Chapter One: New Neighbors

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A silvery van can be seen as it traveled far from many miles and coming up towards the outskirts town. Within it two passengers sat on in silence. A mother and a daughter. The duo have been traveling for the last few days and been having rest breaks during their long-distanced travel.
The girl's mother's name is Carly Witwicky. Her eyes were deep blue and shone with motherly love as well as guilt and regret. Her blond hair is clipped back. Her skin is perfect. She has on a dark green shirt, beige pants and shoes. She has always been on the move from Washington D. C. with her only daughter, right after a freak accident regarding her husband and her daughter's father; Sam Witwicky's death. They had moved around a lot till they settled down in the mountains of North Carolina for six years. Her daughter didn't go to school, which made her become antisocial and lonely. Carly had homeschooled her daughter, if you can call it "home" schooling when she doesn't have a home. She taught her daughter whatever she thought was important, like reading and writing as well as math (though, her daughter hated math). But she would show a piece of her true self when she told her daughter stories. Especially the stories of the metal beings called Cybertronians. Those stories were her daughter's favorite. Whether she spoke of it, a small piece of her seemed to have come to life when she spoke of the metal beings and brave humans, the monsters and quests, in the stories. But when her daughter had gained the assertive courage of speaking up to her mom and had knocked some sense into her. After hearing her words, Carly realized how wrong she was to turn her back to the Autobots and put the blame on her late husband's best friend, Bumblebee, when he was grieving too. After realizing her wrongdoing, Carly and her daughter packed up from North Carolina and started heading towards Nevada, where unusual (but familiar) sightings have been spotted.
Carly's daughter's name is none other than Astra Witwicky. Astra is a perfect mix of Samuel and Carly. She is tall and slim, but she has hidden strength within her. She has long, wavy light golden caramel hair that goes over her shoulders. Her striking eyes could shame a pair of blue sapphires with little effort, though she has an old scar through her right eyebrow. Her fair skin is lightly tanned from her time in the sun. She's wearing a blue and lilac striped shirt and her beige pants are folded at her dark brown combat boots, though she has brown fingerless gloves on each hand. 
They soon drove towards the outskirts of town, which is fine by Astra. The young girl was used to being alone and prefer not to have any friends around. Astra raised an eyebrow when she saw the house that she and her mom are both going to be living in together. The house is what you'll call "rustic," but it was well-built. The house is in the color of light tan and highlighted in white. It has a porch with wooden picnic table and two chairs while the windows were freshly polished.
They each started to get out of the car, Astra watched as the family Chihuahua jumped out of the car before she got off the car. The young female Chihuahua's name is Lola; she has a light brown with a white spot on her forehead and twinkling dark brown eyes. The Chihuahua has a feisty and perky personality that's both amusing and annoying at times.
"The men had placed most of the furniture into the house," said Mom as they approached the house with some of their bags. "We just have to unpack the boxes."
Later on, the temperature in Nevada soared. It was the warmest September day that Astra has ever felt. There wasn't a cloud in a sky.
One thing was for certain: it was definitely NOT a good day to move into a new house. It felt like they'd been carrying stuff back and forth from the van for ages. At least, Lola is keeping cool by being indoors and watching them from her light pink doggy bed.
"Almost done," her mom said, giving Sasha an encouraging nod.
Astra huffed with annoyance and kept herself from saying a withering report to her mom, she gave her a cranky glare at her retreating back and started bringing another box into the house. The mountain of boxes and carrier bags in the van had finally became considerably smaller in a few hours later. But carrying heavy boxes had became more difficult and the summer heat wasn't cutting it.
"How much stuff did we put in that van?" Astra complained as she leaned against the doorframe. "I thought you said we don't have that much stuff."
Her mom chuckled, but Astra gave her a cranky look before she calmed down and gave her an amused smile. Astra just gave her a grumpy look at her amusement. Mom just rolled her eyes at her as she continued unpacking from inside the house.
"How about you go and explore a bit?" Mom suggested, smiling still.
Astra's expression lightened with eager curiosity and her eyes widened; they darted around quickly, taking in everything as much as they possibly could as she stared on with something akin to wonder. Carly didn't know what it was about it, but there was now a certain... sparkle, in her gaze.
"You can go ahead and take a break," said Mom.
"Okay." Astra ran off towards the back porch with an excited smile. "Thanks Mom."

