Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Up here, where there isn’t really an up, the stars are everywhere.

Earth likes to look at them. Not that he has many other options on where to look, but that’s not the point. The point is, even if he did have other options, he’d like to look at the stars anyway. There’s another point he’s trying to get to, one that’s actually necessary to the real, actual point at the bottom of all of this, because there is a real point—but it’s that Earth looks at the stars pretty often. Really often. And he’s not just looking, he’s paying attention, as much as everybody thinks he doesn’t know how to do that.

When you spend so much of your seemingly infinite time paying attention to the stars, you eventually come to notice a trivial thing-or-two about them. It goes without saying; Earth knows the stars.

And the thing about stars, is that there are spaces in-between, where it’s dark.

Those spaces aren’t ever very big. But lately, there’s been a spot—the Sun is always on his left, and the Asteroid Belt is always on his right—and now this spot isn’t very big either, but it’s just big enough, and that’s all it needs to be for Earth to begin to recognize its shape every time he sees it.

It’s insignificant enough that Earth almost can’t say for sure whether it belongs there or not—except for the fact that Earth has been paying attention, and with all the paying attention he’s been doing he feels without a shadow of a doubt, there is something wrong.

And he doesn’t mean different. He means wrong.

But, for one reason or another, Earth doesn’t feel any particular sense of urgency to do anything about it. It’s insignificant, after all. He’s been paying attention to the stars for a long time now, but he’s also been learning not to trust himself lately, in a bid to become a better person, as much as none of them are actually people.

The dark spot doesn’t go away, but it doesn’t grow either, and Earth tries not to look at it all the same. Luna goes to his Moon club, Earth plays cards, Mercury joins them a lot more now, and the Sun doesn't talk to any of them anymore. It’s their new normal.

Anyway, that was before.

Recently, when Earth gazes out into the darkness in-between stars, he’s not so sure how insignificant it really is anymore. Recently, when Earth gazes out into the darkness in-between stars, he’s not sure how much of what he’s seeing is real.

Recently, when Earth gazes out into the darkness in-between stars, something has been looking back.

There are no eyes, there is no form, there is not even a presence, and yet Earth, almost with severe certainty, is sure there is something beyond the veil, and it is looking at him.

—

Earth doesn’t tell anyone about it.

He doesn’t even deign to entertain that kind of thing. Call him reckless or whatever, but he's not crazy. Crazy will be what they’ll call him forever if he were ever the kind of guy to jump at opportunities to sabotage his own image. Which he’s…not. He’s not. He’s not! …

Alright, what he is and what he isn’t isn’t important, except for the tiny little part where he is somebody with a track record. The kind of track record that involves seeing things that aren’t there. It’s not the greatest match-up with his latest dilemma.

Here’s the situation: If he tells Mars, Mars will look at him in a way Earth is certain he’ll hate, and then he’ll tell Mercury, or Venus, and either way it’s getting to Mercury, and that means Luna will find out, and if Luna finds out he’s going to somehow find a way to conjure bubblewrap and immobilize him for the next century, because the last time Earth saw something that wasn’t there, he went to the Kuiper Belt about it. For the record, he’s not going to do that this time. Not that anybody cares what he does or doesn’t intend to do, when they treat Earth like he’s a dog with dog-contraband in its mouth the millisecond he begins to conceive anything resembling an intention.

Further content for the record, it was one time. And nothing even happened. Nothing ever happens. Earth's real body, the one that actually matters, didn't move. He's pretty sure he could spend the rest of eternity freezing in the Kuiper belt and the only Earthling who'd be any wiser about it would be Astrodude. He’s not even sure why he gets cold, if it’s not even his real body that’s going anywhere. A nebulous precautionary measure to remind him where home’s meant to be? The universe’s idea of a sick joke? Both? It’s looking like both, considering all of their existences are most likely the result of some sort of cosmic prank.

But, whatever; that’s just how it is. Nothing makes any sense, everyone pretends it does, and then they try and stay in the imaginary lines and drag Earth down with them while they’re at it. In any case, Earth has to suffer the consequences and live in a universe where everybody around him internalizes his psychotic episodes just until he can get by a million years without incident. They weren’t even psychotic episodes. Earth is a planet. He doesn’t have a brain.

…

So, Earth doesn’t tell anyone about it.

Because, they will think he is crazy.

Earth isn’t worried about being crazy, because the thing looking back is definitely there, but Earth recognizes the absurdity of pointing at nothing and accusing it of looking at him. What would he even have them do? That’s the million dollar question, and money doesn’t even mean anything to Earth. Say Earth tells someone about the dark spot in-between stars looking at him, what then? Get Luna to fight it? Start a revolution about it? Earth’s gotten Luna to do many inane things in his name in the past, intentional and unintentional, but punching empty space is probably one of the more demeaning things he could get Luna to do for him.

How would a conversation like that even go? Please, Luna. The darkness is staring at me and I’m kinda scared. Do something, dude.

He won’t say that, because that is textbook crazy talk pulled straight from the official oxford book of crazy, and doubles as making him sound incapable of doing anything himself. Which isn’t true. He thinks.

So, Earth isn’t worried about being crazy, but he has to admit, that does sound pre-tty crazy.

It’s to this end, that Earth’s mouth stays resolutely zipped when Luna leaves again for Moon club. It's to this end, that Earth doesn't combust on the spot from stress when he finds Mars and Venus's orbits empty, presumably because they've snuck past the Asteroid Belt to see the giants. It's to this end, that culminates into it just the two of them: Earth, and the dark space in-between stars.

…

All in all, Earth is pretty proud of himself. Everything considered. He’s not crying wolf the second he sees a weird shape in the grass—or in this case, literally nothing. He’s exercising self-control. It’s a skill you need to build, or something along those lines.

Earth builds this skill accordingly, as he stares back at the dark space in-between stars. He builds it, really, really hard, by refraining from screaming bloody murder and breaking out into the closest thing he can get to a sprint in open space. It’s self-control, the way he doesn’t tear his eyes off the space for even a second, because there is no one to look back at it but him, and if no one is looking at it—

Earth can’t help himself. He steals a split-second glance at the Sun, because his self-control is poorly actualized, and Earth’s still learning not to trust himself and can’t be held accountable when he makes a mistake here and there and he is stupidly afraid of the dark and—

It’s still there, when Earth frantically whips his head back to look at it. It’s still there, and Earth doesn’t have a heart to beat in his ears, but they’re buzzing anyhow.

