saviors

three

I snuck behind my tent, slipping on a jacket as I looked around to make sure Malcolm wasn't following me. The sky was absolutely clear tonight, with no clouds anywhere on the horizon. It was a perfect night for naming stars. Walking towards our meeting spot and hugging my jacket to me tightly, I watched the sky to see if I could spot any stray stars or clusters of the broken ones. One of the things I miss the most from before were the real stars. Real, true, 100% stars. The constellations were something I had loved since I was born, because my mom taught me so much about them. The truth was, the reason I liked watching and naming the stars with Connor was because it was what I used to do with my mom, someone who I loved deeply. Malcolm never really liked it because he always had trouble finding the constellations, so we didn't ever do it together. But with Connor, he was always up to trying something new, so that was what we decided on. Even though he knew almost nothing about constellations, he tried and that was all that mattered to me.

He was there, right at our spot, a few feet to the left of the fire that was always burning in the middle of camp. It wasn't against any rules to be out of your tent during the night, but it was usually looked at as quite strange just because most times everyone is so exhausted and worn out that they would give absolutely anything just to sleep. I guess Connor and I were just different in that way.

"Hey. See anything yet?" I asked as I layed down next to Connor and looked at the sky. His hands were underneath his head, giving him a little boost so he could see better. He looked focused, like he was really trying hard to find something. When we were little we would see more stars, because they weren't all destroyed at that time. But now, almost fifteen years later, there were hardly any stars left at all. It changed the gravity of our Earth at first, but I guess the Government figured out ways to fix it quickly, such as requiring most buildings to have some sort of gravity regulator in the floor. But, as the Earth got used to it, it took a much smaller toll on the people who walked around outside, or, in the case of us, slept and lived outside. I don't know exactly how the science works, but it does. I figured it was something like how we got used to the cold here in Russia. Once your body gets used to something, it learns to adapt to it and make sure everything is okay. It just makes sense to me that the Earth would most likely have the same type of idea.

"Absolutely nothing. It's weird having nothing up there. Seems like just yesterday we were able to look up and find pieces of constellations." I nodded at his statement and closed my eyes. Not having the stars reminded me that life would never go back to how it used to be, and that never left a good feeling in my stomach. "Make one up."

I opened my eyes and looked at Connor to see him staring at me, a small smile drawn across his lips. My eyebrows drew together in confusion, not quite understanding what he meant. I was used to making up names for the stars, but I wasn't clear on what he meant about 'make one up.'

"What do you mean?" I questioned, turning on my side to get a better view of Connor's face. He also turned on his side so that we were facing each other. We were only a few inches away from each other and I could see his bright eyes even though it was almost pitch-black outside. There seemed to be a light behind them, shining right on my face, and it was undeniable that in that moment there was absolutely no place I would have rather been.

"Which constellation do you want to see? Tell me about it. The history and stuff." He said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. I smiled at him as I turned back around to stare at the sky. He shifted as well and put his head on my shoulder, staring with me.

"Okay, let me think." We layed there, a calm silence setting over us. My mind raked for a constellation, and the story about it. I went all the way back to when my mom taught me and Malcolm all about them. The idea that there was someone who was genuinely interested in what I had to say was a pretty new experience, considering usually I didn't have time to tell Malcolm what I was thinking because most of the time we were so busy running or hiding from the Traitors or Disasters.