Burning Worlds

Chapter 1 Shards

Alexander

24 hours earlier

I go through the park near our house. Almost running. My heart is beating up to my neck. I can feel it. Over the birdsong, over the rustling of leaves. I run past parents playing in the grass with their children. Past the couples looking at Nova's asteroid belt together. I smell the food that people have set up on a picnic table. I run past these peaceful scenes, past happy faces, and know that there is no happy scene waiting for me. Even though it's Henry I'm meeting. Normally we would have joined the people. We would have gone to the park, looked up at the sky together, everything you do with a friend. And at first I thought it was going to be something like that when I got a message from him. But this one was somehow different.

'Meet me in 15 minutes! Come to the place where we had our first date! Make sure you're alone! Hurry up! And leave your holophone at home!'

Nothing more. No explanation. Nothing. When I read the message for the first time, I knew immediately that something was wrong. Between all the 'I love you!' and so on, this message seems like a foreign body. What is he so scared of? We've been together for a good month now and I've never seen him so panicky. He seemed like a guy who wasn't afraid of anything. Until 10 minutes ago. Until this message. He didn't respond to my worried enquiries. He didn't even read it. Ignored numerous calls from me. He probably went straight to the meeting point and left his holophone at home, just like he told me to. So I set off too. In a hurry. Without my phone. I quickly let my dad know and then left. Now I regret my decision. I could have at least had a glass of water. My mouth is dry, I have a stitch in my side, I can't really do any more. Even though I'm a good runner. One of the many things my father trained me in. As well as martial arts, he insisted that I could run fast and long. In case of a quick escape. And yet, after a good 10 minutes, I'm still flagging. It seems as if worrying about my friend is slowing me down, as if the worry is hanging on me like a weight. Nevertheless, I keep running. I think back to our first date. It wasn't really a date. At some point we had decided to call it that. It had been late. We were on our way back from a friend's party. I'd never been with anyone before, never told anyone who I fancied. That it had never been girls, but always boys. More specifically, the boy who was walking next to me. The whole way I realised that he had something on his mind. So I asked him if everything was all right. He didn't answer straight away. Then he asked me if he could sit down. I nodded and we went to the playground where we sat down on the swings. He didn't say anything for a while. He just sat there and looked at the ground.

Then at some point he said: 'I'm scared.'

'Of what?'

'Of you!'

For a moment I thought he'd worked out that my whole life was nothing more than a game, but then he said: 'Of your reaction!'

'How do you expect me to react?'

'I don't know. And that's just it! I'm afraid I'm going to ruin our friendship!'

'Nothing you say could ever ruin our friendship, as long as you don't want to kill me!', I joked.

He laughed. Then there was silence again.

'So?', I finally asked.

He sighed.

'The heck with it! I love you!'

There was a brief silence, then I burst out laughing. Henry looked at me, irritated.

'What does that mean?', he asked.

'It means that you haven't ruined our friendship!', I said, 'Quite the opposite!'