Everyone looks at the sky and thinks they are staring at balls of gas burning as suns in distant solar systems. They think about their life cycle and wonder if they are just beginning their life or near death. They wonder if there is life where those stars burn brightly, if somewhere beyond the atmosphere guarding our planet others look up and wonder the same about our sun.
But what if our stars are not just stars? What if they are the souls of the people who have passed on and moved to be our guides by night? Perhaps stars are merely the evidence of souls that we still see.
What most forget about it all of it is that we live in a world guided by light. Light guides us and directs us. But no matter where light is, darkness was first. The chaos that fights the order giving us balance in life.
That kind of influence drives some to fear, some to run, and some to fight.
When he was a child his parents sought safety in the new world. But infection in their lungs had the doctors writing 'P' on the back of their clothing. They had no choice but to board their boat with all their dreams in tatters in their hands.
His father paced the inside of the boat while his wife sorted out their position below. As he crossed in front of the captain's cabin he caught sight of a model of the very ship on whose decks they now stood. He walked into the room, wondering what drove him to seek this place, when he noted its size.
With an elbow he broke the glass. With borrowed tools he carved out the inside of the model ship. With his wife's help he fit his son securely inside the space. And with ropes they lowered their baby into the bay.
The little boat, carrying the crying child, floated to the docks. The tribes living there, sequestered away in the shantytowns and slums there, took him in. He joined the broods of more mothers than anyone has a right to have with more fathers than a single buttocks can bear when the brunt of a leather belt slaps it. But he had more love than any single family could have for him.
He grew up with more siblings over the entire city than anyone could ever have and that gave him more opportunities. As a child he danced and sang for the people on the streets. In the summer he did so with bare feet and banging. In the winter, he sang with holiday songs and whistles. With his siblings beside him they made money, both those things given and those taken.
Eventually his skills with his hands, his slips into coats and homes, and his fleet feet won him the wrong kind of attention. She picked him off the street, grabbing him from his family despite their warnings, and trained him to join her. To be her.
And he was. He was good. He was skilled. He was not bad enough.
He realized the evil that latched its claws into him. He realized the desperation of the world into which he had been sucked. And he realized he needed to escape.