"Not Alone Anymore" is one of the September Writing Challenge entries that was chosen to be a featured story.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there lived a very special boy. This boy had a very special job; he was in charge of arranging the stars in the night sky. He created billions of pictures within the stars, not to create beauty, but to feel he wasn’t alone. Every night he created something new, from animals to gardens of magnificent star dust. The boy became friends with the stars, grew to love them, but he craved a real friendship, someone to share the night with. The boy was lonely and this saddened him.
Eventually, the boy’s sorrow took over, and he stopped putting the stars up, determined to fade away with them. Many starless nights passed before a small voice reached out from the darkness. “Please don’t go. You’re my only friend.” Astonished and quite startled to hear another person’s voice, the boy threw out a collection of stars, creating a torch in the darkness. What the boy saw left him speechless; he thought it could only be a dream. Illuminated by the light stood another person, a girl.
Sensing the boy’s agitation, the girl spoke again. “Please don’t go,” she said. “I get so lonely in the darkness.” Her voice was like honey, her eyes shined brighter than any star, and she was real, telling him to stay.
A smile spread across his face, chasing away the darkness which had settled so long ago. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, “and if you stay, I promise you won’t ever have to be lonely. You’ll have me and the stars.”
Surprised and joyful, the girl stood shocked, unable to speak. After years of wandering alone in hopes of finding the creator of the stars she loved dearly, she found him and he wanted her to stay. “If you don’t want to stay with a stranger, I understand,” said the boy grimly, the stars around them dimming.
Finally the girl found her voice. “You’re not a stranger,” she said. “I’ve known you for years through the stars, fallen in love with the light they’ve shown me. I would love to stay with you.”
His reply was simple. “Come sit with me.”
From then on, in a galaxy once so lonely, the two watched the days turn to nights together. They painted the sky with murals of stardust, hung for all to see. Hung so all would have a friend in the sky. And they were never lonely or sad, spending their days with the friend they never thought they’d have.