Longing for the Stars

0. Prolouge

0. Prolouge

I can only remember glimpses of the first time I met him.

It was snowing, for the first time I'd ever seen it, and coming down in a blizzard for the past week or so. I was six, and so excited to go out into the snow, that when my mother turned her back, I donned my heavy jacket, my scarf, and my boots, and slipped outside the first chance I got.

I remember getting lost and falling and hitting my head. I fell asleep because it hurt and because I was so very cold.

I remember falling in and out of consciousness, my dreams mixing with reality.

Maybe he was a dream, too, the boy.

He had hair as white as the snow and he had turquoise blue eyes. They looked so sad... and cold...

"Cold..." I puffed out weakly, trying to tell him all I felt. Sometime in between my dreams and reality, he had started to carry me. "So... cold..." I puffed again. When I told him this, he got an even sadder look on his face, and I felt salty tears on my cheeks.

"I'm- I'm so sorry!" Then the boy set me down and ran away, disappearing into the white.

I remember starting to cry myself, and reaching a weak arm after the mysterious boy. Where are you going? I thought to myself. Wait! I wanted to yell. But I couldn't, for I think I had fallen into unconsciousness long ago.

The next time I woke up, I was in a hospital bed. My mother and father told me that I had been found on our doorstep and that a severe fever had me close to death. When I asked them about the strange boy, they told me that it was just a delirious dream and that I should forget about it if I wanted to recover well.

But to this day, I can't bring myself to believe that it was a dream.