CHAPTER 1

Moving down from the sky with the celestial grace of a descending angel, we look down upon the town of Skyfell. It is not a large place, but not so small that you'd notice an unfamiliar face. Cars flow along with placid grace on Main Street. In the May warmth, everyone moves sleepily this Saturday morning. The lots of shops and other commercial buildings are empty of the crowds that will soon appear in a few hours. The sky is blue, brushed with tiny swirls of white cloud. It seems the ideal, perfect town.

Several people are waking up with the light of the sun. Within a blue Cape Cod house on Cypress Drive, Hayette Martins awakens from her bed. Hayette is a pale girl, with red locks of hair that descend around her shoulders. She has a good featured face, with full lips and pale grey eyes that could be seen if she wasn't struggling to return to the land of dreams. Right now, she's trying to get back to sleep to remember the dream in which she has just been dragged. She was driving a race car, something she's dreamed of since childhood.

Let us examine Hayette’s room for a few minutes before we move on to meet our other characters. Hayette’s room is painted purple and good sized. There are bookshelves built into the walls and a TV rests on her nightstand. All of these shelves are filled with comic books. Hayette is obsessed with superheroes.  She has been ever since she was a kid, long before her father died. She has the latest additions of X-MEN, the Amazing Spider-Man, Incredible Hulk, and so many others.

Downstairs, Hayette’s mother Catalina Martins and her husband Lenard Carreon are talking. They are discussing why Hayette has been getting such bad grades in school. But alas, we did not come to see them; we came to see two others. We fly from Hayette’s room and two houses down Cypress Drive. Down the street is a red brick house. It has a green roof and it is slightly smaller than Hayette’s.

In his bed, Barry Paice tosses and turns. He is the same age as Hayette. In fact, he and Hayette have known each since second grade. The two of them go way back. Barry has not been feeling well for a while. His dreams are troubled. He dreams sometimes of terrible things, more often now than before. "Mouth of the Princess" he mutters. "She Who Wants…" he sometimes sits awake in the nights with visions dancing in his head, visions of a beautiful and terrible city that floats in an ocean of water and roses; a sea of blood.

Barry begins to talk again. "The Princess wants the City, how her soul must chafe! The Heirs at the Gates keeping us all safe!" he giggles a little under his breath.

Now we leave that disturbing scene to another one. In this one, a boy sleeps in a tastefully appointed bed. In this house, the family knows money. Marc Stalion sleeps with his arms casually thrown over his head. He is a year older than Hayette and Barry. Marc knows both of them, yet he barely acknowledges their existence. When he does, it is usually with the disdain that the upper class men feel toward the lower. As a junior in Skyfell High and the son of one of the richest men in the town, he is very well off. Yet it seems that Marc is having his own strange dreams. His mouth curls into a smile as he talks in his sleep. The voice that comes from his mouth is cruel and young, yet older than he is. It is the voice of a young man.

"Yes, the Heir…ah ha, oh ho, yes now the time is right. Time to set all to rights."

Just another day in Skyfell, Astaria.