76 Time Out of Memory II (1/2)

They remembered too strongly, the ones who could not open themselves up to the unfathomable realities of this world. They might not have known it in their minds, but their spirits recalled it – that though their bodies were tied to the earth, a part of them had come from the stars.

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They felt this even more deeply each time the sun would set and darkness would envelop their havens of safety. Many creatures that sought their flesh hunted in the night. As they laid on the ground, huddled together, never once feeling certain that they would live to see another daybreak, they would look up to see a blanket of twinkling lights, and for brief snatches, their fears would give way to awe.

They could not have known those lights were billions of other suns around which other worlds revolved, yet if they had felt their smallness and relative insignificance against the infinite backdrop of everything else, they ascribed the reasons to other causes.

Being so far out of reach that nothing could touch them, not the predators, not the storms and the famines, not the deaths in childbed and the sicknesses that could slay even the sturdiest of men, these stars had become their ideals.

After all, the patterns they formed were unchanging. The way these patterns appeared and disappeared in time with the seasons' shifts – the way they wheeled across the heavens ever so steadily and predictably – this had instilled within these humans an immense sense of relief.

The night sky was not something they ever needed to be wary of and guard against. In fact, it had given them much without ever demanding anything in return.

Now and again, they'd borne witness as stars descended from the heavens. They could not help but make much of these occurrences. What did it mean that there was one less pinprick of light up there? Did it die? Would they all fall one day, as mortals do?

Then, a turning point: a star had come from the dark ceiling of their world, and it landed among the snow-capped peaks visible for hundreds of leagues in every direction. Those who'd witnessed it spread the word, and for the first time, it had occurred to many scattered communities to seek out for themselves the answers that they were all growing increasingly desperate for.

In droves and trickles, people had converged to the foot of the mountain ranges. The bravest and the most desperate embarked on the long and arduous climb up the many peaks, in search of the star that had descended to join them here on this untamable place where getting through each day was a struggle.

Many turned back as soon as their fellows started dying. The inhospitable cold was something they were not prepared for, the air seemed to go thinner the higher up they went – or was it that they'd grown weaker? They'd not brought enough food to live on, and there was nothing to scrounge in those barren fields of rock and ice.

Alas, of those first seekers, there had been a few who would not be swayed from their search despite nature's hazards that had barred their way. Having next to nothing except their will, they climbed, up and ever up, until they could climb no more.

Whether they had chosen in the end to return to their people and later try again, better prepared, no one then could have known. Even among those who'd chosen to climb back down sooner, many had still died. From those who continued on, not one had returned.