Epic of Aravinda 1: The Truth Beyond the Sky Read Online Free PDF

been there. He saw the faint outline of a pyramid in the blue haze of the sky. But how could that be possible? Zahn had never seen a pyramid fly before, and he saw no reason why they should start flying now.
    First, he saw a beam of light strike the pyramid, and then the pyramid plunged toward the horizon. Was it falling? Zahn realized he should be looking ahead instead of above, and he turned his head just in time to see a tree branch right before he crashed into it.
    The jolt of smashing into the dream tree woke him up.
    He blinked his eyes and looked around. It was nearly pitch black. He felt the dirt below him and the tree to his back. How had he fallen asleep at the base of a tree?
    Then it came back to him. He had been talking to the trees.
    And to his mother.
    Zahn thought about what his mother had said in the dream.
    “Jump, Zahn,” he thought.
    For the first time, Zahn accepted what he’d been suspecting all day: keeping the secret was making him miserable. He had to show someone, and he decided that someone would be his father.
    When Zahn opened the door, his father was putting on his shoes and looked up in a sigh of relief.
    “Zahn! Where’ve you been? I was just heading out to go look for you.”
    “I’m sorry, Dad. I was out walking. It’s been an exhausting last few days, and… this might sound strange, but I just fell asleep under a tree.”
    “A tree?” Vivek said.
    “Yeah,” Zahn said. “But that’s not the point. Dad, there’s something important I’ve got to show you. It’s extremely important, actually.”
    “What is it? Did you rescue an injured sea creature on one of your walks again?”
    “No, Dad. It’s nothing like that. Hold on; I’ll get it. And I warn you, this is a lot weirder than I could ever explain in words.”
    Zahn raced up to his room, removed the fragment from the chest, and ran back into the dining area.
    Slowly, he set it onto the dining table.
    “Before you say anything, let me tell you where I found it.”
    He told his father how he’d been woken by the meteor, discovered a small crater on the beach, and had found the strange fragment within the sand.
    His father’s eyes widened.
    “Zahn, this is unbelievable.”
    “I know.”
    “Could it be a part of a satellite? And are you even sure this object is safe to hold? What if it emits harmful radiation?”
    “I thought of that, Dad, which is why I wrapped it in my shielded lab jacket in the chest in my room. The jacket hasn’t detected harmful radiation, and I’ve limited my exposure to it as much as possible.”
    “So you haven’t brought it to the observatory for analysis?”
    Zahn winced. “No. I didn’t want…” His voice trailed off and his eyes drifted back toward the fragment that was still lying on the table. “I wanted to do my own research. I know that if I scan this with the observatory’s computers, it will get marked for review because of how strange it is. If it’s what I think it is, they’ll send it far away for analysis, and then I’ll never see it again. I can’t let that happen.”
    Zahn gazed at the fragment intensely for a moment.
    “Dad, I don’t think this was made on Avani.”
    All of the sound seemed to get sucked out of the room, and both Vivek and Zahn stared back at the otherworldly fragment lying in front of them. For the first time, his father picked it up and felt its smooth texture. Zahn looked directly into his father’s eyes, and his father met his gaze. Then he glanced down at the fragment again and furrowed his eyebrows.
    “I don’t know, Zahn. That’s a pretty fantastical idea, and fantastical ideas require compelling evidence to support them.” He set the fragment back down onto the table.
    “What do you think I should do?”
    “I’m not sure, but I do know that we don’t know if this object is dangerous or not. We don’t even know where it’s from, so we should be careful. Put it back for now, and be sure to wrap it in that shielded jacket. I