Which One Do You Think Is Mine?

When I was young, I used to look up at the sky with absolute wonder. I grew up on the family farm, where every night, it would light up in a vast array of bright tiny pinpricks piercing through a blanket of darkness. It was amazing. Unfortunately, the older I got, the less I looked up. By the time I was an adult and took over the farm, I hardly looked up at all. I got married, and we had three kids. My youngest girl, Luna, my middle son Alex, and my oldest son Michael. As they got older, we expanded our livestock and crops. There were so many things around me that there wasn’t much time for appreciating something so consistently there as the night sky.

Life on a farm isn’t an easy way to live. There’s a reason it’s a career with one of the highest suicide rates. It never bothered me, though; I actually enjoyed the intensity of it. I liked living where I made a living. It made me happy that I didn’t depend on anything but my own two hands to survive. My family and I rarely went to the grocery store and only went to restaurants on special occasions. We had a simple existence, but we were happy and together.

I watched my two sons and daughter create so many of the same memories I had. Things were a little different than my childhood. The internet and modern technology made sure of that, but the core of the way we lived never changed. My wife Linnae grew up just like I did, so we all had a mutual understanding of what we were doing with our lives. We taught our kids how to work the land; how to take care of the livestock and take care of the buildings and equipment. All three had their talents, and all three had the skills to do anything that needed to be done. I was proud. I still am.

It was a cool autumn night when stars started to streak across the sky. The phenomenon was beautiful, I’d never seen anything like it. A star's light would stretch out in a long white line for about a minute and then disappear completely. The kids absolutely went wild about it. The “ooh’s” and “ahh’s” and “Look, there’s another one!” were constant. They started counting each one and didn’t stop until we forced them kicking and screaming inside for bed. Four hundred and thirty-eight in an hour.

After the kids were asleep, Linnae and I sat on the porch and talked about how insane it was. The sight of it was awe-inspiring, but the thought of stars falling and burning out sent a deep hollow feeling to the darkest part of me. It was like when you hear terrible news. The more I thought about it, the harder it was to breathe. I held Linnae close and assured her everything would be fine, and she assured me of the same.

When we decided to turn in for the night, I went to check on the barn. I did all my usual nighttime checks to find everything as it should be. Whatever was happening was above me; there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I decided to drive into town the next morning and find out what the consensus was.

As I walked back to the house, a stream of the brightest light I'd ever seen hit the house. It knocked the breath out of me and ripped every ounce of thought out of my head. There was only light, the burning, all-encompassing, eternal light. I hit the ground and hid my eyes the best I could, but there was no escaping it. All I could do was lay in the dirt and agony.

I lay there for hours or minutes or days or seconds. My head throbbed like the morning after a night of tequila and whiskey. I could barely stand up and keep my balance. Through watery eyes, I called out to Linnae, but all I heard back were two voices screaming from inside the house. Only Michael and Luna called back to me. Stumbling, I ran to the house in a panic. It felt surreal. The two of them met me halfway up the stairs and fell into my arms, wiping their eyes and sobbing. They were just as confused and bewildered as I was. We sat there for hours, weeping in each other’s arms.

I held out hope Linnae and Alex were taken somewhere wonderful. Maybe they were raptured like the bible said, but the more I thought about it, the more that pit in my stomach deepened. The next morning Michael suggested we go to town and see if anyone else had disappeared. I was hesitant. I was old enough to know how people react to things they don’t understand. If we were the only ones this happened to, we would be blamed. I turned on the TV to see if anyone else was experiencing the same thing as we did.

It was happening everywhere. All over the planet stars streaked down to earth, enveloping people in light, and leaving no trace of them behind. When the sun rose and the stars couldn’t be seen anymore, the disappearances stopped, but the happening followed the dark side of the planet. News broadcasts of streams of light from the sky erasing people where they stood filled every channel. Panic had already set in and the rioting started. That’s when I turned the tv off.

We stayed home that day. We tried to eat, but none of us were hungry. I did the work we had to do to keep the bare essentials going. We had to stay busy, or maybe I had to. The kids were terrified and a few I saw them both wiping a tear away and sniffling, trying not to let anyone else see. I did my best to comfort them, but what could I do? Night was coming, and all three of us knew there was a chance that whatever was happening wouldn’t stop.