He doesn’t think it’s gotten any bigger, and it’s still looking at him, and he thinks he wants Luna to come back from Moon club a little quicker. What are the odds Mercury went with Venus and Mars to see the Giants? Pretty low, right? What are the odds Mercury will want to hang out with him one on one? Pretty…high?

In seventy-three-thousand and fifty-five days, the world will end.

…

Unceremoniously, Earth’s musings are interrupted. For a second, Earth almost looks behind him for someone he’s beginning to understand isn’t there, and that's roughly when the realization settles in. Earth stares at the dark space uncomprehendingly.

What will you do?

…

Okay. Earth is a little worried about being crazy.

Directly in its center, the dark space in-between stars blooms a single, faint pinprick of light, and it twinkles. That’s… not right. That’s not right.

“What?” He’s not supposed to talk back to hallucinations. Shoot. “Okay,” Earth holds his hands out as some kind of buffer. “If you’re a hallucination, you have to tell me.”

In seventy-three-thousand and fifty-five days, all the trees will die.

It’s disorienting, how the only thought Earth can even slightly comprehend right now is that he wants, so desperately, for Luna to come back. The dark space pulses, and doesn’t wait for Earth to understand to continue.

All the plants will die.

The single star twinkles. The stars around it shine clearly. The stars around it are starting to blend together.

All the animals will die.

Earth can’t tear his eyes away from the light. There might be something beautiful about it, or he might just be kidding himself more than he knows how to stop, because there’s a sinking feeling that if he stops looking, something terrible will happen.

All the people will die.

Something terrible might already be happening, but there’s nothing Earth can really do when everything begins to swirl into a colorful miasma that doesn’t exist, and he’s not sure where he is anymore. The dark space in-between stars stays right where it is.

There will be no more rivers.

A sharp burst of warmth blooms in his head. It’s so hot, it’s almost cold.

There will be no more rain.

There’s something he can’t put a name to, pushing and pulling within his chest. It’s unreal in its quality, and might not be real at all. The single star shutters, and shines the brightest it’s shone since it appeared.

In seventy-three-thousand and fifty-five days,

The single star stops twinkling.

There will be no more you.

The dark space in-between stars is gone.

Earth’s head burns, right between his eyes. So hot, it’s cold.

—

“Go fish,”

After the dark space in-between stars is gone, he is still thinking about it. He shouldn’t still be thinking about it. Earth’s crazy; he’ll admit it. He’s been crazy this whole time. All that insisting he’d done earlier about not being crazy was a pretty major lapse in judgement but there’s not really anything about it you can blame Earth for, because ultimately that’s just what crazy people do.

“What the heck are you talking about?”

“Are we not doing fish rules?”

The words echo in his mind without a voice to accompany them. It’s getting harder to distinguish them from his own thoughts.

What will you do?

Venus slams down a card onto the pile, exclaiming what must be some kind of call-to-action expletive that sets off a chain reaction of overlapping arguing around him, where he distantly hears the word ‘fish’ being thrown around. Luna is dual wielding two separate decks across from him.

There will be no more you. What does that even mean? His life, he gets. It’s easy, despite everything. They die just as easily as they’re born. There will be no more you. What can kill a planet? Nuclear war? Really, really bad nuclear war? Can human bombs really be that powerful? Earth doesn’t like to brag (read: anymore) but he’s kind of big. Even his most determined Earthlings haven’t managed anything remotely similar. Could human bombs get that powerful, in— in what was it? Seventy-five days?

(seventy-three-thousand and fifty-five days, Something recites, in the back of his mind.)

Earth doesn’t want to play Solarcards anymore. Or Fish rules Solarcards, or whatever the heck they’re doing. He places down a card into the pile. He thinks it’s the worst card he’s ever played. He stares at it, feeling no real which way about it and unwilling to defend himself, even as Venus is cackling in a recognizably victorious manner.

To the left of him, someone laughs. “Woah Earth, you suck.” Mars says, whistling.

“C’mon, dude. Didja have to let him win?” Mercury says ruefully.

Venus points accusingly at Earth, who is really just not a part of this anymore. “That idiot didn’t let me do anything! I won fair and square! You’re just mad cuz you’re bad!”

“You were literally hoarding all the wealth,” Mercury intones. “The deck was shuffled bad.”

Earth thinks he can safely bet the Sun isn’t going to explode in seventy-thousand years. Or ever. The Sun expediting his red giantism process into a neat little seventy-thousand year excursion as opposed to the initially proposed five-or-so billion years doesn’t seem entirely plausible either.

“Your Solarcard collection sucks,” Venus says matter-of-factly. “You only have yourself to blame for muddying up the dealing pool with your crappy contribution.”

“Wha- I- I’m diversifying the pool,”

“How do you have fifteen Anomaly cards?” Mars is peering over Luna’s shoulder at his deck, which must hold at least half of all their cards put together. “Geez, this deck is a nuclear bomb. If Earth didn’t feed his card to Venus I think you woulda’ murdered us.”

Luna frowns, staring down at his cards. “I was looking forward to it too.”

“What?” Mars sounds somewhat affronted.

How fast would an asteroid have to be going to destroy him? Or, at the very least, shuffle his mass around enough to end in something that’s no longer him. That’s how he and Luna were born, after all. His humans would say that’s the Circle of Life, and probably call it poetic entropy or whatever, but Earth doesn’t care about poetry, and Earth doesn’t actually want to lose himself and become something that isn’t him. His predecessors, or- parents? Whatever they were, they talked about it all like they really, really wanted it, even if they knew what it would mean for them—and Earth believed them. Earth also believes how he feels about it all is proof he isn’t them.

“Hey, Earth to Earth,”

The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was already going pretty fast. It hurt, pretty bad. Nothing like playing asteroid dodgeball at all. Funnily enough, it only put him off asteroid dodgeball for about fifty-thousand years. Kinda long, when he looks back at it now, but they didn’t really measure time back then. Things were either a short time, or a long time. Sometimes even a medium time, if you felt like breaking the mold. Either way, afterwards he felt kind of stupid for thinking he would’ve been able to change anything anyways. The things they do only matter if it’s inconvenient for them. That’s what Saturn says, at least. Or, said, one time and very off-handedly.

“Oh no, his move was so bad he died,”

Someone is waving obnoxiously in front of his eyes. Ugh. He’s kind of in the middle of something here.

