broken record player in my head refused to stop playing Breakaway in my head, the first song I had ever sung with Electric Discharge, the song that I knew from the moment I saw the music was mine.
We attempted to blend in with the crowd, but there was something wrong. I knew that we were pretty nice looking—beautiful, I guess—in human form, but what was this? Things were never this crazy.
And then, I heard my name floating around the crowd. Soon, I heard the names of the rest of my friends.
“She looks just like Ash does,” I heard one person whisper.
“I wonder what her name is,” the other girl whispered back.
“I’ll go see,” she said, pushing her way through the crowd, but before she could make it, a much more familiar face shoved two kids aside.
“Ash!” she called, putting her arm over my shoulder.
“Allie! I can’t believe you made it here,” I replied, as joyous as ever that we found her. Alison and I were best friends, and I couldn’t stand to be without her before we found the emeralds.
“I think these people know us or something,” I whispered.
“Yeah, I heard a couple of people saying, ‘that girl looks like Alison’ and stuff. I even heard a couple of your names floating around, too.”
I nodded in agreement, and soon enough we found ourselves at the school.
“Well, when I saw…it,” she said, making a careful choice of words, “I kind of had a sense where we were going…so when I was in that place that wasn’t really point A or point B, I summoned all your stuff and hid it behind the school.”
“Thanks!” I said, hugging her as we dashed to pick up our backpacks.
We got into the main office, carrying our bags, looking like normal schoolchildren. “Can I help you?” the woman at the front desk asked us.
“Yes, we’re…new here,” I lied, commanding Will to hypnotize the woman. He stared back at me, and then thought, they’ve been waiting for us. We’re actually registered here.
I was shocked. Usually, we had to go through a lot of funny business to actually get what we needed.
“Of course! Here’s your schedule, lockers, combinations, everything you’ll need,” she said, handing me a packet of papers. We passed them around until everyone had gotten theirs, and we headed off.
“How did they know we were coming?” I asked after we were out of earshot of most of the people.
“I have no idea,” Will replied, and we threw our bags into the lockers.
“Looks like we have all the same classes,” Allie said, looking over my shoulder to see my schedule.
“Yeah, that’s pretty strange,” Sonic said, placing his books on the floor.
I felt someone tap me on the shoulder, and I turned to see a pale girl with silky brown hair.
“Hello,” I said, closing the door of my locker.
“Hi,” she said. “My name’s Whitney. It’s nice to meet you,” she said.
“Um, I’m Ash,” I said. “Nice to meet you, too.”
She looked at me in shock for a moment. Did I say something wrong?
“No, nothing…just…you have the same name, and look just like a video game character.”
“Okay, then,” I said, and we walked off to math class.

Not bad, but very confusing. I think you need to focus on establishing characters more and establishing the settings.

Thanks! I'm going to write another chapter, and things should pick up.

Good to hear.