star chasers

vi.

Timothy of Chamber 49 packed his bags before the morning, nearly tripping over his own supplies in the dark. He trained his entire life for this: the Day of Surface. They waited nearly 200 years for another brave soul to venture from the Chamber, and he was about to show the broken Earth how humanity survives. 

“Remember us, Timothy,” Mother spoke, adjusting her tight bun, bouncing his little brother on her leg. The baby laughed as Timothy picked him up. A last embrace. The child would be a man when they met again. “Make sure you have your radiation kit, your knife, the AK-”

“I have everything, Mother. Don’t worry.”

“Even Reggie?” she held up a replica of the sacred figure, made of sticks from the ancient world. 

“Of course. Reggie will protect my travels.”

“He will,” she smiled, holding up the babbling boy, “Lucas will miss you dearly. We’ll always speak of you.”

“Don’t talk like that, mother,” he replied, "I’m sure Lucas will be his own man. Perhaps he’ll join me on the surface someday.”

He leaned in to the small boy, who gazed at him with large, grey eyes. His own eyes. Would he remember his face? Who he was? Legend said those who went out came back older, wiser, but others said they came back sick, dying shortly after. What was out there? And was he ready to face it?

“Now,” his father said, securing the boy’s gun and inspecting his armor, “Remember who you are, and where you come from. Chamber 43 may live on, but no matter what happens, know we couldn’t be prouder.”

The cellar door seemed far above the vast cavity that was Chamber 43. He already felt miles away from home, just looking at his family. 

“Goodbye, great Chamber,” he spoke to the gathering crowd, friends and family, as they gave him books, bags, Reggie statues, and medicines, “Hold me forever in your hearts.”

They cheered as he closed one hatch behind him and opened the other. His stomach fluttered. He’d studied all he could about the outside, but that wasn’t reality. The real world could be much, much worse. 

“For the Chamber,” he whispered to himself, firm and determined, as he finally banged on the handle and pushed open the ancient cellar door. 

The clinking of glass and merry camaraderie paused as the men in the bar stared in confusion. Lefty and Chu stared blankly at the guest, unusually clean and covered in armor. He emerged from a hole in the floor.

“Hello, fellow humans,” he spoke slowly, closing the floorboard behind him, “I am Timothy of Chamber 43. I mean no harm. I am here to help inherit the Earth.”

“Earth’s been inherited, son. Choose another planet.”

The bar erupted in laughter. Timothy of Chamber 43 frowned. 

“Tell me. Who is your leader?” 

Timothy couldn’t read the expressions on their faces. Amused? It was hard to see past scars and sores. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Chu tapped Lefty on the shoulder as they quickly left the scene.

“You think he’ll survive?” Lefty adjusted the pack on his shoulders.

“I give him a month. Maybe two.”

They still drove the caravan, though it was mostly for Chu’s amusement; at any time, he could ask a driver from Glare to pick them up. The hum of the engine was a calming tune, almost a lullaby; it reminded him of singing in the caravan with his family. All they cared about was love, freedom, serenity, and adventure. They died because of it. 

He gripped the steering wheel tighter. 

“Congratulations,” Andro gave a nod of approval when they arrived. A smile almost teased at her lips, “You’re officially a star chaser. I can’t believe it.” 

“Yeah, I thought you’d hop in that truck with your brethren.” Atlas spoke. Those nearby laughed. 

“We’re going to see the stars, brother,” Chu gripped his shoulder, “Here and now.”

They hopped off the platform and walked down the tracks until the chamber grew dark and the space for cots and supplies had disappeared. The tunnel narrowed down to only tracks and the walls, so close that Lefty could touch them, with patterns of small doors and staircases. A long, elaborate collage of glowers depicted the night sky, different blues and blacks swirling with specks of white, the stars. 

Though Lefty didn’t trust Chu yet, they seemed to complement each other. Chu seemed genuine in his happiness, a wary positivity, the kind you get from hardship and being raised in a starchild family. He tried to imagine himself in that life, looking through trinkets, smoke curling from incense, the songs he hummed low when he thought Lefty wasn’t listening. Traveling the vast landscape, as his father did, but in your own small home, shabby but safe, your own security. Freedom. 

The stars dotted the landscape brighter than any glower. A rain had recently fallen, and the land left a puddle of water on the flat land that reflected the shining sky. It reminded you just how small you were in a big, chaotic world. Chu gestured toward a telescope, looking inside and asking Lefty to do the same. A planet was in sight, like a sticker at the end of the telescope, a picture in the books Andro gave him.

He cursed. “They’re real.”

“Yeah.”

“They’re real,” he repeated, a sense of urgency in his voice. He repeated himself a few times, whispered the words, looked away from the telescope and back again. 

Chu held back his laughter. Lefty’s voice was high with excitement, an expression he’d never seen before. 

They stayed for hours, a pattern of Chu finding a point of interest and Lefty peeking through the telescope before gazing with his raw eyes, stepping in the wide pools of water to watch the sky ripple. It felt like another world. Like something this vast and beautiful shouldn’t exist on such a planet. He wanted to stay forever. Lefty, his thoughts, and the stars; the planets, like painted pictures, the light of the moon, the large puddles reflecting it, like pieces of sky that fell. 

The books Andro gave said that some stars were destroyed long ago, but their light took thousands of years to reach the Earth. How many lost worlds had he seen that night? Were there other creatures somewhere that gazed at their sky with a similar awe, wondering who was watching?

They both rested that dawn, only waking when the world was too loud to ignore.