“What?” Earth complains, swatting Mars’s hand away.

“Don’t what me, dude,” Mars says, but he doesn’t sound upset. He just looks a little amused.

“O-kay,” Earth says, with what he thinks is appropriate sarcasm. His expression falls when he sees Luna looking at him, an eyebrow raised.

“Round four? If Earth decides he actually wants to play?” Mars directs the question towards the general group, which is good because Earth isn’t looking at him anymore.

“We don’t need five players, we can just play without him,” Somebody says. Probably Venus.

Earth stares into the place where there weren’t stars for a while.

…

Earth exercises his self-control by not blurting out the first thing that comes to mind, which is I have to go. Because in all four-billion years of his existence, there has never been anywhere Earth has had to go. This is an unfortunate reality, which makes excusing himself extremely problematic, as he is surrounded by what are probably the nosiest beings in all of creation.

“I’ll be right back,” Is what Earth settles on, which in retrospect isn’t actually all that much better. What’s even worse is that Luna is executing the motion of tucking his cards away to follow him. His torso is already angled towards Earth and everything.

“Uh- Luna, you can stay and play, dude,” Earth holds up his hands, trying not to sound too much like he’s doing something he’s not supposed to. For the growing record, he’s not.

Luna is making a face, before whipping out his favorite disingenuous excuse. “Your axis?”

Ugh. Earth’s never actually wanted to be alone before, so he’s never considered how impossible of a task it’s turning out to be. Albeit only when he really needs to be. Naturally. “I’m only gonna be like, a bit. I’ll be right back.”

“Do you want us to wait?” Mars butts in, and it’s impossible not to notice the disgruntled looking Venus floating unhappily in the background.

“Nah,” Earth waves a dismissive arm, hoping to everything he doesn’t look as insane as he feels.

Mars looks at him. And then he shrugs, turning back to the group. “If you say so, dude.”

When he leaves, Earth can still feel Luna’s eyes in the back of his head.

—

Earth follows the invisible path the edge of the Asteroid belt makes for however long it takes to stop hearing the voices of his friends. It doesn’t take very long for the sounds of their conversation to grow quieter, and quieter, until they’re no longer there at all. When Earth looks to his left, with the Sun’s light just barely in his peripheral, the asteroid belt to his right, there is no odd space in-between the stars. It’s just him. And, hopefully—

“Jupiter?” Earth calls, then cups his hand around his mouth in an effort to be obnoxious, “Juuuupiterrrr!”

A shape rouses beyond the belt, large, and dark. It blocks out the stars. Earth steadily holds his ground.

“Earth? Hey, little buddy,” Jupiter says, emerging from the darkness with a wry sort of expression.

Somewhere over the span of fifteen seconds, Earth lets out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, deeply relieved he does not have to continue holding his ground. On the account of there being no ground in space to hold.

Earth blames this on why he sounds so out of breath when he blurts: “You know things right?”

“You don’t gotta start with that every time you ask me a question,” Jupiter says flatly.

“What would it take to kill me?”

Jupiter peers through the Asteroid belt at him, eyebrows raised. “Oh.” He scratches the back of his head in a stalling sort of way. “Is this, like, an educational thing, or?”

“Or like, destroy me,” There can’t be any meaningful difference between those two, but Jupiter looked like he needed it repeated.

Thankfully, Jupiter doesn’t look at him like he thinks Earth’s about to do something remarkably unwise with the hypothetical information. Instead, he looks like he’s thinking.

He’s thinking for a little longer than Earth had hoped for, actually. At some point, Earth realizes he doesn’t actually need to breathe, and stops doing that.

“And not your life? You mean you?” Jupiter speaks, after a while. Geez, took his time, Earth doesn't say, because that's just something he does now. Keeping things to himself.

“Yep.” Earth nods. A little too hard, maybe.

Jupiter nods, scratching his chin. “Well, it wouldn’t be very easy, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not worried.” Earth says. Then— “It’s an educational thing.”

“Oh.” Jupiter raises his eyebrows, then smiles a little in a teasing sort of way. “Well I mean, alright. I just don’t wanna scare ya’,”

“You won’t, I mean-” Earth throws on a lopsided grin, trying for cocky. “You said it’s pretty hard, right?”

In seventy-three-thousand and fifty-five days, the world will end.

For no specific reason in particular, Earth feels exceptionally stiff, and hopes he is far enough away from Jupiter that the giant can’t see it. His own smirk feels smarmy and totally phony on his face. He’s not trying to sell Jupiter a broken TV, he’s trying to ask him what it’d take to kill Earth. Big difference. He’s not too sure how to get his smile to come across more science-loving and less “I’m-trying-to-finagle-you-please-don’t-notice”.

“Well, yeah,” Jupiter chuckles. “Most things that have a good chance at planet destroyin’ are just highly improbable in the first place, if not very, very far out into the future. I mean,” Jupiter falters, looking past Earth. Earth glances over his shoulder, at the Sun.

“You already know- I mean- anyway,” Jupiter waves a hand. “There’s always a Black Hole.” Earth must look visibly disturbed, because Jupiter holds up his hands and keeps going: “But I mean, that’s real unlikely. It’s theoretically possible, but you don’t gotta worry about nothin’ like that.”

That’s good, because if he did, Earth would probably be morally obligated to say something about the theoretical black hole coming to swallow them all in roughly seventy-thousand days.

Earth rubs his shoulder stiffly. “Is that it?”

“Oh, no,” Jupiter shakes his head, smiling brightly at him. “Don’t worry, there’s more.”

Earth makes a face.

Jupiter’s gaze drifts towards the Asteroid belt, “The next most probable method would be, ah- er, a…collision with another celestial body,” Despite the clear effort it's costing Jupiter to maintain his composure, his tone manages to remain strictly educational, and Earth feels something warm swell in his core, and it’s not just the residual heat. Maybe something like admiration, maybe something like gratitude—it’s almost painful. He doesn’t say anything.

“Somethin’ like an asteroid isn’t typically enough to k- ah, destroy ya’,” Jupiter explains, “It can definitely hurt, but an asteroid-sized object would need to be goin’ much, much faster than it usually does to do serious damage. You also gotta take mass into account, whether it’s an asteroid or not. Somethin’ bigger, like another planet, wouldn’t need to go as fast.”

Jupiter pauses, like he’s waiting for Earth to inject with another question. Earth does, in fact, have a question—problem is, he has virtually no sane idea on how to propose it. When Earth doesn’t say anything, Jupiter looks a little put off.

