To The Stars Above (chapter 1)

Prologue

The night when everything changed, the sky was clear and cloudless. Elly always loved looking up at the sky at night. It wasn’t just about how it looked, it was more than that; the night sky gave her goose bumps when she thought about how big it all was, and what might lie beyond what she could see. It was one of life’s greatest mysteries, what was beyond the stars, and Elly loved mysteries.

“What do you think is up there?” She asked a girl from her village one night as the stars began to shine. The two girls were sprawled out on the grass of the field adjacent to the village, looking upwards.

“The elders say gods and angels live up there, but I don’t know myself,” the girl answered with a yawn. “I never really cared enough to wonder. It’s pretty though.”

Elly had to admit it was pretty, but she could care less about what it looked like, she wanted to know what it was. “If there are people who live up there,” Elly said as another shooting star blinked across the inky sky, “do you think we’ll ever meet them?”

The other girl rolled over and stretched casually. “I can’t imagine why they’d pay us a visit,” she answered. “If they live up there, I’m sure they have better things to be doing than picking potatoes with us down here.”

Elly thought about that for a minute. Another shooting star flashed brightly at the edge of her vision. “Yeah I suppose you’re right,” she said finally, her wide brown eyes reflecting the light of hundreds of stars. The thought made Elly sad, but she didn’t quite know why. She had never had a problem with her life and its monotony, but the prospect that something exciting might happen someday gave her a peculiar feeling. It was a feeling somewhere in between wanderlust and nostalgia, that somehow made her want to dance and cry all at the same time. Maybe when I’m older, she thought, I’ll find the words to describe this feeling.

Before long, the other girl went back to her tent in the village to go to sleep, and that was the last they spoke of the subject. Elly stayed out much longer after she left, long enough even that she had to take off her moccasins in order to sneak back into the village undetected. The scraping sound they made would wake her aunt, with whom she shared a tent, and her aunt hated when she came back late. Just before she entered the tent, she stole one last glance at the night sky. As the stars winked down at her, her own words echoed back in her head. Do you think we’ll ever meet them?

“I hope so,” she answered back in whisper to the voice in her head. “I hope so.”

Chapter 1 – The Angel

Elly was further from the village than she had ever been before. Not that this meant much at all. After you passed beyond the fertile area directly around the village, there was nothing but desert and rocks in every direction. Elly knew, because she had personally mapped it out dozens of times when there was nothing else to do. Incidentally, this was one of those times.

Elly knew that it was probably immoral to begrudge prosperity, but life was so boring when things were going well. This year was another bumper harvest of potatoes, and the wildlife in the surrounding forest was no less abundant than the crops. Whenever there was more than enough to eat, the villagers spent their days crafting and recrafting tools, and their nights dancing without end. It was fun and lighthearted, but like anything, too much of it drove Elly mad, and so she set out once more to explore the area around where she lived.

She had of course asked the elders time and time again what they knew of the land, and if there was anything across the desert, but she got mostly the same answers from all of them. Though they were too young to know it from experience, their elders had told them once that there were other villages beyond the desert, but that they had fewer people, and even fewer potatoes.

Most of them couldn’t pin a solid measurement of distance as to how far she would have to walk to get to these villages, but the ones that knew the stories best said it was too far to make the journey on your own. They recounted that at one point in the village’s history people used to visit the other towns, but they were only able to do it in a group, because carrying the amount of water needed to make the trip was too strenuous for most people. Even then, they said, travelling as a group often required some of the strong men to die on the way, giving the last of the water to the women or children.

These rocks might not be the most interesting things in the world, Elly thought to herself, but at least they’re a change of pace from everything else. She had explored enough on her own that she could tell the difference now in the shapes of the cliffs and ridges of rock that jutted out from the coarse desert sand. It was because of this familiarity that she knew she had made it further than ever before. I made pretty good time this time around, she mused. It’s barely past midday. As she squinted up at the bright sun overhead, she started to make out something.

“Is that... a star?”

The girl’s heart began to race as she looked up at it. A star in broad daylight. Its flickering light was no dimmer than it would have been at night, but there it was, in the middle of the day, twinkling as if nothing was out of the ordinary. That shouldn’t be possible, she thought, starting to breathe faster as her mouth hung open in shock. Seeing something she had never seen her whole life was exciting, but that wasn’t the only thing. Elly was scared.