The sky is in the shade of dark blue that's twinkling with stars like diamonds and the moon shone like a bright crystal. At the center the town, the people had started to head back towards their homes, the grownups had gotten back from work and the children had started to head home. Some birds could be heard calling in the sky and flying off in the depths of the town. A few feet away, little kids played tag in the center of the city's park before they were called by their parents. The only pedestrians were a few families enjoying the late evening. But watching it from the front porch was Astra.
For a moment, the only sound to reach her ears was the soft whistle of the desert wind. Gazing out once more at the horizon, she couldn't help, but marvel at how serene it was — in this place in general. There were still days where she badly longed to see the lakes again — watch as the multitude of sailboats and lake liners ventured out into the sea, the coastal birds swooping down into the water and coming back up with fish to eat. Even when there was no one else around, there was always noise to be heard: the waves crashing into the shore, the trees groaning under the stress of a strong gust of salty wind. And don't even get her started on the lush forests, the dense woods. That was practically her domain, once upon a time.
There were a lot of other things that she longed for, but she's worked too hard not to fall too far down that dark rabbit hole again. Here in the desert region was a different story, though. Sure, it was warmer, and a lot sandier than she had originally cared for. But save for the occasional howl of the wind, it was significantly calmer.
She closed her eyes and sighed as she felt a particularly warm breeze hit her, making her blonde hair brushed gently against her face. The sun's rays just barely went through the clouds in the overcast sky. She almost didn't want to break such a serene silence, but she had work to do. Opening her eyes, she proceeded to take in her new surroundings, taking solace in exploring the house while she began to hum a familiar tune.
Once Astra was done resting from their last night's adventures, she had started to feel as if she had to go up into the attic and have a look around up there. Astra looked up from her finished dinner when she heard a bit of banging from the attic.
Astra sighed, getting over her fears and decided to check it out. It's probably just a pesky mouse or a bird that they had forgotten to check out again. Besides, Rose was taking a long nap from last night and she doesn't seemed too alarmed.
Astra sighed again before she had went upstairs to see what's what. She went upstairs and touched the secret lever that had brought the attic's ladder down. As the ladder had came down, Astra had started coughing up from the dust that came along with the ladder and started climbing up to the attic.
The attic was a shadowy and airy place. There was a small closet filled with furry coats and probably a sleeping critter. Not to mention, there were also a lot of boxes filled with old books and other stuff from her family's time at Washington and North Carolina scattered all over the attic. But as Astra continued forward, a strong wind had blew the round window opened and a box filled with some old scrapbooks had fell in front of her. A single, dusty red scrapbook had fell out of the box, it's pages were wide opened.
She crouched down to have a closer look at the albums. There in the pictures, she saw a boy around her age. He stood by a yellow and black muscle car, the mountains loomed behind him. Astra could see that she and the boy both have some similar physical features, but their coloring are both truly different. His eyes are dark brown. His black hair was wavy and windblown. His skin was  in a perfect tanned color, in the same shade of copper. He seems awfully familiar, like an echo of the past or a piece of a missing memory of hers. She soon saw a bit of dried ink writing below the album, though Astra could make out the name, "Sam Witwicky."
Sam Witwicky? wondered Astra, trembling and her eyes glistening with tears. As in my... Dad? That's when she found a redwood box in the shadows of the clothes.
She swallowed her nerves and tossed open the lid. Inside the large chest were books and accessories, but Astra pushed those back to find a smaller wooden box made out of redwood with a golden lock in the center.
The sound grew louder and a faint light peeked through the keyhole. Astra held the plain-looking box in front of her. It felt warm to the touch, like holding a steaming cup of her mom's signature hot chocolate. She could hear the thumping from where she was at.
Astra's finger hovered over the keyhole, beneath the box was a secret compartment which opened up when she pressed it. Inside was the key. When she unlocked it, the lid flew open all on its own.
A radiant blue light nearly blinded her, but
once her eyes adjusted the item inside took her breath away. An elegant armband, crafted from twisted golden wires and studded with nine faintly glowing blue crystalline shards.
Astra smiled softly as she carefully picked up the armband and strapped it onto her left upper arm. She gazed at it curiously, her eyes illuminated by the eerie blue glow from the crystals. She doesn't know what the armband was, though she has feeling that she's been entrusted to safeguard this important, unknown relic.
But her instincts were telling her that something unusual and familiar was about to happen to her.

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