“You also don’t gotta worry about any fatal collisions in the future, Earth. Not from any asteroid, any planet, or any moon. Your moon’s in a very stable orbit around you, bud,” Jupiter looks so sure of himself, smiling at him in that way that always makes it impossible for Earth not to believe in him, because Jupiter is larger, and Jupiter is older, and Jupiter always takes care of them.

And in seventy-three-thousand and fifty-five days, Jupiter will be wrong.

Earth doesn’t say any of that.

What he says instead is— “What else?”

Jupiter looks a little caught off guard, by what exactly Earth isn’t too sure of, but the giant does a good job of pretending it didn’t happen. Earth clumsily follows in his example.

“Well,” Jupiter looks a little stuck. “There’s not much else, Earth-”

“Would blowing me up work?” Earth blurts out.

Jupiter blinks. “Blowing you up? Like, with TNT?” he raises a brow. It’s gonna get stuck that way. That’s what Jupiter would’ve told him.

Earth doesn’t say that. Earth isn’t saying a lot of things. Earth is nodding frenziedly.

“You’re askin’ if your Earthlings could blow you up?” Jupiter looks incredulous. “I mean, I don’t see why they would do that, but- well,” Jupiter looks askance, face scrunched up. “What are bombs even made of? Uranium? Somethin’ like that? Whatever it is, I- I don’t even think something like that is feasible for your Earthlings, or- well, for anyone,” Jupiter says thoughtfully. “I mean, it would take a lot of TNT. I mean- I mean a lot. I don’t know a lot about your Earthling bombs, but I don’t think you have nearly enough resources on you for your Earthlings to cobble up anythin’ that’ll do more than scratch your surface. Barely.”

Great, so his most plausible theories thus far are impromptu Black Hole and Collision Death which has the best case scenario of being with the fabled insanely-fast-asteroid and not with one of his friends.

“Cool,” Earth says.

Jupiter grins at him, and Earth feels horrible. “Yeah? I tell ya’ everything you wanna know?”

“Totally!” Earth says, returning Jupiter's grin, and still feeling horrible. “Thanks, Jupiter.”

Jupiter is looking at him with the sort of horribly indulgent affection that makes Earth feel a little like he wants to throw up right now. “Anytime, Earth.”

—

“The little moons got Ganymede today,” Luna tells him. Earth shuffles his deck idly, meticulously sorting out the Venus cards into an exile pile off to the side. “It was like, an organized take-down.” Luna is sorting his own cards. He shakes his head in a forlorn sort of way. “I don’t think he saw it coming.”

Earth finds another Venus card, and slowly places it in the jail pile. Then, he blinks, and his brows furrow. “Is Ganymede alive?”

Luna shrugs, apparently not as torn up about it as advertised. “Eh. Who knows.”

“Oh. Okay.” Earth looks back down at his cards, and takes a little to consider before opting to push the Venus pile a couple inches further away from him.

The back of Luna’s head suddenly obstructs Earth’s view of his own hands, and subsequently his own cards, because Luna’s head is huge.

“Your head is huge,” Earth tells him.

“Why’re you mad at Venus this time?” Luna is presumably staring down at Earth’s surviving cards, even though what he should be looking at is the banishment pile over there if they’re talking about Venus.

Earth opens his mouth to answer, and then promptly closes it. He was definitely about to say something really mean, even if it would’ve also been really funny. He can’t do that kind of thing anymore. Unless the situation calls for it. But, usually, the situation doesn’t call for it.

Luna is staring at him. “Hello?” he drones, making it harder for Earth to come up with a rephrasing that won’t get him in trouble. He groans and shoves Luna’s head away, to which Luna protests by clumsily shoving his own hand into Earth’s face.

“Stop it,” Earth whines, trying futilely to lean his head away. “You probably just crushed an entire continent. Hope you’re happy, continent crusher,”

“You know that’s not how that works,” Luna intones.

“Oh yeah? Then how does it work?” Earth challenges.

“And you know we don’t know,” Luna pushes harder on his face.

“Mffphr,” Earth says.

“Yeah?” Luna removes his hand. Earth just barely misses the window to lick it. Luna whips his hand back and wipes it on his cloak like he had, looking disproportionately scandalized. “Were you just about to lick me?! Gross, Earth.”

“Dramatic much? We don’t have real saliva. Or tongues.” Earth re-crosses his legs, meticulously pulling a Venus card from the middle of his deck and ejecting it into space like a frisbee. Luna watches it go for a couple seconds.

“You missed your pile,” Luna tells him.

“Yeah, I know,” Earth waves a hand.

Luna blinks, before he shakes his head like a dog, “I- okay- that- that doesn’t mean anything when it feels real.”

“Yeah it does,” Earth argues, jabbing a playing card in his general direction. “Why is licking someone gross in the first place? Cuz’ it’s dirty. We don’t have real saliva! It can’t be dirty!”

Luna doesn’t look very impressed by his explanation. Even if it’s entirely correct. Luna ends up sighing for what Earth must assume has to be for no apparent reason, and promptly goes back to flick through his own cards again. “You still haven’t told me what Venus did.”

Earth blinks down at his cards. “Oh. He hid my favorite asteroid a couple thousand years ago. I just remembered.”

Luna’s face scrunches up like he’s just eaten a space lemon. Or, encountered an especially perplexing cross-word. Earth gracefully ignores it.

This is nice, Earth finds himself thinking, when Luna eventually goes back to shuffling through his deck of cards. It’d almost be easy to completely forget about the dark spot in-between stars, if he hadn’t just thought about it again just now. He’s trying not to care, because over the past couple days, he’s realized he really, really just hopes he’s crazy. That’s not something you usually want to hope for, unless whatever the alternative is is worse than losing your mind.

“Do…” Earth starts, uncomfortably sure he already knows the answer. “Do stars twinkle in space?”

Luna doesn’t even look up from his cards. “If you want proof I'd just look around you, dude. That’s gotta be a hard no.”

…

So, Earth mindlessly organizes his Solar cards in his hands, watching as the words begin to stop meaning anything, and he hopes he is crazy. Even as something slow and alarming inside him, something like dread, is saying he knows he’s not.

—

Earth stares at the Sun. He doesn’t remember exactly the last time he saw the Sun’s face. He thinks it might’ve been all the way back when he returned from the Kuiper belt—but that was months ago. Has it really been that long?

