Starfall

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. As a matter of fact, there hadn’t always been a Valley. Looking down from a perch high up in the ruins, Æric could barely remember that time. He’d only seen 6 summers when the star fell, and they were setting up for the 10th Starfall celebration at the end of summer. Could it really be 10 years already?

Æric’s memories of Starfall and the days before were scattered and hectic at best. He most vividly remembered the noises - sounds he had never experienced before, or since.

* * *

At first there had just been talking; all of the adults had begun talking all at once. The phone systems got overloaded that day like it does on holidays. Everyone was trying to call each other all at once and the whole thing just shut down. They had to start cycling the service areas for a while and email got popular again. Æric’s parents spent a lot of time sitting in front of their television sets watching other adults talk about meteors and showing pictures from a satellite camera. He also recalled his own confusion and uncertainty because, suddenly, none of them were talking to him.

The ARMY came in and set up camps outside of the city, and Æric remembered the seemingly endless grumbling of large engines moving up and down the streets. One night in particular, the engines suddenly became louder than he had ever heard them before, and light suddenly flooded through his bedroom window. The silence was deafening after the engines suddenly switched off and then was suddenly shattered by a rapid thumping on the front-door. A few moments later, his parents came rushing up the stairs and grabbed him and his little sister, Jæde, out of bed, and hurriedly stuffed whatever clothes they could into a large laundry basket. His dad carried them both outside and his mom followed closely behind with the basket. They climbed into the back of a big green truck, and Æric recognized his neighbors climbing in around them. The truck had wooden benches up and down each side and the middle aisle was being crammed with bags, baskets and pets that were too large to be held on their owners’ laps. Æric’s head snapped towards the back when he heard a loud clang and he saw that a gate had been raised along the back of the truck and the last seats had been filled. He could hear bolts being slid into place to secure the gate, and two loud thumps on the back right before the truck’s engine roared to life.

The ride was bumpy and the only sounds Æric heard were the rattling of the truck and the occasional whine of a dog or baby; even the animals seemed to understand that now was not the time to make noise. The rattling grew more intense and Æric remembered a murmuring starting at the back of the truck and working its way up to the front where his family sat against the back of the cab.

“We’ve left the city,” his dad sighed. “I guess it’s finally happening.”

“What’s happening?” Jæde asked.

“There’s a big shooting star coming, honey,” their mom said, rubbing Jæde’s back. “They’re just worried it might land too close to the house, so we’re going camping for a bit.” She was smiling, but Æric thought she looked scared.

“Are we going to get to make s’mores?” Jæde looked up at her mom, seemingly oblivious to the worry that permeated the interior of the olive canvas arching overhead.

“I’m sure we will honey… I’m sure we will.” Their dad reached over and put his hand on her head, rubbing his thumb across her forehead before folding his hands together in his lap looking at them in a way that had Æric wondering if he had just noticed something strange about them. He remembered how his dad would sometimes joke and say “I know this like the back of my hand!” and then he would fake a confused look as he looked at his hand and ask, “Wait! Where’d that come from?” The kids never stopped finding that funny.

A short while later the truck slowed down and - after a few turns that had dogs yelping and people being jostled back and forth - came to a stop. Within the sudden silence left by the engine turning off, Æric couldn’t hear anything at first, but soon came shouted orders, the bang of the gate as it was dropped, and the bustle of people filing out and away from the truck. They found themselves in a large dirt clearing on a hillside overlooking the city, with a large green tent in the middle, the same color as the truck they’d just been in. Æric heard an engine roar to life and a crunching of gravel as the truck that had just dropped them off pulled out of the clearing and back down the dirt path they had come in on. They were guided by some soldiers to a line that had formed in front of the tent.

Æric didn’t know what happened next, but his dad talked to some soldiers with clipboards and they were led around a hill to vast sea of tents that flowed up a gentle rise in the mountains north of Phoenix. Turning, he could see the sparkling lights that made up the city at night.

“Do you know which one’s our house, Dad?” he asked, pulling on his dad’s hand as he stopped to stare.

“Well bud, we have a yellow porch light, right?” Crouching down next to Æric, he pointed with confidence at a cluster of lights in the middle of everything. “I think our house is right around there.”

He stood with a groan and turned Æric away from the lights. “Let’s see about getting a fire started.”

The next few days were a repeat of the same cycle. When they woke up, everyone was milling about a long tent that sat in the middle of all of the smaller ones. Æric could see smoke rising from one end of it, and they were all given pie tins that were filled with eggs and hashbrowns. Jæde cried when they didn’t have any ketchup. She even liked it on her eggs but their mom whispered something to her and she ate her food without further objections. She still did not look happy tho.

They stayed at their tent for the rest of the day and Æric could still hear trucks coming and going with more loads of people. His dad left a few times to “see if there was any news.” Each time he just came back and would shake his head before sitting down and looking at his hands some more. They ate the same chicken and rice for dinner each day, and then went back to their tent. Æric could hear his parents whispering at night when they thought he was asleep. His mother just wanted to go home, and his dad just always said “We will honey. It’s going to be over soon.”

On the third night, after they had gone to bed, Æric heard the zipper to their tent open and opened his eyes to see his parents leaving. It looked like the sun was coming up, but he didn’t think he’d been asleep long enough. Curious, he poked his head outside and saw all of the adults standing outside of their tents, looking up at a bright star that was slowly moving across the sky. He figured that this must be the shooting star everyone had been talking about. He was about to wake his sister when his dad looked down and saw him, motioning for him to be quiet and come join them.

As he looked on, he realized that the star was getting bigger and closer to where they were standing, and he began to hear a whooshing sound like a far off waterfall. It quickly grew to a roar and - with an indescribable sound - the star hit the city.

* * *

They’d stayed at the camp a few more days until the flames stopped rising from the giant crack left behind by the Star. It was that crack that Æric looked out over now, from his perch in the Ruins. It had been dubbed “the Valley” and after 10 years, they still hadn’t cleared out all of the damaged buildings that ran up and down each side. No one lived or worked there anymore, but they seemed to only clear buildings when they needed to make room for new ones. The people that had lived here had been relocated or had left to join family in other states. More houses were being built every day across the desert as more and more people flocked to Phoenix; Æric’s dad liked to say that the new crack drew more tourists to Arizona than “the old one.”

Æric looked around at the sound of aerosol releasing, and watched as someone continued working on a mural they were painting for the Starfall celebration. Many of the walls in the Ruins, and even older murals, had been graffitied and the Council didn’t want any of “that ugliness” to remain when the festival started. With that thought, Æric stood and dusted off his pants before hefting his pack and continuing down the ladder through the makeshift scaffolding that had been erected to allow them to reach the upper levels of the Ruins. He’d been tasked with whitewashing the walls that hadn’t been designated for murals but were still deemed “unfit” by the Council. Æric wasn’t artistic in any usual sense of the word, so he wasn’t interested in creating new murals. What he was interested in was getting paid while school was out for the festival. Having been part of the crew that set up the scaffolds, Æric had no trouble making his way up, around, and through the Ruins.

Jumping down the last few rungs, Æric made his way over to the next building and began unloading his pack to begin painting again. As he was levering the lid off of his can of white paint, he heard a rustle behind him and felt a gust of hot air, smelling slightly of sulfur, ruffle his hair. He pretended he didn’t notice anything, and began pouring the paint into his roller tray. He still didn’t turn around when he heard an agitated shuffling back and forth on the rubble behind him, and smiled to himself when he heard an irritated grunt.

He took his time getting his brushes and roller out and, when he finally did turn around, he looked up with a big grin. “You’re getting better at being sneaky, Dag.”