Glass Seed ( Book 1 )

PROLOGUE

         

• prologue ; in the before •

Heat radiates off the grass – or, to be more precise, what remains of it. The grass was once green and healthy but it is now all yellow and dead. But all this doesn't stop a five-year-old girl from riding her bicycle along the pavement, a smile on her sweaty face. A woman–her mother–stands aside, watching her. You can tell that she's savouring every moment.

After a while, the girl stops. She is too worn out to continue cycling. Instead, she heads over to a pond by the grass. The water is now murky from all the dirt and dust and ash from recent eruptions. The girl peers into its murky depths. All she could see was a cloudy reflection of herself. There were no fishes; all marine life was killed when the eruptions started.

Her mother realizes that her daughter is leaning towards and water and rushes forward, panic-stricken. She obviously does not want anything to happen to her daughter. When she reaches her daughter, she grabs her arm and yanks her away from the pond's edge. There is fear and anger in her eyes as she reprimands her daughter.

She knows that she is being too hard on her daughter. But she was too full of fear to let her daughter out of arm's reach.

It was too dangerous.

The little girl was so young. She didn't know what kind of world she was living in. Neither did she know what kind of monsters were out there in the world.

Monsters who wished to devour little girls like her daughter. Her precious treasure. Monsters like these cannot be stopped, cannot be contained.

"I just wanted to look for fishes," the little girl says sadly.

Her mother softens.

"Well, you won't find any fish there. Or anywhere for that matter," she said. "The eruptions took that away from us."

Her voice cracks, tears welled up in her eyes and flowed down her cheeks. She is heartbroken and scared. When she spoke again, however, there was anger laced in her voice.

"The eruptions took everything away from us."

• • • • • • •

"Is it ready?"

A cold voice rang across the room, oozing authority. A man stepped into the room. His hair was graying and wrinkles marinated his face, although he was just nearing his 31st birthday. But all the stress wasn't for nothing. He was saving the human race.

The officers glanced at each other nervously; the man intimidated all of them. They nudged each other, daring one of them to answer him. Finally, their captain stepped forward.

"Not yet, sir. But-But we're almost there," the captain stammered, afraid.

The man gritted his teeth in frustration; time was running out. Just this morning, there was another eruption. This one had taken away 600 lives and wounded another 30. Only a lucky handful of people, not more than 17, escaped unscathed. If it wasn't ready by the end of the week, there would not be anyone left to save.

His jaw tightened. No, he could not allow that to happen.

He stepped up to the captain, "I expect it to be done by the end of the week. Do you hear me, Captain?"

The captain nodded his head frantically, trying not to agitate the man further.

The man stepped away, satisfied that his message had sunk through.

"Continue your work, I shall be following up on your progress," he said to the men.

With that, he swept out of the room.

He entered a room and faced the windows. The glass panels overlooked a room with a large, unfinished ship. Officers bustled around, trying to complete the ship as fast as possible. The survival of the humankind was at stake and only that ship, once finished, could save it.

The man admired its beauty; its metal hull gleamed fluorescent lights and the mouth of the ship was open, inviting humans on board. It would look wonderful when completed.

The ship was going to be the one that saved the human race. It was their one-way ticket to heaven. This ship would bring the humans away from all the chaos and destruction in the world. They would begin civilization anew, start fresh, and forget the past.

It was a glorious future.

He wished that he would be able to live long enough to see the new world.

Just then, someone stepped out of the shadows; Ava Hunter.

Ava smiled at the man and stood beside him, "What a beauty," she said softly, her breath misting on the cool surface of the glass.

He didn't answer.

"Just think about it, Jack, in a slightly less than two weeks, the human race would be traveling to Mars. They would be starting a new world. Can you imagine? We could craft the world into something that we want. We can make the human race live forever," Ava's eyes burned with determination.

Jack turned to look at her, "I don't think 'craft' is the right word to use, Ava. We don't want to craft the world, we want to remake it. There's a rather large difference between those two."

Ava laughed quietly, "Always such a killjoy, Jack," her eyes hardened, "The new world will belong to me and my men, the new world will be exactly how I want it to be. I will rule the world, Jack, you can't stop me."

"We are supposed to start fresh and help the human race heal, not corrupt them and turn them into whatever you want to be. They are not puppets on a string, you cannot control them like this," Jack's eyes burned holes into her head.

Her smile turned cruel, "You're either loyal to me, or dead."

With that, she spun around and strolled to the door, her heels clacking against the cool ceramic ground. She paused at the door, however, and said, "You worked so hard to save the human race. Pray you live long enough to see this ship take flight."

The door banged shut.

• • • • • • •

A/N

Hey there :) Welcome to Glass Seed! I edited this entire chapter so it's very different from the previous edition. I followed all of your feedback and changed the whole thing. I hope you guys enjoyed reading this chapter :) Every vote, comment, feedback, and criticism is highly appreciated.

Do let me know what you think of the first chapter.

If you like this, remember to vote, comment and share this story with your friends! <3

What do you think of Ava? Do you think she's bad, or good?

Thank you for reading Glass Seed <3

xx Maddie