He tries to remember it, and it shouldn’t be hard, because they’ve all known each other for billions of years, except when Earth tries, all he can picture in his head is a twisted expression and a bright, oppressive light.

“I just don’t understand why he had to freak out on us so hard,” Earth says after taking a moment to decide on whether or not he wants to break the peace.

His verdict can be witnessed by the way Venus groans, loud and overplayed. “Are we seriously rehashing this crap again?”

Where he is off to the side, Mercury is beginning to look a little miserable, and Mars is pointedly gazing outwards towards the asteroid belt.

“Being the only thing in the solar system to be able to do anything meaningful wasn’t enough for the big baby, so he threw a big, giant supermassive tantrum. Pretty simple.” Venus raises his eyebrows.

“Venus,” Mercury hisses in a cautious sort of way.

“What? You gonna tell me to keep it down?” Venus raises an eyebrow, and Mercury frowns. “Newsflash, the Sun’s not gonna do anything. He hasn’t done anything for- what? Years?”

“Months,” Earth says, tugging his own shirt sleeve.

Venus makes a grand gesture. “Months! He hasn’t— geez does time seriously pass that slowly now?”

Earth turns his head to stare at the back of the Sun’s head again, where he’s been turned away from everyone for months. That shouldn’t be possible, given that he’s the center of everything, and there is pretty much never a time where all of them are facing the same direction. But, somehow, the big guy’s done it.

Mercury is shaking his head, looking uneasy, and Venus waves a hand. “It’s a classic case of narcissism or whatever, dude. Control freak’s gonna control freak. What I don’t get is why you’re trying to defend him—”

“What?!” Mercury is suddenly louder than he’s been the whole time. “Defend him?! How- how the heck is any of this me defending him?!”

“Don’t give me that crap! You don’t like when I talk about it! You never like when I talk about it! You always get so clammy and weird, and just because you’re his little purse dog—”

“Because I don’t want you to ruin this!” Mercury yells, and there’s a quiet moment where Mercury is breathing heavily, even when they don’t need to breathe, and Venus looks a little dumbstruck. “I don’t want you to ruin this for me!”

Earth turns to look wide-eyed at Mars. Mars glances back, just as wide-eyed.

Mercury almost looks like he’s about to lose his confidence, before his resolve seems to make a miraculous split-second recovery.

“Things have been good,” There’s something about his tone that tips on the line of guilt when he says it, except he looks relieved.

“I- I’ve never been able to move this freely before. He- I know it’s only a matter of time, alright? You should know it too. We all should. We’re all just biding our- our time before the Sun snaps out of…” Mercury’s gaze drifts towards the back of Sun’s head for a beat. “Whatever this is.”

Venus has a pinched look on his face when he follows Mercury’s gaze.

“And I…” Mercury falters. “Dang it. I’m happy, okay? I know it’s kind of messed up, or- or it feels messed up, but I like hanging out with you guys, even if you’re a supermassive jerk,” He says, pointing at a vaguely affronted looking Venus. “And I want to enjoy it while it lasts. So…please,” Mercury looks at all of them this time. “Can we just…please, not poke the bear?”

Venus opens his mouth.

“—the Sun. Can we please not poke the Sun.”

Venus closes his mouth.

Earth sort of wishes he could tear the sleeve of his own shirt apart from the seams, starting with the thread. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be able to, but for whatever reason, he can’t. He guesses they’re just not real enough to do things like that. Unfortunately, they’re not fake enough to not care about things like that either.

“Geez.” Venus doesn’t seem to know how to put the normal amount of bite he does into it. “You didn’t have to pour your entire heart out. Yeah, fine.”

“What-ever!” Mercury throws his hands up.

Mars seems to believe this is where the atmosphere lightens enough to rejoin conversation, because he’s saying something and laughing about it, and Mercury is actually smiling again, and Earth—

Isn’t satisfied. Earth isn’t satisfied.

—

Earth stares at where it used to be dark. The stars shine brightly in its place, their light unwavering. He can’t help but wonder: where did it go? Did it go somewhere else, or did it just stop existing? What would it be like, to just stop existing like that?

“Is it a good thing that the Sun doesn’t talk to us anymore?”

Luna looks up. It’s a little hard to see him from his peripheral, but Earth thinks Luna is frowning.

“It feels like a good thing. I mean, we don’t talk to him either. It’s a mutual thing.” Earth continues, when Luna carries on his not-speaking streak. “Moon club couldn’t have existed before all of this. He wouldn’t have let all the moons meet up like that before.”

Earth turns to face Luna, who has his mouth open like he wants to say something. Like, because he doesn’t. Maybe he just doesn’t know what to say.

“I didn’t think it’d go on for this long, but- well, he hasn’t tried talking to any of us since…and, we haven’t tried talking to him either.” Earth feels weird for what he’s about to say, which is definitely weird in of itself, because he never feels weird about the things he says until it’s usually too late. “I- I mean I kinda gotta admit, I’m glad he’s not bothering with us anymore.”

Earth stares at the back of the Sun’s head, where it only exists where it is millions of miles away. He clenches his fist, and it doesn’t hurt the way he thinks it’s supposed to. “I just don’t get it.”

Luna finally says: “What?”

“I don’t get it, Luna!” Earth groans and throws his arms up, frustration tipping. “Why couldn’t have Moon club existed before all this? Even when the moons were trying to kill me—”

“—Your Earthlings,” Luna interjects tersely.

“—all they managed to do was-... was nothing!” Earth wildly gestures. “Do you know how many rocks I got hit with?! Like- like-... at least eight!”

“I mean it wasn’t nothing,” Luna mumbles. “An asteroid did end up hitting your actual body.”

“And it was so little it was immediately vaporized by my freaking atmosphere,” Earth says. “I mean- do we even know for sure if that was cuz’ of the moons at all? That was probably my yearly asteroid—”

“You’re making it sound like you wanted the moons to succeed,” Luna says flatly.

Earth wipes his hands down his face. “No you’re not understanding me- I just- if what we do matters so little, why did the Sun get so freaked out whenever we did anything? Why was he so gung-ho about us staying in our orbits? I mean- these last few months are just proof we don’t need him to micro-manage us for everything to be fine!”

(In seventy-three—)

Earth wavers unevenly off to one side.

“I don’t know, Earth, I—” Luna peters off, none the wiser. “I guess…”

The Sun shines brightly, millions of miles away.

