Counting the Stars

Chapter 9 - Fatal Supernova

This was not how I wanted the new year to begin.

Bright colors of blue, pink, green, red, and even more flashed across my blankets from the window unseen above my head. Booms like thunder echoed above the roof, clapping through the sky in fireworks that I wouldn't get to see. Late into the night, my eyes had adjusted to the shadows hanging over the desolate room, but as the thin blankets draped across my chest and my arms rested over my belly, the subtle outline of the ceiling above me was what held my attention.

The night between the turn of the years had always been so special until now. As I lied among the darkness clouding my room, each thunderous crack sending a spasm of panic into my gut, it was not special at all. I remembered a time when I once stayed up past midnight with my mother, father, and brother, ignoring the droopiness of my eyelids and insisting I wasn't tired, but now I must have been the only one in bed as the rest of the town was out partying for the new year. I couldn't take a party right now.

It had been four nights since I received Lottie's warning, but it had conquered my mind almost every waking moment since then. I hadn't yet mailed or even written a response, but then again, how could you respond to something like that? That was the first reason I locked myself in my house tonight, forcing myself to head to bed early even on a night like this just to have an excuse not to leave.

I could just imagine the number of animals that gathered to celebrate outside tonight—Thirty, forty, possibly even fifty. It was the perfect situation for Redd to make an appearance. He was probably out there now, standing at the edge of the crowd and manipulating unknowing animals for his sales, since that was apparently the kind of thing he did. Or so Lottie told me.

I forced out a heavy sigh, turning abruptly onto my side and settling back down to rest my head on my bent arm as bright colors flashed across my bed. I had once felt so hopeful for the occasion when Redd would finally make a return to the town so that we could spend time together, but now even just the idea of seeing his face made the contents of my stomach feel as though they were curdling and about to spill over. How could our friendship have gone so wrong?

I didn't have the faintest clue what to do. I had only one choice to make, but it was a choice I never thought I would have to choose between and one that seemed like the most difficult in the world: To trust Lottie or to trust Redd. I had known Lottie well back in my puppyhood and with that friendship came the knowledge that she had never been anything but kind and supportive towards me, but at the same time, I was closer with Redd than I had been with anyone else. At this point, I couldn't care less about anything else; I just wanted the truth so that it would stop damaging me to worry about all the possibilities.

A booming crackle of fireworks above the roof struck the air so close and so intense that it seemed to shake the entire house. Instantly, my paws slammed involuntarily over my droopy ears to press them against the sides of my head and block out the powerful sounds, but even when I could hear almost nothing, I couldn't suppress a tremble to shoot through my entire body. A soreness threatening to pull out tears was welling up behind my eyes, but when I squeezed them shut, the sensation didn't go away. Heavily weighted with the risk of nearing tears, every breath that came and went through me was shallow and wavery as my heart thumped achingly in my chest. I can't. I can't. I can't do this.

It was like my mind was lit with roaring flames, each thought rapidly darting past almost quicker than I could register them. What had I gotten myself into? How had I not realized something like this much sooner? I had been down this path of uneasy reflection one too many times since I had first read the letter, but the longer that I thought about it, the more it didn't make sense and the deeper the complexity grew.

The letter. Maybe if there was some kind of correlation with what was stated in the letter to my experience, then I could work my way to a sort of solution or at least a discovery. I desperately strained to recall the words on the paper, searching for the answers just out of my grasp, but it was as though they had been since wiped away and only the main ideas clung to my mind.