Until the day I die, I’ll remember rushing away from them at dinner to throw up. The thought of being taken and leaving them both was too much to bear. There was no one else to take care of them. I couldn’t trust anyone I knew even if they happened to still be alive. I couldn’t risk asking someone for help because I couldn’t risk someone knowing they were alone.

I pulled Michael aside that night after his sister was asleep. He was only thirteen at the time; a child in many ways but mature in so many others. I made him promise he would take care of his sister if something happened to me. I was sure it didn't need to be said, but I had to hear him say it out loud. He needed to know it was a possibility. He said he would, then looked me dead in the eyes and made me promise the same. I could tell he already thought about it. He knew I was struggling even though I was trying to hide it. I’d never been so proud of him.

The three of us sat together on the porch as the sun went down a few nights after that. My daughter between my son and I under a huge blanket Linnae made before any of them were ever born. Michael had his little brother’s favorite toy tight in his grip. I shook with fear. We all shook together.

The sky began to streak above us. Stars falling to earth in a brilliant light. The majesty of it was still there, despite the grim reality that each streak meant another disappearance. It struck me how few stars there were. Millions of them were gone. I had never seen so much darkness in the sky in my entire life.

We sat there for hours. Before too long I could feel the rhythmic breathing of sleep from Luna. Michael’s eyes began to close, and his head bobbed. By midnight they were both asleep. My mind wondered. I remembered all the happiness of the farm laid out in front of me beneath the backdrop of a falling sky. I missed Linnea and Alex so much it made it hard to breathe.

None of us were taken that night. Or the next night. Or the night after that. Months of the stars streaking out of the sky passed. Every night we waited together huddled in the blanket watching the world end. Slowly, we went back to the same routine as before. The sky had fewer stars in it every night, but life went back to a relative normal for us. At least as normal as it could have been. I could only assume the world around us was ending, but for what was left of my family, we found a way to keep going.

We celebrated Luna’s fourth birthday a few months later. I made a cake with the last bit of flour we had, and we celebrated by recounting memories of how things used to be. That night after the kids went to bed, I sat on the porch and prayed that if we were to be taken, that we would all go at the same time. If that wasn't possible, I prayed to be taken last. A month later my youngest daughter was taken by a blinding light as we all slept huddled together in my bed.

Once it was only Michael and I left, things got harder. The sky at night had almost no stars in it. It was so dark that the moon looked out of place. There were maybe two or three thousand stars left; nothing compared to the millions that once hung twinkling in the black. It was around that time that we stopped watching the sky every night. Michael hardly talked anymore. We did our work, more than any two people should have to do by themselves. We made the tough decision to slaughter two of the cows and freeze the meat. We had to put some of the others down in mercy. There wasn’t enough food for all of them, and we couldn’t just let them starve.

After we culled the farm, I could tell something inside of Michael was changing. I could see a vacancy in his eyes. On several occasions, I saw him stop, stare blankly into the sky for a few minutes, and then go back to whatever he was doing. In my hopes of trying to save him, I decided it might be time to head into town. I hoped the change of scenery might bring some part of him back. I hoped there would be few enough people that we wouldn’t be in very much danger, or find a place with decent survivors to take our minds off of what we lost. I thought it might do him good to interact with someone who wasn't me. Michael agreed to take the chance with me. There was still gas in the truck, and there were still enough bullets in the hunting rifles we had to protect ourselves. In the morning we left just as the sun started to peek over the horizon, and the streaks of light became impossible to see.

In just a year and a half, the town I grew up going to had been destroyed. The stench of it hit us before we saw rotting bodies lying haphazardly on the street. Windows were smashed in every building and car. The landscaping was overgrown. It was like a scene from the horror movies I watched as a kid.

Michael took in the scene with a blank stare. The weight of it hit me, standing on the side of the road surrounded by destruction. My son was gone. He was as gone as the rest of my family. No child should go through what he had, and it was too much for him. My heart had been broken many times over, but that moment was one of the worst. I turned from him and hid my face the best I could. It wouldn’t have done any good for him to see me that way, even if he probably wouldn’t have cared.

We crept through town, trying to find anything we could to bring home. Every drug store had been ransacked. Every grocery store was empty. There was nothing left for us. After a few hours, we made our way back towards home. As we crossed the last street and headed off through an overgrown field, something hard hit me in the back of the head and I blacked out.

