I am falling. I have been caught by a monster which cannot be seen, but for the path of destruction it carves through the cosmos. It pulls me in, and as I plummet the universe bends and folds back on itself, and for a brief moment I can see everything that is and ever was.
In the twisted relay of light I see the nebula that was my birthing ground. Its radiance surrounds me with heat and color. Bursting clouds and arching forms in writhing wings of gossamer, painted with hydrogen and illuminated from within by the glow of its children.
Mother nebula had formed me, along with my sisters, from parts of herself. Coaxing and coalescing until we were strong enough enough to shine on our own. Then she breathed into us life and our hearts began to flutter with the embers of fusion.
In our mother’s embrace, I played with my sisters, plunging into misted veils and swinging through spangled swaths of life-dust. She would tell us tales of the far reaches of the galaxy, where the giants danced and the pixies sang and all was filled with starlight.
We fed and we grew until we wore our blazing souls upon our skins. My sisters became celestial white, amorous gold and lustrous blue, but I outshone them all, growing until my heart burned crimson and dusted the cosmos with copper.
We were bright and we were strong and out light filled the void and brought the universe to life.
When finally it was time to leave mother nebula, I brought my sisters with me, towing them along in my swinging, arcing, drifting wake. As a cluster we roamed, traversing the galactic breadths of our home. Through the dark and the cold, to the place where we could dance to the music of sprites, where the light of giants would encompass us. For though we wandered in darkness, we were beings of the light, and the light we would always seek.
Our golden sister was the first to leave us. She found for herself a child, small and rocky, misshapen and dull. But she called it a jewel and said her light in the void was enough for them both. Where we journeyed, her child could not follow, so she left our cluster and started out on her own path. We continued without her, to the place where the titans performed an eternal ballet.
My white sister, the little pearl of our cluster, was the next to depart. She met another, a speck of silver on black velvet, and the two entered into a lover’s dance. A spiraling tryst, an embrace in which they would never touch. But her dance was not for us, my last sister and I, for we were giants, and giants danced where diamond dwarfs drummed a symphony without sound.
And so we journeyed onwards, through the blackness that was made of nothing, until finally, amidst spiraling arms, we reached an endless sky filled with light. Here the giants roamed, hearts blazing gold, blue and red. Their bodies twisted, endlessly moving. Coronal arms swaying, sweeping, weaving as they twirled silken scarves of light and fire. An endless chasse in a celestial waltz. I danced among the giants, adding my own stellar flares to the cosmic display. Interspersed between us tap-danced the pixies, the diamond dwarfs that were the remnants of fallen giants. They spun faster than any of us, sending out their light in an array of bursts, each with its own song, sung for the stellar beauty it had been before.
Eons passed and still I danced, until finally, I could dance no more. My burning heart gave one last beat, one last pulse to fill the heavens with light and I shed my skin and the radiance it held. When the light faded and my heart cooled I was but a piece of myself. A crimson drop among the giants. I sought out my sister, the blue belle, but my light was so dim now that she could not see me among the brilliance of the others. Even the diamond dwarfs would not have me among their ranks, for though they were small, theirs were the hearts of titans and their light blazed across the cosmos with unmatched ardor.
I left the place where the giants danced, returning to the darkness. I willed my light to fill the void, but my heart was weak and my soul tired. I was but a speck in the blackness, and so it was that I did not see the monster approach. It’s heart swallowed light and gave none back, it was a being of pure dark and it had found me. I tried to flee but its pull was too strong, and I was too small, too faint to even call for aid. I was so dim now that none would even notice my passing, into this, the blackest of holes.
I watch the universe crease and overlap and everything is distorted. The distant giants continue to dance, their waving arms stretched from one side of the galaxy to another. I am pulled towards the monster’s maw, a pit of dark from which no light ever escapes. The edge nears and soon I will tumble over the abyss, into nothing, into darkness.
As I crest the horizon there is a warmth I did not expect. A gentle glow beckons me, then becomes brighter, stronger. It surrounds me and my soul is renewed with the radiance of a billion stars, collected over eons and kept hidden. Within the monster’s secret heart is the universe.
I am falling into starlight.