Beyond

Part 1

“Hey Josh, why does the Man in the Moon always look so worried?” Bekah asked as she raised her eyebrows.

“I don’t know," I said, "Maybe there’s an enormous asteroid headed towards Earth and it’s going to kill us all!” 

My hands struck out and tickled Rebekah’s sides. She squealed and tried to escape, but I just pulled her into a hug.

“I really don’t know Bekah, but I do know it’s bed time. We have school tomorrow.”

"Fine. Don’t wake me up like you did yesterday!” she scolded me as she pried herself away from the hug.

I stretched out my arms and mocked, “What? I thought you always had at least one bottle of water in the morning. I just thought I’d give you one to help wake you up!”

“My pillow is still soaked, Joshua!” she screeched as she stalked inside. Once she was gone I began putting my telescope away. I carefully put the pieces in their designated slots in the case. Once that was done I took one last glance up at the night sky before heading inside myself.

There was something on my face. It tickled right underneath my nose. I went to rub at it but just ended up smearing whipped cream all over myself. I shot up and heard maniacal laughter coming from Rebekah. 

I slowly turned and glared at her.

Panic overtook her face and she whispered, “oh shoot,” before bolting out of the room.

I’ll let her off the hook. For now.

I tried to get out of the bed without getting the cream everywhere, but that didn’t happen. It somehow ended up getting all over my navy blue sheets. I made my way to the bathroom, but washing my face didn’t help. I was still sticky. So I just opted to take a shower that morning and scrubbed until I was squeaky clean. 

I daydreamed my way through classes until it was time for lunch. I went and sat with Rebekah and her friends (who are all freshman) and enjoyed my lunch. I was never the social kid in school. I never made any friends. I'm a junior now and all I have is my sister. She's my best friend. Guys think it's stupid that I say that but it's true. I'm glad to have a sister like her.

School was a drag, as per usual, but my last class of the day never was.

Astronomy. Learning about space was the best thing in my mind. Ever since I was a little kid I've wanted to go to space. Be an astronaut. Explore the stars. But since I'm not old enough for that yet, Astronomy class will have to do.

I sit in the back of the classroom so no one notices me but I hang onto every word the teacher says.

"Okay class, settle down. Today we are going to learn about distance and light. Who here can explain to me what a lightyear is?" The teacher glanced around hopefully. No one moved a muscle. So I slowly raised my hand. Reluctantly of course but I did.

"Ah, thank you for volunteering, Josh. Now what have you got for me?"

My eyes darted around the room nervously as my classmates expectantly turned in their chairs my direction. I shifted my legs and sat up a little straighter, licked my lips, took a breath and said, "a lightyear is how far a particle of light can travel in one year."

"Very good."

I relaxed and let out a breath of relief. It was a short explanation but speaking in class is definitely not my forte.

"Now to put that somewhat into perspective, it takes eight minutes for a single particle of light to travel from the Sun to Earth's surface. The sun is ninety-three-million miles away from us. So let's do a little math for a second," he grabbed an expo marker from the tray at the bottom of the whiteboard and began scribbling down numbers, "now if we type this equation into a calculator we find that a lightyear is five-trillion-eight-hundred-seventy-nine-billion miles. Our little minds can't even comprehend that. It would be like going around the Earth approximately two-hundred-fifty-million times."

Some people's faces dropped in shock. Others just sat there whispering to each other. I, on the other hand, had a quiet smile on my face because it was knowledge I already had.

When class ended I ambled my way down the halls. Parking lot traffic is atrocious so I like to take my time to make life easier.

Bekah bounced up to my side with one of her friends tagging along behind her.

"Hey, Josh! What's up?"

Sky is the name of Bekah's friend. She's always been the nicest to me out of their friend group.

"As per usual, nothing much. How about you?"

Sky wrinkled her nose and said, "A lot. I failed my math test and some creepo wanted my number."

"Oof that's rough. So are you and Bekah hanging out today?"

Bakah cut in with, "You know it!"

I just chuckled. We arrived at my silver truck, parked perfectly in its spot, and I unlocked the doors.

The ride home was relaxing. Bekah and Sky rode in the back, which was perfect because then they couldn't corrupt my eighties rock with crap music like Taylor Swift or Miley Cyrus.

The rest of the day flew by - did some homework, watched some TV - the usual.

Then the night came. I got my telescope from my closet and took it outside. Sky and Bekah were sitting on the trampoline, so as they talked they watched me methodically put all of the pieces together.

Once it was all set up I took a peek through the lens. By pulling on different levers and twisting various knobs I could position the telescope how I wanted.

I aimed it so the moon was in sight. The perfectly clear sky revealed every angle of the celestial orb.

"Okay, girls! It's ready!" I called.

Sky bounced off the trampoline and dashed over to me first. She smiled at me, then tilted her head to peer into the lens.

"Woah, I never realized how textured the moon is."

Rebekah shoved Sky out of the way and sang, "My turn!"

But before she could look, a loud humming sound erupted around us. All of the lights in the house went out.

I ran over to the trampoline and hopped on top to get a better view of the neighborhood. ALL of the lights were out.

A second later, the sky erupted with a spectacular view of the stars. The Milky Way stretched diagonally across the sky. Shooting stars shot across the horizon.

It was beautiful, but something was off. Then I noticed it. The sky was slowly turning black. But not because of light pollution.

The stars were slowly winking out.

Not one by one, but in clumps. As if entire galaxies were just disappearing all at once. 

"John? John! What's going on? What's happening?" Bekah shouted and clung onto my arm.

Mom and Dad ran out and asked, "Why are you yelling?"

I just pointed up. Their eyes followed my finger and they gasped. I could hear the whole neighborhood come alive with cries of dismay and confusion. I looked over to see if Sky was okay. She had sunk into a chair and was staring blankly as the heavens slowly became blank as well.

As the hours passed, more blackness than stars covered the sky. No one went to bed so we all witnessed, at three o'clock in the morning, when the last clump of stars went out.

The only lights left in the sky were, what I assumed, satellites, the planets of our solar system, and the Kupier belt. Everything else was gone.

When the power finally came back on in the morning, all of the news reports were theories about what had happened and what scientists were doing as research. The world was in chaos.