Star Child

Four - Space Chicken

Atop a dull brown mound stood a strikingly monolithic being, at least ten feet tall, wrapped in noble gray robes which flapped in the seemingly nonexistent wind. He was pale as death, but with the stern intensity of life fixed in his gaze, like a warrior who is slain in battle but refuses to move into the next life. His white beard grew down to his chest in thick, defiant ribbons, while the hair on his head flapped in wispy strands. He had in his hand a massive battleaxe, or what I assumed to be one, because it looked more like a single piece of hulking metal forged into a double-edged club. It was chaffed in long black streaks, the two edges dulled by many impacts.

As he spoke the ground underneath me shifted, and I fell knee-deep into the sand. He said, "Greetings, Terran. I am known as Vhen, general of the comets and a Defender of Terra." He stepped down the mound he was on in a single incredible bound and lowered his mighty hand down to my level. I was still so overwhelmed, and I stood frozen even as the familiar sight of an extended hand was in front of me. "The people of Earth shake as greeting, do they not?" he asked curiously.

I snapped out of my hypnotized state and took his hand awkwardly. "Leo. I'm a student," I replied with a monotone voice. I guess my brain went autopilot for a minute, but I decided even if I was hallucinating or dreaming, going along with everything couldn't hurt. "So, you're a comet too, like Ara?"

A spark in his eyes was ignited, and he gave a tiny grin in spite of his giant face. "Ara? Oh, you must mean Arazarah! Yes, we both are comets, and of the same ice-dust."

"So wait," I asked, confused, "you mean you're related?"

"Indeed. Comets are mostly all related in some way, like humans tracing their lineage to a single person, although for our kind families work differently. You see, a family, or root, as we call it, is made of all the same substance - ice and rock in our case - and we are therefore related. But although I may be eons the elder to the youngest comet of the root, we are all formed at one moment in time, only to break off and come to life at a precise moment."

"You're... eons old?" My tiny brain could not comprehend all that was going on.

"I am upon the twelfth billion year of my existence," the space giant thundered. "But perhaps I am digressing. Perhaps you would wish to return to your home world?"

I was exhausted. I felt like crap, and I just wanted to throw up, take a shower, and collapse on my bed. Maybe I would skip a class or two in the morning. Yet even so, if this all wasn't a drunk-induced hallucination, shouldn't I stay a bit longer at least? I spoke up finally and said: "Well yes, I would like to go back. But I'm just curious, why am I even here in the first place? And where is here?"

Vhen sighed, and I could feel my teeth rattle in my skull. "The sands you stand upon belong to what is now called Kvar Roha, The Plain of Crumble. Many millennia ago, this moon was once home to one of the most populous cities in the galaxy. Since then, however, war has leveled the city, killing billions and causing countless others to become refugees, all in the span of a single Earth year. What you see now is the remains of those deceased."

I looked down at my feet that sunk deep in the sand, and I could feel it getting in my shoes and irritating my toes. They were like tiny flecks of glass that poked my skin, causing it to itch uncomfortably. These were people, or some sort of living being, and I was swathed in a sea of corpses.

"Ere long, Earth shall face a similar fate, young one," the towering man bellowed, "unless the dregs of the Void are defeated. But that is no matter, for we shall return you to Earth and you shall worry about it no more."

"Wait, what!?" I was surprised by what he said, like he thought it was no big deal. "That kind of worries me a little, to be honest."

He nodded gravely. "Indeed. Yet you should fear not, for this shall not come to pass in your lifetime, or several generations thereafter. Your life should be lived to its fullest, and should not be consumed by such a burden."