• It was a wonderfully beautiful night in the outskirts of a little known town. At 12:00 Midnight_Caelum was still out. Out past her curfew (a very punishable crime in her town) without the knowledge of anyone but the stars. The tree before her opened as a path to the stars.
    Caelum loved stars more than anything in the world. So far away, so majestic, so…mysterious. But they taunted her. They taunted her by being out of the reach of her grasp. She would nothing more than to be able to grasp those wonderful balls of light in her hands and know all of there secret wonders. The biggest tree in her neighborhood stood tall at the center of the cul-de-sac.
    When she was younger, Caelum had built a huge tree house in its branches and set up a telescope of her friends in its window in order to get a closer look at the stars. However, the one who owned the telescope had moved away along with all of her other astronomer friends. So, since then, the clubhouse had been abandoned. But she would get to the bottom of this tonight. She would finally get those stars and make them tell her all of her secrets.
    Caelum began slowly climbing the broken ladder up the side of the tree. When she got to the door of the childhood hide away she pushed. The door did not budge. All of the years of the tree house being untouched must have left the door hinges rusted or something. Now that Caelum thought about it, it seemed a little sad. Both her and her childhood friends had left it all alone for all of these years.
    It had sat through the winds of spring blowing all of the leaves in through the glassless windows. The rain and sometimes snow of winter spring of winter, wetting all of the timbers most likely making some of the formed wood molded and ready to collapse. Followed by the budding of flowers in the second part of spring, where the holder of the tree house had grown the most. Then there was the summer, where the house had been used the most, filled with the kids who had made it.
    Caelum sighed when she remembered all of her friends from the passed and tried the door again. Still nothing. Annoyed now, she climbed farther up on the ladder so she was standing on the very top one, unbalanced. She then placed both her hands on the door and pushed with all her might. Finally the door budged under her strength. However, rather than swinging in it fell strait forward wit a huge THUD that cascaded over the quiet cul-de-sac. The noise seemed to echo off each house in the neighborhood in a rhythmic of sounds, like the ending of a song fading out. Except the sound was loudly obnoxious and probably woke every one in the neighborhood.
    Caelum sighed and shook her head as she stepped onto the broken down door and into the tree house. She was using that overactive imagination of hers again. There was no way that was as loud as she had made it out to be in her mind. She sighed again and began looking about the tree house in curious wonder.
    The first thing she noticed was the tree limb that come up in the center of the house and went diagonally out one of the windows. Wait, reverse that, the branch had come in through the window into the center of the floor. This caused a place in the room that would be hard to get through, and the branch was blocking the window.
    Man, if she had a chainsaw that branch would be mincemeat for blocking her view of the stars… and everyone in the neighborhood will be awake and she will be busted for breaking curfew. She attempted to move some of the leaves out of the way to see if there was any way that she could squeeze through the window. No luck, Again she sighed then maneuvered around the room to examine the other side of the tree, maybe there was enough room for her to squeeze through there. As she approached the opposite side something spurted from under the tree, in between her legs and the scuttled up the tree branch hissing the whole way.
    That was definitely not a squirrel.
    It could have been a cat.
    Caelum shrugged, it didn’t really matter.
    After taking a deep breath she decided to investigate where the animal had gone to. Slowly she hoisted her leg over the branch and began to slide her way up. She had to break a couple of branches off of the tree to avoid harming herself. As she pushed through the last bit of branches away she saw that she would be able to squeeze through the opening between the branch and the window pane.
    So she laid down on her stomach and scooted up the branch to the outside of the window, from there she could climb onto the roof of the tree house. She pulled herself up to the roof and sat with her legs dangling off the side.
    It was then that she noticed all of the lights around her. Every house in the neighborhood was on. Caelum could see people looking out their windows toward the tree house.
    They did hear the door! It was then that she saw the red and blue lights. Oh, this was just great. Once again her path to the stars was blocked. This time by the local law enforcement.
    She quickly hid behind a couple of branches, no doubt they would climb up to the tree house anyways. She had to find a way down and fast. She looked around franticly but couldn’t see a way down anywhere. She heard footsteps bellow her on the half rotten and suddenly there was a cracking sound and a grunt below. She found a little hole in the ceiling and saw that the floor had collapsed under one of the donut eating fiends feet.
    Caelum giggled, serves ‘em right. At the noise the other cop looked up. She crawled away from the hole quickly and crouched behind a branch. The cop was obviously headed up the tree branch now, as Caelum could here the shuffling by the window. She stealthily headed around the roof, looking for a half-way easy, safe way down…or at least a way that would not require her breaking an ankle or something.
    She had just found a branch that she might be able to reach if she hung over the side of the fort when she heard a “freeze.” but she ignored it and headed off the side of the fort, her feet were only inches from the branch, but didn’t touch. Damn.
    She looked below her and let go, barely able to grab the branch and pull herself up onto it. She quickly examined her surroundings again and realized that she could easily drop to the ground from there. It was when she was about to jump down when a huge growling screech sounded right next to her, next thing she knew something was scratching at her and then…she was falling.
    Caelum closed her eyes and was caught for a moment, then there was a huge ripping sound, then she landed, right on her butt. But on cushion, not hard ground. She opened her eyes and cursed: she has fallen right through the sun roof of the police car.
    The cops were there in less than a second telling her that she was in huge trouble, and a bunch of other things.
    And they kept staring at her chest. Perverts. As the car started moving, she was touched by a cool breeze that made her shiver. She looked down, and froze. Her shirt had been ripped off. That must have been the ripping sound she heard!! But, in place of her shirt right over each of her breasts, were stars. Glowing as brightly as they did in the sky. Finally, they were hers.