“He lost control. Of us. That sort of thing doesn’t usually happen to him. I- I’m not him, I don’t know what it’s like to be him, but…he has all this power. He’s the only one with this kind of power. He could destroy us all, if he wanted to. And he wouldn’t actually want to destroy us, I- I think? But, I just…I don’t really know what I’m trying to get at. Maybe it’s that power isn’t always a good thing.”

Earth doesn’t feel like he’s in his own body, and maybe it’s because of this that he can’t quite put himself back upright.

Luna tugs mindlessly at his own sleeves, fingers playing at the dark hem. “I mean, you said it. We can kind of do whatever, and nothing will really happen. I guess- I guess things happen sometimes? But- I mean it's...super, uh, arbitrary. We don’t have to watch the things we do. Not…not like the Sun has to. He’s the least limited out of all of us, and I guess in a lot of ways that makes him the most limited. If you had all that potential, wouldn’t it drive you a little crazy too?”

(In seventy-three-thousand and fifty-five days,)

“If I had that kind of power…the power to change things, just at my finger tips- Well, I don’t know what kind of person I’d be.”

(The world will end.)

“I don’t really think any of what he was doing was…meant to make sense. It was as simple as, if he needed to be careful, so did we. Even if we…really didn’t need to be.” Luna’s face scrunches up.

(What will you do?)

Earth’s entire head feels hot. He feels sick. That doesn’t make any sense, because he’s not alive to get sick. He’s not alive to get cold either, or to want to do something about this, or to get scared—

…

“So you’re saying he’s jealous and bitter and paranoid and took it out on us?” Earth asks.

Luna stares at him. “Well. I was trying to be a little more generous than that- but, uh. Yeah? I guess so? No, actually- wait, okay, no, that’s not what I was trying to say at all.” Luna holds a hand out. “I’m saying I think it was a combination of things. I think. We didn’t listen to him, we proved him wrong, and to top it all off we were an example of all the things the Sun just can’t do. I also think…in like, a twisted way, he was worried.”

That takes Earth out of whatever funk that’d been threatening to overtake him near instantaneously. “Seriously? I think what you were saying earlier made more sense,”

“I already told you that’s not what I was trying to say—”

“He lost control of us, and he freaked out about it. And he’s mad we don’t have to listen to him. Sure he could just like, make us listen to him by threatening to chuck one of us out of orbit and into deep space—”

“Yeah and he literally wouldn’t do that—”

“But that wouldn’t make him right, it’d just make him a huge jerk. That’s why he won’t do it.” Earth nods, crossing his arms.

“Dude.” Luna says forcefully. “I think you’re deliberately missing the part where he cares about us,”

“I think you’re missing the part where he’s a total psycho,” Earth says all in one breath.

Luna stares at him flatly. Earth very bravely doesn’t wilt under his gaze. “You know he's not actually responsible for all of us, right? There is literally, like, nothing and no one stopping him from just saying screw it and starting over. All that responsibility he has is because he's choosing to take it— and ah, ah- I know what you're about to say. No, he can't just stop being responsible if he thinks its such a burden,"

Earth's mouth falls shut.

"Literally the death of us all, Earth. If he were a total psycho, he would’ve thrown us all out of orbit centuries ago." Luna says plainly. "He’s only a partial psycho.”

Earth whips his arms up like a tarantula. Earth cuts himself off mid-dramatic-gesture to smack his hands against his face. Earth kicks his legs rapidly with incensed vigor. He actually manages to propel himself a couple centimeters backwards.

His silent outburst is succeeded by a few stilted seconds of additional silence one could only assume to imply a deep-seated respect for the art.

“C’mon, man. What’s got you in this mood?” Luna nudges his shoulder with the back of a knuckle, and Earth chokes on literally nothing.

“What mood,” Earth gets out.

“Uh, the one you’ve been in for the past day? Two days?” Luna raises an eyebrow. “The other day you just said you had to go and drifted off in a random direction for like, an hour. That was weird, by the way. Literally everybody noticed.”

Earth just stares at him, not quite sure of what to do. Scream? Create a distraction and flee? Say he has to go again?

Luna keeps going. “You’ve also been staring off into space like, a lot. It’s weird, Earth,”

Earth blinks, and splays out his arms. “That’s literally all there is out here, where the heck else am I supposed to stare off into?”

“And you’re so much more moody than usual—”

“I’m going to bed,” Earth declares loudly, and abruptly.

“We don’t have beds,” Luna says, just to be annoying, Earth assumes.

“I don’t want to talk anymore!” Earth says quickly, slapping his palms over his ears. It’s highly ineffective. Two days, rings in his head. Two days. He guesses now that makes it seventy-three-thousand and fifty-three.

“Dude,” Luna says cynically.

Earth whips his body around so he’s facing away from Luna, and he shuts his eyes tight enough to see more stars behind them. The spaces behind his eyes are growing suspiciously hot, and Earth feels really, really stupid.

—

They don’t really need to sleep. It just helps with keeping their sanity intact, and all that. Could you imagine if you experienced everything all the time for all of your existence for the rest of forever? Earth knows with one-hundred percent certainty that that would suck. Not because it’s happened to him, but because there is literally no other option for it to be besides terrible.

Earth didn’t use to sleep that much. He still doesn’t, but time just moves a little slower now, and they’re all doing the same things they used to, maybe even more, but somehow when it comes to time there manages to be so much of it nowadays. Filling in the empty space by sleeping makes it go faster. Not quite as fast as it used to, but just enough so they don’t go crazy with boredom.

So, in an effort to keep his mind sharp and steady, Earth likes sleeping, here and there. It’s a neat little skip, where he can close his eyes and wake up to a new point in time without having to put in much effort at all. The part he doesn’t like as much is the period right after waking up, where he sort of feels like he’s falling, too exposed, and lost all at the same time. Waking up always feels like being caught off guard. It’s super disorienting.

That’s basically what’s happening to him right now, and he doesn’t even want to open his eyes and experience it in full. Partly because he knows if he opens his eyes, he’ll have to face Luna, and at the moment memories from before he’d pulled the nap move are trickling back to him, slowly, and very, very uncomfortably.

“Luna,” Earth starts, feeling a little like his skin is crawling. “Um, look-”

Earth spins around to face his moon, because it’s a little weird not seeing him when he’s trying to talk to him. “I just-”

Earth blinks. Then, he twirls in a complete circle.

