Sunday, 7 August 2011

Short Story - Starcrossed

Here is another short story I previously wrote on livejornal

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The full moon shone brilliantly in the starry night sky. The teenage boy ventured to the lake on the outskirts of the city like every other night to gaze at the stars. The city lights rivalled the starry lights in the sky and prevented the boy from gazing upon the stars from his home. Nobody understood why he went through so much trouble each night just to see the stars, in fact he didn’t fully understand himself... he just found the stars beautiful… or more accurately he found a star beautiful. One star always stood out to him, he always knew which star it was in the vast seemingly infinite sea of stars in the sky, and it always captivated him for some unknown reason. This night seemed like every other night. However, little did he know it that on this night he would come to realise why the star captivated him so.
He gazed in awe at the most captivating star in the sky like every other night from the late hours of the night until the dark hours of the early morning. However tonight something seemed different. The star looked almost as if it was moving. Actually it was moving! And it was moving faster and faster and it seemed as if it was coming down to earth to greet him, though the star seemed to shrink smaller and smaller as it got closer and closer. The boy watched in fear and awe as a ball of flame came hurtling ever faster towards him. He panicked running around wondering what to do the whole time only ever briefly letting his eyes avert their gaze from the star that captivated them even now as it rushes ever closer. Then all of a sudden the ball of fire plummeted into the nearby lake. The boy rushed over to the lake as fast as he could to see what had crashed into the lake. To his shock he found a beautiful girl struggling for her life in the shimmering lake. Without a second thought the boy dove into the lake to save her.
Even though he wasn’t a great swimmer he managed to pull the girl to safety, while all the time being captivated by her beauty. She had pale skin and wore delicate silver and white clothes that seemed almost as if they came straight out of some fairytale. And something the boy found really strange as he pulled her out of the lake was that she felt very warm, this was very weird considering she had just been drowning in a frigid lake. Then the thought suddenly struck him! Maybe she was related to that fireball that fell into the lake! “Nah… I shouldn’t let my imagination get the better of me. If I do I really will go insane” he thought.
The girl opened her golden eyes and stared directly into the boy’s brown eyes. After a few moments of them doing nothing but staring the girl suddenly started blushing and started to run away before tripping and falling to the ground. The boy walked calmly over to her and extended his hand to help her up and said “Are you ok? My name’s Lanz by the way”. The girl stared at him still blushing for a moment before blurting out “I’m fine. Th-thanks. My name’s Stella. I’m fine. I’m just not able to walk very well right now”. After helping her up Lanz thought for a second and said “… if you’re having trouble walking maybe you should rest for a while. Don’t worry I’ll keep you company until you’re ok.” Still embarrassed Stella just smiled and nodded ok.
Stella and Lanz sat by the side of the lake and stared at the reflections of the stars and the moon on the surface of the lake. Even though they sat down together not a word had been said between them since they sat down. Lanz was still wondering what had happened to that star that captivated him. It was no longer in the sky, at least he couldn’t see it, and he was wondering if he had just imagined that fireball. Maybe all the nights going to the lake to see the stars had finally taken their toll on him. Even though the star that captivated him was no longer visible he wasn’t very worried about it, because his attention had been stolen by the beautiful girl beside him. It was so late that the darkness was slowly being washed away by the rising run and the silence finally broke as Stella mumbled as if she was about to say something, but then stopped as if she had changed her mind. Even though she had stopped before saying anything Lanz looked at her and she felt pressured to let out what she was about to say. “Um... It’s kind of embarrassing….”. Lanz just looked at her with a puzzled look and said “What’s embarrassing?”. Blushing ever more Stella uttered out “It’s kind of embarrassing… the way you always look at me…”. The puzzled look on Lanz’s face became more cryptic after that statement “What do you mean? I was only looking into the lake until now?”. Stella now with a look as if she just realised something said “I didn’t mean just now. I meant the way you always look up at me every night. It’s kind of embarrassing… though when you look up at me I always look down on you too… I just realised you don’t seem to recognise me, but I’m the star that you always look up to… that you always stare at. It’s embarrassing but I like having you look at me...” Lanz now wondering whether he was just going insane or if this girl was going insane noticed the blushing girl glowing and glittering specks of light slowly rising from her and then disappearing slowly as the sun rose. He had much that he wanted to say to her, but too much was going through his head and he found himself unable to say anything. Stella then started leaning closer to Lanz and said “This lake is special. It’s filled with the energy of the heavens that it always reflects. On nights when the light of a full moon is reflected on the surface of this lake stars can come down to walk the earth. But my time here is almost up…”. As she said this Lanz noticed that as the specks of light were rising from her Stella’s body slowly began to vanish. Stella started leaning closer and closer to Lanz and said “When the sun rises stars disappear… and soon when it rises I will disappear. When night arrives I’ll be in the sky again, and I will be looking down on you, so pleases don’t stop looking up at me. And on the nights of a full moon we can see each other like this again…”. As she said this she leaned ever closer to Lanz and was about to kiss him, and as she leaned closer and closer her figure faded more and more, and then, just as their lips were about to touch she faded completely with the rising sun.

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