Chapter One - A History Lesson

  MANY YEARS EARLIER....

March 4th, 2013

 "Annabelle! Come down from there, it's almost time for school!" Tom yelled.

 This girl was very stubborn, he knew, and it would take a few minutes of coercing to get her to come down from the top of a specially-designed tree house. After a few moments of silence, Tom didn't hear a word from his friend, forcing him to yell back up to her. "Annabelle, I know you can hear me!"

 

 "Actually I can't."  Annabelle said, the muffled sound of her voice coming from the very top of the tree house. "You need to come closer to the ladder, I can hear you better from there!" 

Braving everything, Tom stepped closer as asked, and continued to yell. Suddenly, he saw a pair of hands clad in black and purple gloves pull a bucket from the window. "Oh you gotta be kidding me..." Tom said as the water from the bucket met gravity and splashed all over him.

 

"You evil walking briar patch!" Tom yelled up, angrily. "When I get my hands on you I swear I will-" 

"You're not gonna do anything!" Annabelle said, her bright green alien-like skin a stark contrast to the gray steel of the tree house. "Because if you do, you'll be too worried about me eating your brain or something stupid like that!", she said with a confident voice as she ducked back into the structure.

 Suddenly, Tom turned and saw Annabelle beaming down from the interior of the ship as she walked past him in a nonchalant manner. "What are you doing? Get you're clothes dry, pat your hair, and get your books, buddy-boy. We're going to be late because of you and I don't want to be late!" 

 "I'll have to get you back for this later Annie. But trust me, I'm gonna get you back."

 

After that little verbal scuffle, Annabelle and Tom raced to the bus, and Annabelle was the clear winner, as usual. Tom realized that she was faster than him, stronger than him, and much, much smarter than him, and it didn't help that he was being weighed down in wet clothes, but he didn't mind.

He knew Annabelle was a being not of this earth, and would naturally be more adept at everything even if he was one of the few people on the entire planet that could actually see the obviousness in that.

It wasn't long after Annabelle was adopted by her mother Maria that she was more unique than she actually looked, and she LOOKED unique: she had green skin, eyes that were impossibly purple, and black hair that was framed in natural violet highlights. However, Maria soon discovered that Annabelle only looked that way to a few select people: her, her best friend Elliot, his wife Mei, and a few others that Annabelle grew up with, Tom included. Everyone else saw her as a simple blonde Caucasian girl with bright blue eyes, no big deal.

Over time, Annabelle realized herself that she looked green not to the people she grew up with, but the people she cared about and could trust deep down. She believed perhaps it was a psychic ability but that was a little too far-fetched... for an alien girl living in the suburbs with her adoptive mother and brother.

Tom was adopted too, but not really. His real parents were killed a few months by a mysterious disease after exploring an Egyptian tomb. Despite this, Tom always wanted to be an adventurer because he wanted to live up to his parent's legacy as a way of closure.  

After his parents were killed, Tom was taken in by his uncle Elliot and aunt Mei, who lived in a multi-story condo in Sunset Valley. At around the same time that Tom moved in, Maria Kethrin, Elliot and Mei's best friend of all time, moved in as well to get help dealing with her son John and newly adopted daughter Annabelle. 

Also at this same time, Tom's cousin Scarlett was brought into the house because her parents had died in a fire. When coupled with the then-upcoming birth Elliot and Mei's daughter, Kelly, the household was full of screaming infants who all grew up in a close-knit relationship. 

Annabelle never really knew of her own past, nor where she came from. The only clues ever given by her mother was a cryptic story about a meteor that crashed into Sunset Valley's outskirts one night and that was it. There was no story afterward, no resolution, just a quick tale of a stray meteor. 

 Annabelle researched the impact when she was old enough to use the computer and found no connection between herself and any impact sites. In any case, Annabelle realized that even if she was an alien, she was here on Earth to stay, and she wouldn't want to live anywhere else.