Wishing for You to Return
Empathite, bring him home to me…
She sat on the roof staring up at the sky. A cat was curled up asleep on her lap; the cat that Ashley had chased over the rooftops all those weeks ago.
Ashley… Dead? Alive? No one knew for certain what had happened to him.
He couldn't be dead! He had promised her, and she knew he never broke his promises.
But all she could see above her was the vastness of the Sea of Stars.
Where are you now? Are you still up there?
His team had told her that he had died, that there was no possible way to have survived the explosion of the Heimbal Gazzo. No way to survive as the ship disintegrated in orbit, casting anything still alive on board into the emptiness of the Sea of Stars.
But now they were changing their tune. "Maybe," they said, "Maybe there is a chance he is still alive."
Please come back to me…
Hadn't Altaecia said that it didn't matter how far away someone was, the strength of your feelings would draw them closer?
The Sea of Stars - so close but so far. Could her feelings really reach so far to him if he truly was alive somewhere up there? Could the shard of Empathite, which she clasped so tightly in her hands, help her reach him so far away?
Come home, Ashley. Please, don't break your promise…