Shattered Stars

Prologue

Computers are so goddamn stupid.

I stared with half-lidded eyes at my computer screen, my elbows on the desk and my fingertips massaging my forehead. Had I missed a semicolon somewhere? No, this language didn't even use semicolons. Maybe I forgot to increment a variable. Of course, my computer didn't tell me the real problem; it didn't even know there was one. My professor certainly wouldn't mind if the program looked like it should run correctly, would he?

I leaned back in my chair, sighing and staring down my nose at the code as I drummed my fingers on my keyboard. A stream of "asdfasdfasdf" appeared in the middle of one of the lines, setting off the syntax error detection.

My eyes jumped to the other monitor. The urge to watch yet another YouTube video was growing without end. Just a click here, a few keystrokes there, and I'd be off to mindless-land again. How bad could one more video be?

No. I told myself, straightening in my chair. I deleted the random characters I created and hovered my fingertips above the keyboard. You've already watched one more video fifty times today. It shouldn't take three hours to fix a single bug!

"CONNOR!" My mom called from downstairs.

I batted a headphone off one ear. "Whaaat?"

"Time for dinner!"

"Ight."

I bounded down the stairs, mouth watering from the smell of chicken pot pie. My dog greeted me at the bottom of the stairs, ears pushed back and his stump-tail wiggling in excitement.

"Hey, Dash," I said, smiling and patting him on the top of his head. "Can't give you too much attention, bud. The chicken pot pie calls to me."

He followed me into the kitchen, sniffing eagerly at my legs. Dad and Skylar had already seated themselves in their usual spots at the dinner table. Mom was serving herself dinner when she caught my eye. "Hey! You can't have those headphones on all the time. I called you four times!"

"Alright, I'll turn down the volume from now on," I murmured, shrugging. I weaved around her, got a bowl, and served myself a quarter of the entire pie.

"Well, it's frustrating when I have to keep yelling across the house."

I rolled my eyes, then got myself a glass of water and hurried back to the table.

"How was practice?" Dad asked, blowing on the chicken on his fork to cool it off.

"Extremely short." I chuckled, stirring the pie as it steamed in my plate. "I only got to hit a medium bucket on the range and then do a single putting drill. Because somehow I figured my computer science homework would take forever, and guess what? I was right."

"Big project?"

"Nah, just some bug that's hiding somewhere within the program. I've tried pretty much everything to find it," I said, finally digging into my dinner.

"Want me to get the fly swatter?" Mom asked, trying to conceal a smile. "I'll swat the bug for you!"

Dad snickered. I facepalmed and shook my head, making no attempt to hold back my smile. "Heh, no mom. You are the last person I'd want trying to solve a computer problem."

"What?" Mom laughed. "I'm not that bad at computers."

"No, trust me mom," Skylar said, nodding his head in emphasis. "You are."

"Hey, be nice," she mumbled, making a dramatic sad face.

"No, mom." I pointed a finger at Skylar. "That is him being nice."

Skylar widened his eyes and grinned devilishly. Mom eyed him skeptically. "Mmm yes, he's being an angel."

"You know, Skylar," I said after taking a drink, "that face will get you tons of new friends when to go to college in a couple years."

He eyed his dinner and picked up his fork. "You know I've already got it figured out."

Behind Skylar, Dash started chomping on his own food. Skylar glanced back at him. "Hey, can you keep it quiet back there? Geez."

Dash looked around, giving us the big-eyed, adoring gaze that he always gave, then he dropped his head and the crunching returned. Skylar sighed. "He never listens."

A minute later, Dash sprung up from his food. He growled and trotted over to the sliding glass door leading to the backyard.

"Seriously? We just let him out!" Skylar said.

"I think he heard something out there," Dad replied, squinting at the darkness outside. "Probably a cat."

Dash started howling at the door, his fur standing on end. My eyes searched the landscape of the backyard, but my reflection in the dining room window made it difficult to discern anything.

Skylar twisted around, helping us look. "Probably a huge cat."

I kept looking, and then caught something moving outside. Adrenaline shot through me as I bolted up from my chair. "Run!"

The dining room window shattered into a hail of glass. Mom screamed. Skylar bent forward in his chair, arms covering his head. Two figures covered in black, scaly armor stood on the table, each holding two guns. Somehow, they had already yanked out the chandelier and hurled it into the living room.

Before I could even reach for something to throw at them, they took aim. Dad made a leap for the phone near the dinner table, but he fell to the ground with a dart in his neck. Skylar didn't even have time to look up before they got him. Mom was too frightened to move. Dash charged at the intruders, howling with rage.

I turned to make a run for it. Something stung the side of my neck, and my body went limp. The world closed in around me as the ground rushed up to my face.

My ears started ringing, all other sounds becoming muffled. There was another bark, then a yelp, then silence.