REMEMBRANCE ━━ 𝒂𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒂𝒓

───── prologue

prologue.  the beginning of everything

THE ONLY WAY JUNIPER VESPERA WOULD DESCRIBE HOW SHE FELT WOULD BE: EXHAUSTED AND HOPELESS. Being trapped in a room with four walls, machinery being the only thing you could hear amongst the silence and that damn blank spot on the wall which Juniper's eyes stayed locked on for hours on end. Every time Mateo walked in the room, he'd find his daughter in a trance-like state, not taking her eyes away from the same spot in front of her.

He noticed the lack of energy Juniper had as time passed on. She didn't do the things she'd normally do. Like soccer, for example. Juniper use to be the best on the team but since she was diagnosed with cancer and the symptoms worsened, she could barely run with the ball without getting out of breath. It was gut wrenching to watch a young kid's health wither away. And it affected Mateo the most.

The father of the Vespera girl had Juniper's hand in his hold, glancing up at the ceiling and praying to whoever was listening. Juniper's eyes were shut—even in her sleep, she looked damaged and fragile. When Mateo wasn't in the hospital by his daughter's side, he'd be out researching ways to solve the sickness lingering in Juniper's system.

There wasn't one.

By the time Mateo had come close to finding one, Juniper got worse. Doctors advised it'd be best if she was put off life support and allowed the man to have the time to say goodbye, yet he denied. Until now.

Juniper was on the brink of death, her heartbeat being at the chance where it could stop in any second. Mateo felt like he cried for hours until there were no more tears he could conjure up. Feeling the dryness of his eyes from the waterworks, and the emptiness he felt swirling inside his stomach. His heart was cracked in half. Mateo Vespera couldn't imagine a world without his precious little girl but when he woke up to the machine monitoring Juniper's heartbeat flatlining, he felt like the whole world around him slowed down. His world crashing down on him like a hurricane and there wasn't a thing that he could do.

Except for continuing the search. Despite Juniper being gone, Mateo wouldn't give up the chance of finding a way to bring her back. And finally his search had come to a halt after finding the man by the name of Tommy Sully. A man that promised he would bring his daughter back. Mateo didn't care about the risks, not the payment—he only cared about having Juniper back. It first confused him when the Sully man asked for recorded memories of Juniper and bits of her personality into a USB, nonetheless, he did it.

The pieces started to pierce together when Tommy showed the man what he was doing. Bringing Juniper back as a Na'vi sounded absurd but when he saw her yellow, beaming eyes open up and investigate her new body ... Mateo never felt happiness quite like this flowing through his veins. But, unfortunately, it didn't last long when he felt the head of a glock pressing against his temple.

Mateo died with a smile on his face when he and his daughter made eye contact for the last time.

Juniper's hands smacked across the glass, hissing at the people she couldn't see—yet knew we're watching her—on the other side. As time went on and the teenage girl was getting used to her Na'vi body, the more she acted hostile and less human. It surprised the scientists who kept her locked up and ran tests twenty four/seven.

The door located at the side of the room opened up, alerting Juniper. She backed into the corner, her canines baring at the people in white coats with clipboards in their grasp walked forward. Juniper was teased, her tail waving around threateningly. It wasn't until a man entered with a familiar looking needle that Juniper started to lash out.

She swiped her tail forward,using the strength behind it to knock the scientists that dared to come close. Immediately, chaos arose. Sirens blew throughout the room, men armed with weapons pointing their devices to Juniper and yelling out, "get down! We won't hesitate to shoot, stay down!"

Despite their warnings, seeing the door opened, Juniper took her chance. Before anybody could pull the trigger, Juniper pounced. She hissed at the men and bit them, pushed them over—did anything she could do to get them away. Making it so far, the sound of a gun being triggered echoed across the room. Juniper yelled out in pain that coursed through her torso, instantly dropping to the floor.

She reached for where the pain originated from. Agony pulsed from the contact, making her reactively pull her hand away. The pads of her fingers were coated with blood, her vision becoming hazy as she heard the muffled speaking of people. Her eyes began to feel heavy and her eyelids closed shut uncontrollably, the last thing she saw was her being surrounded.

But there was a woman that spotted Juniper: Grace Augustine. The woman didn't find Na'vi as dangerous and vicious as they were labelling despite the girl's lash out. But instead Grace sympathies with her. A teenage girl that died from cancer suddenly awoke in a body that was unfamiliar to her, her father being dead as much as Juniper couldn't remember her past life and being held captive as a lab rat undergoing painful procedures for the studies of RDA.

Grace was a part of the Avatar Program. Entering her consciousness into the body of a Na'vi. The woman spent years studying the way they act, their language and culture, their beliefs and everything that made Pandora. She'd teach the little kids of the Omaticaya clan and tell them stories of the sky people who were titled as the enemy from all the destruction they brought along.

With this, Grace shared her knowledge of Juniper Vespera being locked up and needing help of the people. The tribe was hesitant to help out a hybrid but as Grace explained the girl's situation, they felt obligated to help. And so they did that.

A couple casualties came out of it. Yet, a new addition to the Omaticaya clan prospered. Juniper was welcomed immediately into the people's hearts. Maybe it was her beaming personality or the fact she was strong headed despite everything she went through.

The Omaticaya people never regretted their decision in approving Juniper into the clan.

authors note.
PLEASE BARE WITH ME. i hate this but the prologue and first chapter is always going to be the worst but it will get better, i promise. the plans i have for this book is crazy and i'm so excited for you to experience it with me. thank you for reading though this is probably going to be one of the only author notes in my chapters