I woke up tied to a wooden post back-to-back with my son. I tried to struggle against the ropes that held us together. I asked Michael if he was loose enough to get free. A flat no was all he said. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was staring up at the sky. The sun was going down, and the streaks would begin again.

Around us, there were twenty or so people in ragged clothes with matted hair. They all stood silent, staring up at the sky along with my son. Others were tied to poles, but none of us struggled. Half the people present were captive, and the other half free, but not one of us said a word. The stars began to fall.

“Which one do you think is mine?” my son asked softly. His voice was so calm and quiet. A chill ran through me, and my mouth went dry. I had no idea what to say. He didn’t seem to notice my lack of response. A man tied to a pole twenty feet from us screamed as a beam came down and surrounded him. I closed my eyes as tight as I could, but it didn’t help. Nothing could have protected me from how bright it was.

My head began to pound just as it had every time I saw it. The man’s screams abruptly stopped, just as the light did. The raggedy men who had taken us erupted in wailing and praise as they bowed toward where the man had been. I struggled against the ropes and got a hand free, followed by my other. No one paid me any attention as I got my son free, and ran off into the night. Another light came down behind us, followed by screams and praise. Sometimes I still hear them echoing behind me.

I decided never to go back to town on the quiet walk home. We went to bed that night together under Linnae’s blanket. I held him tighter than I’d ever held anything. I quietly wept into him as he slept in my arms. I pleaded for God to take us both. I prayed until my teeth hurt from grinding and my nails dug into the skin of my hands. My mind began to wander, and I started to drift.

Blinding light shot through the ceiling and into the bed. Thoughts raced through my brain. Were my prayers being answered? Would we finally be taken from this hell? My head throbbed and my eyes ached. The grip on my son loosened and my arms slammed into each other. The light stopped. I was alone.

I stumbled out of bed and fell to my knees. A sudden influx of thoughts sent my pounding head into a swirl. For the first time since it all began, relief washed over me like a cold shower. I felt lighter than air. My son wouldn’t be left alone. Michael wouldn’t be left without anyone to help him. I cried so hard my voice began to crack and my eyes burned.

I was alone, so alone that the hollowness inside me became comforting. My wife and children weren’t in this hellscape we once called modern civilization. The fight was over; there was only one thing left. All I had to do was survive until my star came for me. There was so much peace in that thought.

Weeks later I laid alone in the overgrown grass watching the stars streak and heard my son whisper the words he said when we were tied to the post. I wondered which one of the few hundred stars left was coming for me. By the time the sun came up, all but about twenty had streaked across the sky to leave nothing where they were. I was sure that the next night would be my last, and a twinge of happiness pierced through the deep black inside me. Tomorrow night my star would come from me, and whatever was next; whatever happened, I would embrace it.

The next day I prepared for the end. I tidied up the small graves I made for each of my family members and added my own. I surrounded each one with our favorite things and etched a small testimonial into a wooden slab we had in the barn. If anyone came after us, I wanted them to know that there was a loving family who lived a happy life there.

As evening approached, I went into the bathroom to clean up. I took a bath with some water from the well. Months of grime and filth washed out of my hair and off of my skin. I shaved and put on my favorite clothes. Whatever happened I wanted to look my best. If I saw Linnae and our kids after the streak hit me, I would want them to know I was okay and hadn’t spent the better part of the last two years barely scraping by. I looked in the mirror and found myself impressed.

Fingers of orange and yellow stretched across the sky as I made my way downstairs and to the porch. I sat in my favorite chair under Linnae’s blanket and watched as the streaks became visible in the night. I admired how magnificent the scene was. I had lost everything, but the sight of it was still incredible. By around one o'clock only four stars remained.

One in the east and one to the south streaked across the sky and went out. The other two hung there in silence, surrounded by the complete black around them. One sat almost directly above me. Twinkling almost like it was calling out to me. The other was to the north close to the horizon. I wondered where its owner was. What had they lost? Who had been taken from them? Were they sitting alone looking up with me?

The star to the north by the horizon streaked across the sky over me somewhere to the south. For a moment I thought it was coming for me, and my heart nearly stopped. After it went out there was only one left. Excitement and adrenaline rushed through me. I started to sweat, and butterflies erupted in my stomach. My whole body shook and I couldn’t help but smile.

The star above me streaked out somewhere to the south far behind me leaving a void where it once was.

The world had never been so dark.