Living Planet in the Stars

Chapter One

The sun, risen overhead, shining brightly over everything that was on the surface of the earth. A weather of warmth and breeze, complementing the peaceful atmosphere of the garden.
Jackson Lane, or Jack for short, raised a hand to block out the sun's rays hitting his eyes, as he looked up towards a tree, from which he could hear the sound of chirping, only to witness the departing of two yellow birds.
He stared back down towards the bean plant, growing on a supporting wooden stick. He tilted his other hand which held a watering can half filled with water and stopped watering the young plant before him.
"Hey, Jack!" Hurried footsteps of an approaching person grew louder by the second. He looked to the right where the familiar voice came from, which then he got greeted with a hard sweaty slap to his back.
"Ow... Didn't I tell you to stop doing that?" his back continued to sting afterwards.
"Yeah yeah I got it. So you're still tending to the garden again?"
"It's the only thing I'm good at... And it's not like I have anything better to do. "
"Alright, I'll catch ya later then. " Harrison, his supposed best friend from the track and field Club, returned to his daily run around the school.
As for Jackson, it was as he said. He didn't really have any interests, he wasn't in any clubs, but he had this special green finger. In fact, because of his lack of interest in any clubs, he was asked to be in charge of the school garden which the disbanded botanist Club abandoned long ago. It was only recently that the once wilted and dull garden had returned to its beautiful state of greenery.
Later that day, once his duties were over, instead of returning home, he walked over to the street near his home, and entered a flower boutique which his family owned, to help run it while his parents were overseas. After switching on the lights and putting down his stuff at the back, he unlocked the front door and flipped the sign, showing that the shop was open.
Most of the time, there would be no one entering the shop to buy flowers, unless there happened to be a wedding or funeral around the area. But other than those rare occasions and other special holidays like valentines, the shop would be empty. Not that their natural flowers were bad, just that no one really requires flowers on a regular basis. Despite having very slow business, his parents were still able to keep it running with their overseas research based jobs and also the shop was passed down to him from his great grandmother.
Jack proceeded to walk around the short isles of potted plants, sorted and ranging from the youngest sprout to the biggest blooms, but all of which were growing nice and healthily. He had his gardening kit on his equipment belt, with fertilizers, bug spray and a water spray.
Now you might be wondering why he was dealing with plants all the time? Jackson, since young, had this strange connection with plants. It was as if he could tell what they needed as he walked past them, be it light, shelter, water or extra nutrients. It's hard to explain, it was almost like a gut feeling but he could understand it clearly. He always knew exactly how much water they needed, where to apply bug spray and when they needed trimming. He wasn't sure if any of his relatives had this kind of gift but it no longer really bothered him. He just came to accept it, just like he accepted his life of boredom in a way.
At that point in time, there was still about three hours before he could close the shop. So with the free time he had, he either spend it doing his homework, watching videos online or reading books.
In school he wasn't a trouble maker, but he wasn't anything special either. He did his homework and studied whenever he needed to and got decent if not high grades on his exams. But he was always alone whenever Harrison wasn't near him. Throughout his 3 years in junior high and 2 years in high school, he didn't make any new friends. Everything that happened in school, he would always be a passerby. He didn't have a proper club to talk to other people and projects were always done alone. He was only doing what was required of him to get by, without a goal in mind. Not even gardening was his hobby despite having a gift for it. 

After closing the shop, locking up and leaving the heater on, he left and took the evening bus back home a few stops away.
He unlocked the door and stepped in, leaving his shoes on the doorstep as a habit his family had to keep the floors clean. A sudden pattern of high pitched noise filled the room almost immediately as soon as he closed the door behind him.
"Hey Rupert. " he waved to his pet parrot sitting on the staircase railing. He chirped excitedly and flapped his wings every time he saw Jack return home. They were pretty close as pet and owner but most of the time Rupert was just hungry.
Jack put down his bag by the bookshelf and went to Rupert's cage to fill up his bowl of bird seeds. Which attracted him to fly over to his cage to fill his empty stomach. As for Jack's dinner, he opened up the fridge and pulled out a container filled with some leftover home cooked bacon and potato rice from yesterday, tossing it into the microwave for ten minutes.
He used the spare time between waiting for the dish to finish heating up to take a quick shower and finish up other chores. By doing this routine pretty much every day, the time taken to complete these small tasks such as packing the laundry for the day to be completed within a maximum of five minutes. And just in time for his meal to be prepared.
He brought his plate and a glass of water up to the desk in his room where his laptop and chargers were, and did pretty much what every shut in would do. Windows and doors closed, air conditioning on, and all devices at hand plugged in and switched on. Next, all he did was watch videos, played a few games, or listen to music while staring aimlessly through the window in front of him.
Dusk turned to night not soon after. His eyes started to feel weary as he checked his alarm clock next to his bed, which gave him the signal to rest for the night. As he reached under his desk to switch off the power socket, he felt a medallion shaped object pressing onto his arm from the right. Even though he knew what it was, his human instincts of unconditional curiosity pushed him to pick it up.
A shiny gold medallion with some kind of green crystal at the centre of both sides coming off the medallion in a spiral pattern. Some form of unknown writing was engraved on it in a circular manner on the edges of the object. More weird shapes and lines were engraved around the crystal which he had thought to be emerald.