Luna’s not here. Ah.

He does another circle for good measure. His efforts yield very little new data.

That’s. Fine.

Earth’s arms fall limply at his sides, now that he doesn’t really know what to do with himself. With no Luna to clear the air with, and no other friends to talk to in his immediate vicinity, there is no buffer to stop Earth from feeling exceedingly awkward. Luna usually never leaves when Earth isn’t awake to say bye first—not unless Earth’s done something especially annoying.

Ah, dang it.

The stars are all where they’re supposed to be, when Earth turns his attention on them instead of the empty space where Luna is usually supposed to be. Star-gazing might be ruined for him forever, which is a tragedy he’ll have to reflect on later, when Luna isn’t mad at him and he has the mental wherewithal to think about that kind of thing.

But right now, he doesn’t think he can take this brand of solitude. Alongside learning not to trust himself, he’s also been learning to be okay with being alone, but in Earth’s humble opinion those two goals don’t have very high compatibility. Just until he can find a way to make that particular combination work, he figures he has to indulge a little. Just for now.

It’s with all this established that Earth embarks on the mission to cure his withering loneliness, which sounds incredibly stupid in unfortunately any context but whatever, there isn’t anybody else here for him to be embarrassed by the thoughts in his own head.

Earth turns to face the asteroid belt, and there isn’t anything there.

…

There…isn’t anything there. Which. Doesn’t. Make any sense. Because—?

Earth whirls around to find the Sun— there! The Sun’s there, right where he’s been forever, still turned around, but…

Earth turns back around to the asteroid belt, which isn’t there. He’s virtually stuck there, for a couple seconds, not knowing what to do with himself. He thinks his brain might be atrophying.

It’s not just the asteroid belt, it’s— there aren’t any stars. There aren’t any stars—not even in his peripheral. When he looks at where the asteroid belt is meant to be, there’s just a pitch black void. It’s as if somebody took a giant chunk out of space and didn’t bother putting anything back in its place.

In seventy-three-thousand and fifty-one days, the world will end.

Earth dives backwards and away from the darkness.

What will you do?

Earth twists around, quick enough to make himself dizzy. The Sun is turned away from them- from him, hunched in on himself, and if he just turned around, maybe he’d notice—

In seventy-three-thousand and fifty-one days, the world will end.

Earth backs up, further and further away, alarm growing. The darkness doesn’t follow him. The darkness spans across the entire plane of his vision.

In seventy-three-thousand and fifty-one days, the world is ending.

“Sun—!” Earth yelps, off-key and reedy.

In seventy-three-thousand and fifty-one days, the world ends.

The Sun doesn’t turn around.

In seventy-three-thousand and fifty-one days, the world is going to end.

Earth can’t take it anymore. He doesn’t have a heart to beat in his chest, but something is in there, and it’s making him light-headed. He lashes his head back to face the dark, despite himself. “What do you want me to do about that?!”

In seventy-three-thousand and fifty-one days, the world is going to end.

“I can’t do anything about that- I- I can’t do anything!” Earth squeezes the back of his own neck with his hands. He’s crazy. “So shut up,”

In seventy-three-thousand and fifty-one days, the world is going to end.

“Let it,” Earth bites out. “I- I can’t do anything about it, so what do I care?”

In seventy-three-thousand and fifty-one days, the world is going to end.

The Sun doesn’t turn around.

Seventy-three-thousand and fifty-one days till the end of the world.

Earth unfurls his hands from his eyes, and in the dark, something is—

Earth screams when he wakes up.

He turns quick enough to give himself whiplash, and stares at the asteroid belt. The stars shine steadily, inoffensive and regular.

He doesn’t know what to do with his own body for a few seconds, which becomes several seconds, which soon enough becomes several minutes. He stares upwards, fingers interlocked with each other, and counts the stars. He ends up starting over at ten too many times to properly keep track.

Earth doesn’t dream. Earth never dreams. It’s only one of the hundreds of things that set him apart from something that is alive.

Luna isn’t there, when Earth turns to look for him.

...

After that, there is nowhere else for Earth to look but the light.

—

When Earth approaches the Sun, he can’t help but get the sinking sort of feeling he’s doing something he’s going to regret. He’s not used to doing this much second-guessing. Maybe that’s why he keeps going, ultimately. Trying to follow a rule; don’t trust yourself—gets hard around times like these. Is the real him the one who wants to turn around? Or is it the one who hates that idea? If they’re both him, how is he supposed to tell which one is more himself?

This could all theoretically be solved with a coin-toss, but Earth opts to side with the part of him that’s louder, because that’s way easier, and really requires less than half the effort of a coin-toss. If that ends up being the fake him, maybe next time the real him should learn to speak up a little.

The Sun’s image grows bigger the closer he gets, and Earth is hit with this sort of irrational fear someone is going to stop him. Earth wishes he had blood to rush in his ears; it’d elevate the experience a little. The nearest equivalent he has might be the way his head is on fire. He feels like he’s burning up. He wants to blame proximity to the Sun for that.

Nobody does end up stopping him. There’s a rush that comes with feeling like you’re getting away with something.

He’s even closer now. He thinks he’d know he was closer to the Sun even if his eyes were closed. Sound isn’t supposed to travel in space, but Earth guesses that doesn’t really apply to them, because he could always hear something when he was closer to the Sun, and that applies now too. It’s like a pulsating, ever-present humming energy. Can that kind of thing be a sound? Evidently, it can.

The Sun still hasn’t turned around, not when Earth is a million miles away, and not when he’s close enough to count the tears in the rags the Sun insists on keeping around. If the Sun wasn’t, well…there, Earth could almost be convinced he’d totally died.

The Sun barely moves, which is off-putting in multiple ways on its own, but that barely is doing a bit of heavy-lifting, because the Sun is moving. Sun’s arms are wrapped around himself, protectively, and when Earth is this close he can see the hands gripped around his forearms are clawing in a rhythmic and simultaneously disjointed pattern that’s really freaking Earth out.

…

Alright, well. This is it.

“S—” Earth begins, and his mouth immediately clicks shut.

…

No way, bro.

The vowel barely gets out, but Earth knows it’d been enough, and for a few, horrible seconds, he hovers there, rethinking every single decision he’s ever had to make to have ended up in this kind of position. The kind of position where he completely fumbles saying hi to the Sun and loses all control he was prepared to have in this situation in a single split-second of hesitation.

