Starfall

Celebration of Stars

My insecurities surround me like lions in the den
And I feel like I'm losing touch with what I am again
And slowly I remember why I cannot pretend
That I never think of you and all this screaming silence

In the beginning, the universe around him seemed a hopeful, bright, colorful place. Opportunities abound, he looked forward to each and every day that he awoke and continued his journey. He remembered thinking, at the time, it had been years since he last felt that way, as though there was something to look forward to, something just beyond his reach that warmed him thoroughly from the inside out and kept him travelling, searching, going.

If he were a lesser man, he thought he may have cried every day at the tugging sensation deep within his chest.

The emotion was unlike what he felt when he first told Aya he loved her, and it was unlike when he held her dying body twice now. Not happiness, not regret, not grief or uncontrollable rage.

He thought, in some far off reaches of his own brain, Hal Jordan may have called it hope. Saint Walker would say the same, would be quite pleased to hear him say this, even just to himself - because of all his teachings with the Blue Lanterns, he'd managed to quell his anger, but never learned to distill hope in his own soul.

Not after what happened with Aya.

Not after what he did to her.

The thought came with a modicum of anger and self deprivation each time he brought it up, but he gritted his teeth and shook it off for months. He became quite good at that, as he traveled alone with nothing but his thoughts and inner willpower he didn't know he possessed.

And, again, that small flicker of warmth deep in his chest.

In the beginning, he held onto that feeling. The hope to find Aya again. Trust that was she still out there, alive, waiting for him to find her. Love in his heart, love he'd been harboring since the first time she assembled herself in front of him.

Hope.

Love.

Then, months turned to a year.

A year, turned into two.

Shadows began to seep into the corners of his mind like inky blood. The flicker in his chest waned and withered, it's brightness dimming. The warmth of the Blue Power Ring that found him some years ago began to feel cold on his hand, and he often woke with the feeling of, "What if I never find her?"

His happy dreams and first thoughts were all but gone by the time he reached three and a half years on his journey, making way for nothing but darkness, loneliness, ice cold fear.

The universe no longer felt bright. Planets no longer looked colorful.

He saw only dark dreary blackness each way he looked, like sludging through murky, grime filled water.

When these thoughts started, he'd almost called Hal and Kilowog several times, especially over the last three months, just to talk to them. Apparently, unbeknownst to him, at some point during their months of travelling together, their companionship had become very important to him, vital to his own wellbeing. That coalesced into him missing them something fierce. He truly missed them.

He didn't think that possible, but he found his fingers itching desperately to just hear their voices. He wanted to listen to them fuss and argue, hear their new ideas to look for Aya, as Kilowog was always quite good with creating random ways of doing brand new things, and Hal was the human embodiment of hair brained schemes.