Stargazer

Prologue.

I know I had a real name once. I had a real name and a real home somewhere in a concrete place where most things made sense. I don't remember what having a life is anymore, but I know I had one a long time ago, and it was special to me. It still is special to me, even though it's long forgotten--lost to time and space and a cold, harsh existence of nothing.

There was something, and then there was nothing. I don't know how else to explain it. It took a while for me to realize how much nothing there was, and how much something had been replaced by nothing, and how much the nothing multiplied and expanded to make more nothing, until everything was just dark with the complete lacking of things. For a while I was panicked. I thought I'd realized what was happening too late, but I realize now that it wouldn't have mattered if I noticed any sooner. No being could prevent this. This was the universe's fate.

I can't lie, though: I miss the something sometimes.

Okay, I miss it a lot.

I call myself Stargazer, because no matter what, I'll never forget the stars. I'll never forget lying with my back on solid ground somewhere, staring at the tiny sparkling lights above me. I'll never forget the fantastic light shows I watched every day and night, and I'll never forget the time I was consumed by the biggest star I thought there was, when my body was burned and my soul was released.

Honestly, I hoped my life would end that day. No matter how much I loved the stars and the sky, I hated the loneliness. There were others like me once. I didn't know where they went.

Still, I didn't die--at least, not in the traditional sense. I drifted outside of the star's core after a while, but I wasn't me. I didn't feel anything.

I didn't have a body then. I remember being confused--as anybody would be, I'm sure--but I never thought too far into it because its absence didn't bother me. With the loss of my body came a loss of the pain and emptiness I felt inside, along with most of the memories that tortured me every day--except for my memories of the stars, the ones that set me free. I was grateful to the cosmos for allowing me to experience the universe as a passenger, in peace.

I'd lived in my ethereal state for an amount of time I couldn't even begin to measure, let alone explain, and in that time I watched the stars. I saw other celestial bodies up close--stars so bright and beautiful I couldn't help but marvel at them until time blew them apart-- and I travelled to bright webs and giants of all types, and even spirals worlds outside of what I knew as home. I saw bodies collide in the sky, and I watched unbelievable new systems be born from the tendrils. It was an awe-inspiring cycle of death and rebirth with seemingly no end. It was heaven to be a cosmic passenger as I was, with nothing to do and nowhere to be--simply able to give the universe my attention, as it so obviously wanted.

But like all good things, it didn't last. The cycle of rebirth wasn't sustainable, and eventually my universe went dark. I'd come to accept that I wouldn't experience any more astronomical life during the time I spent wandering through space. The universe was done giving me its cosmic tour of wonders. After trillions of star cycles come and gone, it was the end. Heat death.

At least, that's what I thought.