The Pale White Dot

The Pale White Dot

Knowledge is everything

You open your eyes
You're freezing
You look around
It's dark
You look harder
You find your friends

You don't know where you came from but you only have each other. Slowly, you crawl towards each other. There are dozens of you, men and women. You huddle together for warmth with two others, a short man with fiery hair and blue eyes and a tall girl with dark hair and deep kaleidoscope eyes, none of you have names. It's freezing no matter what you do, but In the distance you see a pale white dot. Hand in hand you walk together towards the pale light, it must promise warmth, salvation, understanding.

Other groups followed suit. As the minutes grew into hours and the hours grew into days and weeks and months the groups mingled and walked together, some ran in ahead of the pack but always came back. But you and your group have a tendency to stay together more than the other groups, one day you run on ahead of the pack and feel a wave of warmth coming from the dot which has now grown larger, suddenly your hopes are confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt and you run on with your group laughing and jumping towards the distant white light.

Eventually the pack catches up but now you are moving faster than ever towards the light. You hardly stop to sleep anymore. Eventually you do stop. You hear a cry. A child has died. You never spoke to him, you never knew his name, there isn't much to do but continue on your journey towards the white light.

As you get closer you move faster, other groups fall behind, other groups move ahead of yours. You begin to race the other groups. Suddenly it's vital that you and your group make it to the white light first. You fear that the other groups will steal away it's warmth as the other groups fear your group will do the same. You now sprint towards the growing white light.

As the warmth and light from the white orb grow you run ever faster. You lose all sight of everything except to reach this white light, your life depends on reaching this distant white orb. You have to remind yourself to stop for your group and you begin to wonder why you do. You become frustrated when one has to stop for rest just as they become frustrated with you when you have to stop. But onwards you run towards the white light.

One night you hear a cry from the short man in your company, he needs to rest. But you look towards the girl and you both turn away and continue to run faster, faster than ever before. You leave him behind just as you have already left all the others.

Running, running, never stopping, faster, faster towards the brilliance of the white light. The girl lags behind but you don't stop you run on and on, ever closer to the growing white light.

It doesn't take long for you to realize that you run alone, you daren't look back though, the brilliance of the light commands your gaze. So you run faster towards the bright white light.

The light grows in your vision ever bigger. You're close now, you feel it's heat. you are no longer cold yet your heart is colder than ever. You long to see the girl with kaleidoscope eyes again. But you don't look back for fear of the memories. On you run towards the brilliant white light.

As you run on you lose your past, you forget why you started running, you forget who you were in your short existence. You don't care though, you sprint as fast as your legs will carry you towards warmth, salvation, knowledge, towards the white light.

Your skin burns, you're on fire. The brilliance of the white light, the white fire, blinds you. You don't stop though, you run, you must run. Run, run, run! Faster, faster, faster! Reach, reach For the white fire!

You run on, scared now. You fear the white fire. You realize that you are causing your own destruction. But you run towards the white fire, ever faster. Your last hope is the growing, angry white fire.

The fire! Your body burns in it's brilliance! Your eyes long ago blinded by it's luminance. It's close now you stretch out your arm. Reaching reaching for the deadly white fire.

It's there! Only 100 meters now. 75. 50. 25. 15! 10! 5! 4! 3...

The ground slips out from under you. You reach, desperate towards the white sun. Your flesh burns. You feel yourself falling. Tears pour out of your eyes. You yell a yell greater than any before. Your fingers pass the brilliant white star, millimeters from it's flames.

You fall away from the white sun. Faster faster, ever falling faster. As the sun fades you grow colder, you are chilled to the bone. You see it fade into a pale white dot... Then... Nothing, darkness.

Is knowledge everything?

You open your eyes
You're freezing
You look around
It's dark
You look harder
You find your friends

You don't know where you came from but you only have each other. Slowly, you crawl towards each other. There are dozens of you, men and women. You huddle together for warmth with two others, a tall, bald man man with dark eyes and a frail little girl with blonde hair and pale blue eyes, none of you have names. It's freezing no matter what you do, but In the distance you see a pale white dot. Hand in hand you walk together towards the pale light, it must promise warmth, salvation, understanding...