The Jelly Bean Chronicles

The Beginning

It was a clear night, only the soft sounds of crickets and a stream nearby filled the surrounding landscape. A young boy sat on the grassy hilltop behind his house, it was perched on a mountain overlooking the rest of the suburban area, the perfect place for the boy to set up his telescope and stare into the stars.

"Brayden! Don't be out there all night! You have school tomorrow!" a female voice yelled from the back of the house, making the boy tense up a little.

"I won't!" he lied, he was probably going to be up till the sun rose anyway.

He stayed out there for a couple hours, till around 3AM noting down the locations of stars and constellations, before something bright caught his eye.

There was a flaming ball falling towards earth fast.

He sat up quickly watching it fall and scrambled to set the telescope up to follow it and see what it was, knocking supplies over and making a mess in the process.

A loud boom echoed in the night and the lights in the entire town went out instantly.

He scanned the area in search for where it crashed, there was no visible sign of it anywhere, but based on the sound it had to have landed somewhere close.

He took a deep breath, calming himself down. He glanced at the time and grimaced, it was too dark to go searching for something through the entire town when he couldn't even pinpoint the object down to a certain area. He had to give up but decided to go in the morning instead.

A few miles away a girl shot up to a loud deafening boom. She panted looking around her room for answers, her dark hair falling over her face as she looked around her room in alertness. It took her a moment before realizing a soft glow was coming from a source outside her window. She hesitantly got up and walked over to the window sill, peering out.

There was a large crater in her backyard, the center of this crater had something that looked metallic in the dead center, glowing red from heat. She stared for a moment in shock before running downstairs and grabbing a flashlight.

"What the..." she swung the back door open, coughing a bit as smoke from the crash wafted in her face. She steadily made her way closer to the crater, still a bit hesitant with each movement she made.

A huge puff of smoke shot into the air, as the sound of metal grinding against metal assaulted her ears, she quickly put her hands over them to block out the sound, pausing and ducking her head from the smoke. After a minute or two she slowly made her way to the edge of the crater. A metal ball lay dead center of the damaged yard. The metal had cooled down and wasn't glowing anymore, but it seemed to have a split down the middle now.

Her eyes widened, seeing soft glowing green and what looked to be soft green colored fur inside the split metallic ball.

The sun had risen, it was around 6 in the morning, and Brayden had grabbed a bunch of random supplies and shoved it in a blue backpack, before heading out the door quickly. He was determined to find out what the falling object was, or at least where it landed, even if he had just woken up about ten minutes' prior from his 2 hours of sleep.

"Where do I even start..." He said, simultaneously pulling a complicated looking paper out of his pocket covered in advanced math he had done after he went back inside, trying to pinpoint the location of the falling object. He knew it was a little overboard but something told him finding this thing would be worth it.

He sighed daydreaming of finding the falling meteorite and getting rewards and praise from multiple scientific associations for finding a "rare and valuable" object, or discovering a new element.

His daydreaming was cut short when he heard a loud honk and realized he had wandered into the street while he was daydreaming. He quickly ran back to the sidewalk and apologetically waved at the car he had been blocking.

He let out a deep breath composing himself, before setting out on his small journey around town. He repeatedly checked a map and his math before figuring the object would have most likely landed a couple blocks away.

He trekked his way through the neighborhood behind houses and around fences, occasionally peering into the backyards of random homes hoping to find at least some traces of the falling object, he started feeling a bit uncomfortable, already having been getting weird looks from people around him, and getting one nasty glare from a lady gardening in her backyard.

"Is this really worth it? I probably look like a creep!" He thought aloud, taking a break.

He sighed, and leaned against a fence pulling a bottle from his bag and taking a quick drink, thinking about what he should do next and checking the time on his watch.