Freedom In The Stars

Chapter One

"We have to go now! Things are collapsing all around us! Our government is nearly gone and the Talisman, they've....they've taken over! They have taken over almost everything! They run the planet now."

The memories came flooding back as I lay on my cot, the mattress, getting thinner each year bringing little comfort to my body. The blanket was losing its threads. The cold breeze from the barred window, taking me completely back into them, what little of them that I could actually remember.

I remember my parents arguing with my uncle and aunt. They were fighting about something, I think it was about them leaving. Leaving our home. I was too young, just turned eight that very day, and the memories are blurry. Even their facial features, the features that are blended, that created me, their only child, a daughter I knew that they loved so much, are vague, foggy. Only ghosts in my memories now.

I turned on my side, grabbing the thinly woven blanket up onto my shoulder, the late summer breeze chilly but relaxing vs the normal heat of the day. A heat that unless you were inside, never gave in. The Talisman could handle the heat for the most part, unless it got passed 115. Then and only then did they start to feel the heat like we did.

I was supposed to be asleep in my room, though small it was mine, mine alone. I didn't have to share what little I actually owned. What I treasured deeply, remained hidden away. I remembered the pictures I drew for my parents hanging up on the walls, one small window just above my bed. It was just big enough to see the sky, see the endless array of stars each night.

My eyes drifted to the window above me. This one was bigger, much bigger than the window in my memory. But barred any type of freedom, the heavy bars blocking any type of escape from the room. I could see the stars, but the bars, the bars made it feel as if the stars were trapped too. Trapped like me. Trapped and not a single way out.

I could always see the stars. My mother and father always told me that my ancestors were up there. Including my grandpa that passed away only just that summer. I don't remember him at all. Just glimmers of light were a face should be. A faint smile that had echoes through other memories I could not quite grasp.

The stars were bright tonight. Sparkling and shining, a humans birthplace from long ago...

"Meredith , please, my dear sister, please we need to go. Oliver, please brother-in-law. We need to go now."

My uncle was my mother's brother. I listened to him and aunt Pearl argue, pleading with them. Beg them to change their minds. Begging them to think of my safety. I heard creaking from the floor above. I froze then, closing my eyes till it was long gone. I opened them again, looking back at the stars.

All of a sudden a very heavy and loud pounding on the back door shuddered our small house. I heard them stop talking, the one candle they had lite, was blown out. The house was in complete darkness now, no light except for the light from the night sky and the stars coming in. The only light that came in was the light of the stars.

I missed my family. I missed my childhood. I missed the carefree innocent me. I missed not being able to properly remember the only people who had ever cared about me. My parents, my uncle and aunt. I couldn't remember much of it. I wanted to desperately remember. To have something, or someone to hold on to.

After that everything is a blur. I remember my mother coming, scooping me up. Whispering in my ear how much she loved me. That no matter what happened I need to remember that her and father loved me more than any universe. The frighted look on my father's face told me more than any words could. He loved me dearly. Yet he was deeply afraid of what was about to happen.