As she gazed on, the star blinked and flickered more and more rapidly and aggressively. Elly knew she must be seeing it wrong, because she could almost swear it was getting bigger. In one sudden burst, the star’s light surged and grew, leaving its size at almost half that of the sun.

“It is getting bigger!” She muttered to herself as her heart pounded harder still against her chest. The star had gained a tail now, like the many shooting stars that frequented the night sky, but none of them had ever been this size. As it continued to grow, it began to occur to Elly that the thing she was seeing was a real part of her world, not some ethereal body of the beyond. The thing, whatever it was, was coming towards her, and if it didn’t stop, it was going to hit the ground.

Elly was reminded of the time she had encountered a wolf in the woods as a child. The noise that the thing began to make was reminiscent of its growling, and it was the only time she had ever felt fear this real. Unlike the wolf though, its sound was high pitched, like the crackling of wood in a bonfire, but every second it grew louder. Before long its shrieking became deafening and Elly felt like she couldn’t breathe. She covered her ears, but the sound soon became the least of her problems. The thing was now bigger than the sun itself, and Elly made the realization that it wasn’t just going to hit the ground, it was going to hit her. As she crouched instinctively in fear, the girl had time for only one thought before everything changed. Am I going to die?

The star landed. The boom it made wasn’t just a sound; it was a shockwave that could be felt in every bone of Elly’s body. She careened backwards uncontrollably and landed hard on her rear in the sand. As her vision blurred and slipped to black she was aware only of the fact that she was spinning and rolling on the dunes.

When she came to, all she could hear was a shrill ringing. Elly groaned and put her hands on her aching head. Ever muscle in her body felt sore and there was a terrible pain in her chest. As she began to get her bearings, she realized that the pain was her heart slamming against her body at such an interval that it seemed like more of a constant hum than a heartbeat.

“Uhhhg,” she gasped, trying to breath as her vision returned. Her eyes were still casting spots on the sand she was looking down at, but as she rose to her knees she caught a glance at the thing directly in front of her.

Time seemed to stand still as she observed it, and everything felt surreal. The object, whatever it was, resembled a massive green flower in bloom, big enough to comfortably fit a human being inside its bud. Incidentally, that was exactly what was inside of it.

At the centre of its enormous petals, which were spread out on the sand, was a boy. At least, Elly assumed it was a boy. The only normal thing about him seemed to be his head, and from his face she guessed he couldn’t be more than seventeen or eighteen, so only a few years older than her. The rest of him was utterly bizarre. His skin seemed to be bright green all the way from his neck to his feet, but not quite like a lizard’s skin; instead of dull scales, the exterior of his body glimmered slightly in the bright desert sun, as if he was covered in water. In fact, Elly couldn’t even decide if it was skin or not, because the boy lacked both hair and genitals from the neck down, which led her to believe he was wearing some sort of clothing, but it was surely like nothing she had ever seen. Clothing was made from animal skin or plants, and she couldn’t even imagine what sort of thing this boy’s coating was made from.

Unlike the men of her village, the boy’s hair was cut quite short, and surprisingly neatly. His face was astoundingly red as well, like he was constantly blushing. His clear green eyes matched the color of his body, and what hair he had was jet black, like charcoal. Elly’s own hair was rather dark compared to the people of her village, but even hers was not even close to that of the boy before her, whose hair seemed almost bluish when the light hit it right.

Before Elly had time even to catch her breath and consider approaching him, the boy let out a scream so loud, she had to put her hands back on her ears. It wasn’t a scream of rage, or fear, or pain, it was a cry of anguish. Elly had never heard anyone make a sound so wracked with disappointment and misery. The boy tried to stand as he wailed, but fell to his knees in the sand and began to sob uncontrollably. Tears streamed down his face and fell onto the rocks like rain as he shook with sadness and clutched his face with his green hands.

Elly didn’t know what to do. She was still trying to process the fact that there was a strange looking boy she had never seen before who had apparently fallen from the sky, and even taking all that for granted, she still wasn’t sure what she would say to someone crying this violently. Looking on him like someone watching a forest burn, the girl felt paralyzed in a mix of awe and horror. His face grew even redder as he screamed and cried, and he eventually the boy dropped to his side and lay in the rocky sand, shivering like a child in a blizzard.

