To A Skylark

In our galaxy, there are at least twenty billion Earth-like planets able to sustain life. My name is Skye. I am eighteen years old. Our astronautic scientists discovered a planet within our galaxy with human life similar to ours. By probing this planet’s satellite systems, they have learnt that wars have wracked this world over many millennia, where various zealots strive for dominance. Before setting out on a twenty-year expedition to visit this planet, our group has spent a year being educated in the various languages of this alien world and acquiring the skills to survive in any hostile environment we may find ourselves in. OUR DESTINATION IS EARTH. SKYE is the first book in a trilogy. It is a coming-of-age adventure of Skye, a young alien girl, and her fight to survive in a post-apocalyptic world governed by fundamentalists. After surviving a meteoroid tsunami, her spaceship crash lands in the Mexican wilderness. One of the survivors, Judah, a gifted physician from a superior technological civilization, is discovered in the desert and taken to Texas. Judah is promoted as the new Messiah by a right-wing extremist known as ‘The Preacher’. The Preacher’s propaganda machine convinces America’s devastated survivors that it was the sins of the world’s population that, as prophesized in the Bible, brought down the wrath of God. Judah is exploited to restore the people’s faith in the divinity of God as decreed by the Preacher’s tyrannical interpretation. The Preacher aims to reverse the emancipation achieved by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 and bring about a dictatorship through the reunification of America. Skye must put her trust in a member of the Preacher’s security team to rescue Judah from this new confederacy.

While packing Ethan's flight bag, I found a custom solo wings pin. The engraving on the back read: For Lark, to celebrate your first solo. Beneath the box sat the receipt for Skyler's flight school tuition, paid in full by Ethan, along with a photograph. In the photo, she was sitting in the pilot's seat. Ethan's gloved hand rested over hers on the control yoke. Seven years ago, I had sat in that same seat. Back then, I was one step away from my first solo flight, but Ethan talked me out of it again and again, always claiming it was "for my own good." He said flying was dangerous, that someone had to stay home and take care of things. I put down my logbook, pressed the wrinkles out of every one of his captain's uniforms, and spent seven years living by his flight schedule. Only now did I finally understand. It wasn't that he didn't want to take anyone flying. He just didn't want to take me. What made it even more absurd was that the night Skyler first flew through the clouds, I was alone in a hospital, losing our baby. I called him over a dozen times. At three in the morning, he finally called back, his voice flat and indifferent. "I just took Lark through the clouds. Next time something comes up, give me a heads-up." I put the wings pin back exactly where I found it, then pulled the crumpled ultrasound printout from the bottom of the drawer and tucked it inside the logbook that had been gathering dust for seven years. This time, I wasn't going to wait for him to look back. He convinced me to leave the pilot's seat, then turned around and put another woman in the sky. So I would leave him and take back the sky that had always been mine.

He was an arrogant and cold man but he cherished her the most. She was beautiful and innocent. She felt safe only in his strong arms as he used to protect her from the cruelty and ugliness of the world. "Why are you so good to me?", she used to ask him while blinking her beautiful and innocent eyes. "Because you live here", he pointed at his heart. But life is not a fairytale for everyone. "Sky! Where are you going??", Elliot asked her while grabbing her arm. "I can't live here anymore", Sky said as she stood in the heavy rain. "But where will you go??", he panicked. "I don't have any home now, everyone has abandoned me. I'll go wherever destiny takes me", Sky said as she looked away. "But, didn't you say? I'm your home." Elliot asked with immense love and affection in his eyes. Sky bit her lips for a while but then she asked, " what about your family?" "You are my family Sky!!! You're my everything." Elliot held her tightly as he said that. Finally she smiled while crying heavily as she hugged him back, thinking about him being the only person she could trust. As she was sure, he won't abandon her no matter what. But, no one knows what future holds for them! A shadow sneered while looking at them, "I'll see how long she's gonna stay here, I'll make her life a living hell!" She took out her phone and dialled someone's number, "Is it Sean Hill?" "Yes, who's this?", the man asked arrogantly. "I know who you've been searching for your whole life! And I guess, I've found her", she said with an evil smile as she looked at the two figures embracing each other in the heavy rain.

"Tell me, Mr Blue. Was it worth it? Is it worth it? Will it be worth it?" It wasn't and it never will be. Not in Erin's eyes tinted blue. Not in the eyes of the hopeless young man doomed to the clutches of fate; doomed to eternal pain. Did beauty lie between the cracks of fate? Does the Moon know of the Sun who died every night to let the Moon breathe? Erin, a poor, hospital bound boy just wants to be like everyone else, to love someone. Every day, he escapes to the virtual world with his wings of freedom, creating his own reality where things goes the way he wants. That world gave him a real, painless body, with infinite possibilities. Life got that much harder when, Uriel, a rich boy enters this realm and steals Erin’s world. The man who says the ugliest of words with the smoothest of tones. Does he help Erin, or dig him deeper? OR Erin wanted love and got pain instead. Things changed, and so did Uriel. INCLUDES: futuristic virtual reality, Persian mythology (minor), romance, sci-fi, slow burn, enemies to friends to lovers, rich/poor dynamic, mythology, distance, cold families, battles, quests, stars and moon metaphor. WARNING: includes mentions of depression, swearing, and sexually explicit content.

My boyfriend, Jules Gray, was the most ruthless young Don of his family, while I was the best mercenary who had once struck fear into the hearts of the underworld. He said he liked gentle women, so I laid down my weapons for love. We were at war. To settle it, he broke my hand and sent me to the Grays' rival family as a 'sacrifice'. "Skylar Shaw, it's your honor to die for the Gray family." Three years later, I returned as the Donna, took over his territory, and blew up his arms ships. When he knelt before me, begging for mercy out of our past ties, I grabbed his neck with my mechanical right hand and fired the gun without hesitation. "Survival rule number one—the loser dies!"

When he was 8, she was 3 and a fairy at a Halloween party. His eyes could not leave her side. When he was 15, she was 10, they met at the school entrance, she was in a hurry with her parents and did not see him but he did, his eyes lingered on her every step. When he was 19 she was 14, and was the feisty little thing he has ever seen but then she disappeared... He kept her deeply in his heart, and was eager to meet her again until he saw her as a lady of the night.