Word count goal: Extensive Narrative Introduction
The dust motes danced in the golden afternoon sun of 2012. In the sleepy suburbs of a town that smelled of rain and jasmine, seven-year-old Aarav sat on the boundary wall of his house. He was busy trying to engineer the "perfect" paper airplane, a feat of aeronautics that had eluded him all morning.
Then, the gate next door creaked.
A girl with two tight braids held together by bright blue ribbons stepped out. She wasn't carrying a doll or a toy; she was carrying a bruised knee and a defiant look in her eyes. This was Meera. She looked at Aarav, then at his crumpled paper plane.
"The wings are too heavy," she said, her voice small but certain. "You need to fold the tips up."
Aarav scoffed, the way only a seven-year-old boy can. "I know what I'm doing."
He threw it. It plummeted straight into a puddle.
Meera didn't laugh. She walked over, fished the soggy paper out of the water, and handed him a dry sheet from her own notebook. For the next three hours, the world outside their garden vanished. They didn't talk about the future or the complexities of life; they talked about the best flavor of ice candy and why the moon followed them when they rode their bicycles.
By the time the streetlights flickered to life, a silent pact had been formed. Aarav realized that his world, previously occupied only by toy cars and cricket bats, now had a permanent resident.
"See you tomorrow, Paper-Boy," she shouted, retreating into her house.
Aarav stayed on the wall a moment longer. He didn't know then that this was the first page of a 30-chapter epic. He only knew that for the first time, he didn't want the sun to set.