For those few horrible seconds, the Sun is still. For those few horrible seconds, Earth thinks very hard; I’m not scared of you. For those few horrible seconds, Earth can only watch as the Sun moves, for the first time since that day. And when the Sun begins to turn around, Earth thinks of Mercury. Earth almost feels horrible, but before long, more than horrible, he feels desperate.

The light is blinding, and the Sun finishes turning around. Earth feels impossibly small under that gaze.

For a moment, neither of them speak.

“Earth?”

Ssshhh-hoot. Shoot. Shoot? C’mon no, this is what Earth wanted, so—

So, Earth steels himself. It is way too late to wuss-out.

“Sun,” Earth begins, and there’s an awkward beat where he thinks the Sun might actually say something else, because that’s the kind of guy he is, and he always has something more to say—but he doesn’t. Sun doesn’t say anything, he just stares down at Earth, with this awful look on his face. The one where it looks like he’s looking at a stranger.

…That's cool.

“I wanted to,” Earth can hear the words of something without a voice ringing in his head. “Ask you something.”

“Wha- w—” Sun looks caught off guard. “Ask me something,” he repeats unsteadily, a stunned expression on his face.

Earth doesn’t wait for the Sun to understand to continue.

“If something really bad were to happen, would you be able to do anything about it?”

The Sun is staring down at him with this expression that almost convinces Earth he’d spoken complete gibberish, and then instead of bewildered the Sun suddenly looks stricken, and there’s a pit, deep within Earth, that grows.

“What—?” The Sun’s voice is quiet, and then it’s almost like he hadn’t just spent the past several months giving up on all of them. “What’s- I don’t- are you taunting me or something?” Sun accuses disbelievingly, hackles immediately rising.

Not…quite where he was going with this. Earth doesn’t actually know where he’s going at all anymore. He thinks the Sun might have the unique ability to completely neutralize any working train of thought Earth might’ve had before with a singular sentence. If Earth had flash cards he’d definitely have to toss them aside right about now.

“I’m asking a question,” Earth manages.

“What kinda question is that?” Sun gets out through gritted teeth, eyes so wide and strained Earth doesn’t know what to make of it.

Earth sighs. “Can you just-”

“No, no, what kind of question is that?” Sun’s shoulders raise exponentially higher, a massive finger pointing down at Earth, and there’s that rush again, and it finds Earth wanting to rise alongside the Sun and it’s right at that point that he realizes, he’s actually not that scared at all.

“It’s a simple question, Sun, if something really bad happened would you do anything about it?”

“Would I do anything about it?” Sun enunciates slowly, and whether it's for the worse or for the better he looks like he’s finally finding his ground.

“C’mon- Sun,” a hand reaches up to tangle in his own hair. “Can you just- can you just answer me?”

“What was the point in- in coming all the way here to-” Sun flounders.

“Oh, come on Sun, I- I just need you to do this one thing for me, it shouldn’t be hard,” and Earth has no idea how loud they’re being, but he imagines they could get louder.

As he says it, the Sun stops dead still, before—

“One thing?”

Oh great. “Dude, I didn’t-”

“One thing?” Sun repeats, voice raising. He laughs once, high and sharp, and he reaches a heavy hand to tangle hysterically in his own hair. “One thing- I am your Sun- the Sun,”

“You can’t be serious right now,” Earth doesn’t mean for it to come out like that, or really at all, but alas. The worst part is; it feels amazing. He’s so screwed.

“You actually need me to do more than one thing, Earth! Matter a’ fact, you need me to do like, all things! Everything! You need me to do everything!” Sun finishes all in one breath, hands poised disbelievingly on his head. He can be seen visibly getting more passionate as his rant progresses. “You can talk like this to me right now because I’m here, what is with you and- and thinking I’m just this big ball of do-nothing light, you have some nerve—”

“What?! Can you stop taking everything the wrong way—”

“—I mean I thought you got over that—”

“I just wanted to—”

“—but clearly you haven’t changed at all but hey what do I know I’m just a big ol’ ball of light HUH?”

“If something really bad happened to me would you be able to stop it?!”

Earth only realizes his ears are ringing when it all goes quiet.

Sun is blankly staring down at him. His head is growing incredibly warm, and he isn’t sure whether it’s the stress or the embarrassment that’s doing it. It’s entirely plausible that it’s proximity to the Sun.

For a second, Earth is hoping he’s just spoken in complete gibberish.

“I-” and Earth is about to try and fabricate some kind of story where Venus dared him to come here and say all of this so he can go back to his orbit and probably die in seventy-thousand and fifty-one days unless Mercury finds a way to atomize him before that, but—

But—

Something about the Sun’s face right now is really, really startling him, and he can’t bring himself to move or get a single coherent word out, because the Sun is looking at him and he doesn’t look mad which is really so strange considering the state of things like five seconds ago and—

Earth’s not sure how else to say it. The Sun looks terrified.

It’s then, that Earth isn’t so sure the Sun actually is looking at him. It’s like he’s looking right through him instead, and Earth almost wants to look behind him, but he doesn’t think the Sun is looking there either. That shell-shocked look the Sun had when Earth first got him to turn around is right back where it was, and Earth doesn’t understand. Earth doesn’t understand.

When the Sun finally speaks, he does so with a disarming, wide-eyed reserve. It feels so far away. “Is this…like, an educational thing?”

It all feels so far away. That look on Sun’s face, the one that makes him look like he’s more afraid than Earth, almost puts the thing that is frantic and turbulent oscillating somewhere inside him at ease.

The Sun isn’t reliable. The Sun is unstable, and can’t be counted on. The Sun likes to talk about destroying them all. The Sun flips on a dime. The Sun doesn’t really talk to Earth, even though he’s only the third planet away. The Sun looks gutted whenever that collision from four-billion years ago comes up. The Sun doesn’t take anyone but himself seriously. The Sun looks as scared as he did before he stopped talking to them.

He doesn’t know what gets it out of him, in the end.

“No.”

And then Earth blinks, and the Sun is gone.

For a few seconds, Earth only stares forward, into the darkness. It’s too dark to see things that aren’t there, and it’s too real to see nothing at all. For those few seconds, shapes swim in his vision, like early-life, microbial and unthinking. For those few seconds, Earth almost feels nostalgic.

Cold air tickles his face, and he takes in a sharp breath.

Earth looks up, and the stars are twinkling.

ACT I: BELOW