When the sound of his lamentation had faded to whimpers and groans, Elly worked up her courage and took a few steps forward.

“Um... hello,” she said awkwardly. The boy took no notice. She cleared her throat loudly and greeted him again.

“Hello!”

This time the boy reacted. Without looking up from the ball he had curled into, he seemed to hear her voice, and stopped sobbing for a moment. After a few moments pause, he looked up and saw her. There passed a few seconds where he just looked at her face in confusion, but soon enough he seem to come to terms with her presence and went back to sobbing against the rocks. The girl didn’t know what she was supposed to do, so she just did what felt natural to her. She asked a question.

“Excuse me,” Elly said. “But are you a god?”

The boy rose his head once more, his confusion overpowering his sadness, and squinted at her through tear filled eyes. “W-what?” He stammered weakly. His voice sounded different than hers, more jarring and sharp, like how rocks sound when you bang them together, but it was definitely human. Elly was about to restate the question when the boy spoke again.

“Eh- no,” he said simply, and slumped back into the dust.

Elly felt a sense of satisfaction that she had gotten him to talk, and realized that just answering that one question had narrowed down the possibilities substantially.

“Well then,” she continued confidently, “Are you an angel?”

He didn’t rise from the sand this time, but simply murmured back an answer, his words blurred slightly by the ground. “I- yeah, sure. Whatever.”

Elly remarked that this was the least enthusiastic angel she had ever encountered, and thought to herself that were she an angel, she would surely be more chipper about it.

“Why are you crying?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” came back his answer. His accent was really pronounced now. If her voice was the sound of water trickling down a hill, his would be the sound of pebbles bouncing down the same hill. Each word seemed to have an awkward pause of the exact same length in between it and the surrounding words, as if he was trying to keep time with a song.

“Well,” said Elly, “I find when I’m upset about something, telling people about it helps...”

The boy spat out each word as if it were its own sentence. “Go away and let me die in peace please.”

Elly found herself puzzled. He looked healthier than nearly all the men in her village. Maybe he was dying of thirst. Either way, Elly wasn’t going to let him just sit here in the sand.

“Please stay here. I’ll be right back.”

As the words left her mouth she realized that that wouldn’t be a problem. He was so still now that he almost seemed like part of the desert. Like a giant green rock lying in a crater next to a giant green flower. Well, almost like part of the desert.

As the girl sprinted back the way she came, her mind raced with a million thoughts. Now that the fear was gone, she could think clearly, and there were more than enough things to think about. Where did he come from? Why did he seem so sad? How did he fall so far and not get hurt? Were there other people like him just beyond the stars like she had always dreamed? Elly could barely keep all of her questions straight in her head, and it almost pained her to be running in the opposite direction of the boy who knew all of the answers, but it would do neither of them any good if he died of thirst.

When she made it back through the forest it was almost an hour later, and she had run nearly the whole way. Elly wasted no time once she reached the village and burst directly into the stockpile tent.

“Hi Elly, what are you up to?” asked a female elder who was organizing the massive pile of potatoes. Elly quickly grabbed a potato and two skins of water.

“Can’t talk now sorry,” she gasped, “I’m feeding an angel.”

With that, she sprinted from the tent, leaving the old woman dumbfounded.

When she returned to the spot where the star had landed, she found him curled in the exact same position she had left him, and let out a sigh of relief. It was now several hours later, and the sun was further down in the sky, casting shadows over some of the rocks. The boy drooled into the sand.

“I brought you some water, and- and some food,” Elly said quietly, almost not wanting to disturb him. He grunted.

“Come on, aren’t you even a little bit thirsty? I went all this way, the least you could do is take a sip...”

Again the boy let out a dull moan, and his green exterior, which Elly could now see was very much like quartz(which explained the glimmer), shifted against the rocks. Elly furrowed her brow. This won’t do, she thought. Taking a deep breath, she opened the water skin and took a few cautious steps towards him. For a few moments she hesitated, reconsidering whether this was a good idea, but at last she made up her mind. Taking a deep breath, she took another step forward and, crouching next to him, poured a few drops of water on the back of his neck.

“Ahh,” he cried, startled at the sudden cold sensation. He sat up in shock and came face to face with the girl sitting in front of him. His green eyes were pinkish red from crying. For a second or two he looked at her face in surprise, before remembering that he was supposed to be sulking and returning his gaze to the dirt.

