Part one, Of Chapter 1: A Falling Star

Most people say that wishing on stars is a child's dream, but most believe in them. He never did. It seemed to the boy that it was the only hopeful thing in the whole messed-up world. His father had left when he was three, and his mother died a month after. 

They never gave him a name that he knew. His aunts said they knew it, but couldn't pronounce the name; all they knew was that it meant lonely. So that's what they called the boy: lonely. 

It had been a hard day at school. His name had made it difficult to make friends, and it didn't help that school just sucked in general. After dinner, he had escaped the arguments of the house and retreated to the woods to his usual hideout, which consisted of a rotting log and a makeshift skylight made from missing leaves up on the branches above. He had hidden a book of fairy tales in a hole in the roots of a nearby tree. 

Those books, not his aunt's house, were his home; they had been his mom's. His Aunt Molly wanted to burn them. His aunts believed you should die in honor; they hated Lonely's mom for dying and leaving him in their hands. 

These books told stories about princes, frogs, poison apples, towers, and happily ever after. Something Lonely felt he might never have. Taking a random book, he sat on the muddy ground, leaning on the maggot-filled log. He had started reading Rumpelstiltskin when the sky became bright. Shooting to his feet and looking up, he saw that a shooting star was trailing in the sky. Shutting his eyes tight, like he always did, he made a wish. Well.....this time he made two. 

1. A friend

2. An adventure 

Little did he know this star would answer both of them. Lonely opened his eyes. The star should have been gone, but it was there and seemed bigger than it had before he had closed his eyes. It had been getting closer and closer. Right. Towards. Him.