Chapter 1

Cora




     I'm hungry, was my first thought when I woke up that morning. I leaped out of bed, which was on a platform about 2 and a half metres in the air, to the ground, rolled to break my fall, sprang back up on my feet and trotted to the kitchen. Arrgh, I thought while rummaging through the cuboards. Where's all the food!? Oh. There it is. I found a bowl and glass of water, and ate my cereal dry. Hey, it's better than nothing. When I finished my breakfast, I got dressed, and went to hunt down my roomies, Ace, Drake and Lily. You see, Lily and I share the same room, but her bed's on the floor, and Ace and Drake share a room beside ours. We don't know who our parents are, but we don't let it bother us. We get a whole house to ourselves! It's in the middle of a secluded forest , so nobody knows we're here.
     First, I run around the house knocking on Ace and Drake's door and the bathroom to no answer, so I grab my bow and quiver of arrows, strap my hunting knife to my thigh and head outside to find them and Lily. I look for signs of recent travels on the ground, then head in that direction. We don't have any roads around, or even a driveway, but we have a big clearing for open meetings, battle practice (you never know who'll show up!), ya know, that kinda thing. It looks like they were headed for our treehouse. No, not like those little cramped boxes nailed to the trees, what we have is a real treehouse. It's grown out of the pine tree! The tree is tall even for our forest, which has an average height of 100 feet, this pine tree towers over the rest by about 30 feet. There are stairs curling around the trunk all the way to almost the top of the tree, where there is a big room grown out of the tree which we use for meetings that it is absolutely necessary that no one overhears us, a surveillance room to see what might be hostile and headed our way, or just to hang out. It took a few minutes to make it up, even with my strength (It's a really tall tree!) to make it to the top, but I did eventually. I paused outside the door to make sure that it was really them, but then I heard something alarming.
     "You see anything?" said Ace's voice.
     "No. Hey, what's that black dot?" Replied Lily's voice from the other side of the room. "Oh my god, it's getting bigger, fast! Oh crap--!"
     Crash! Someone's screaming, but I can't tell who. The whirling of helicopter blades, gusts of wind rushing around like a mini-tornado from the new gaping hole in the wall.
     "Ace! Drake, Lily! Where are you?" I yell desperately into the wind, straining for any signs of them.
     After what seemed like an eternity, I got a response. "Over here!" I recognized Drake's voice "Ace is trapped under a branch that blew in! I can't lift it myself." I followed the sound of his voice with one arm shielding my eyes from the airborne debris over to one corner of the room where I saw Ace pinned to the floor by a branch on his chest and one arm while Drake was desperately trying to get him out, but he just wasn't strong enough.
     I got my arms under the branch and lifted it a foot off Ace while Drake pulled him out and leaned him against a wall.
     Then, as suddenly as it began, the noise, wind and violent rocking of the tree stopped.
     "Where's Lily?" I ask Drake. I leave no man or woman behind.
     "I don't know; they carried her off with this big net. That's what caused this huge mess."
     "Is Ace okay? Are you okay? What's the extent of the damage? Is the tree stable? Which direction did they go?
      "Okay, one more question. Who's they?"