“Sorry about that, but you really should drink something. It’s pretty hot out here with all the rocks, and you won’t find any other water way out here.”

“I don’t want to drink.” He said simply. His tone of voice sounded so defeated that it even made Elly sad.

“Are you sure?” Elly took a drink herself. “Yum!” she said enthusiastically, not realizing how patronizing she sounded until the word left her mouth. The boy glanced up at the water skin and seemed to reconsider his position for a second, his eyes thirstier after having seen Elly drink. He turned his head away from her like a child throwing a tantrum, but after almost ten seconds, his shoulders dropped and he held out his hand. She placed the flask in his hard green hand, and he brought it to his mouth weakly. He took a small sip, and was about to hand it back, but seemed to realize how thirsty he really was after sitting in a desert for several hours. This time he took a real swig, his body relaxing as the cool water flowed past his lips.

Elly smiled, glad to have helped this strange boy in some way. “You’re not really an angel are you...” she said coyly. He took a breath from drinking and looked up at her.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, in any case,” she said, “do you have a name?”

The boy took another gracious drink of water, raising it above his head so it would pour faster, and then answered her. “My name is 21-B-6,” he stated simply.

The girl shot him a curious smile. “That’s not a name, that’s a number.”

The boy seemed annoyed. “Who said names can’t be numbers? They don’t mean anything anyway.”

“Well my name’s Elly, but I’m sure it meant something at some point in history. What sort of place do you come from that people have numbers for names?”

He pointed up at the sky and took another sip.

“So why are you down here?” Elly asked. A pained look shot through the boy’s face, and he began to sob again, his eyes looking down at the sand in misery. Elly wasn’t used to people crying in front of her without knowing what it was that they were upset about. The only time people cried in the village were at deaths, births and marriages, all of which were things you did together as a group.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry again. Here, have a potato. It’s not much, but it might make you feel better.”

The boy looked at Elly suspiciously as she held out the potato, and then took it in one jerky motion, as if afraid she would snatch it away. He looked down at it with a look that was almost amusement. Had he really never seen a potato before, wondered Elly? Swallowing nervously, he brought it to his mouth and took a bite.

It almost hadn’t touched his lips before he spat it out violently onto the sand. “Ahhh!” he shouted in surprise, “What is that!?”

Elly wanted to laugh, but she was afraid it would hurt his feelings. “It’s food, but you actually need to swallow it to make it work...” She said, resisting a giggle.

“I know how food works!” He snapped, staring down at the potato with a mystified expression. “Do you really eat these? What is it even made of?”

Elly shot the boy a confused grin. “It’s made of... potato?”

“And what are the components of potato?”

Elly wasn’t sure what he meant by components, but she tried to answer as honestly as possible. “It’s a root. It comes from the ground. We grow them.”

“You eat... roots?” He seemed not sure as to whether he should laugh or revile, so he chuckled nervously and put it down next to him, instead picking up the water skin. Elly thought about all of the questions she still had as he drank, but she feared the wrong one would put him in a rotten mood again, so she put her fist under her chin and reflected hard. As she thought, he finished the contents of the flask just as the shadows of dusk began to creep over him from the petals of his giant rock-like flower.

“Say, uh 20-B-6-“

“21-B-6.”

“I’m just gonna call you B. So B... it’s almost nightfall, why don’t you come back to the village with me? We can find you a proper place to sleep, and maybe find you some meat if you’re not all that into potatoes...”

“I’m staying here.” His voice was matter-of-fact, and his eyes were adamant as he stared straight into hers. She was taken aback by his stubbornness, but realized after a moment that she probably wasn’t ready to handle taking him back to meet all of the villagers just yet. She envisioned some of the elders dying of fright, and even some of the more hotheaded young men trying to fight him, so she wasn’t entirely against the idea of leaving him here for now. After all, he did have a whole second water skin to tide him over until tomorrow, and there was always the potato if he got hungry enough, so he would probably be fine.

“Okay,” she said. “Then you’ll still be here tomorrow?”

He looked at her as if she was completely insane. Elly was too giddy to mind. “I guess I’ll see you then,” she said, turning away.

“Elly,” the boy said as she walked away. The word sounded strange coming from his mouth. She turned to look back at him as the sun dipped behind the horizon.

“Thank you,” he said, holding up the empty water skin. The girl smiled.