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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1439172-Night-of-the-falling-lights
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by Eve Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E · Draft · Fantasy · #1439172
A short story about a childhood memory, a dream, a chance to escape.
        Amy did think it was odd. Very rare, it was to have woken up this late at night. The previous time it had happened was the night before her parents would tell her that her mother was pregnant and how she knew things would never be the same again. She brushed this aside and thought instead of the dream she had had; light.
Just streaks of light. And in all the colours she could ever have imagined. But she was awake now, the lights should have stopped?. Her eyes flickered open and darted straight to the window opposite her bed. Sure enough, the lights were still trickling down behind her thin curtains. Naturally letting her burning curiosity take over, she scrambled out from under the duvet and peeped through the curtains. The sight made her eyes bulge and her jaw hang losely in awe.
Bright spheres of glowing light seemed to be falling from the sky! Yet stars were dropping out of the night then fading into nothingness. Amy wished desperatly that she was strong enough to push open her large window and save them, but she was only small and only Daddy, with the strength of a giant could undo the bolts. The snow of fading stars continued to trickle down, one bright electric blue star came close to her window before fizzling out. So close that Amy had to rub her eyes in astonishment, had there been a face inside that star, no younger than her own?
At this, Amy's heart pounded furiously then quickly dismissed the idea, she knew babies were born from their mothers. How, she didn't know but she had a little brother now and he hadn't come down from the sky. He had been born in the lounge downstairs. Amy could still remember it well, he had only been around 8 months or so.
          More and more the lights fell from the clear sky. Suddenly, amongst the flashes of the minute comets of colour and light, she saw one, quite unlike the rest. This one was glittering silver and all the shades of blue imaginable. As she watched it she guessed it couldn't be bigger than her football; nearly twice the size of her own head! She gasped as it passed the seemingly invisible line where so many of the other stars had faded away. Yet instead of dying out like the rest it seemed to get bigger and brighter. Excitment filled Amy's heart as she wished the star on, praying it would reach the ground safely. Her delight only increased as she watched it grow and grow, it was so close to the surface of the great field which stretched out for miles behind her house. Soon it was so big and so bright she had to shield her eyes against the blaze of white and blue. Now she barely noticed the other snowflake stars floating gently past.

          Without warning the brightest light she had been gazing at so intently cut out and there in its place stood something more astounding, had she fallen asleep? She blinked firmly, nope, this was real. Out in the shimmering field stood a boy. About her age, maybe abit older. She watched him cautiously behind the safetly of the glass window. Wondering is anyone else along her road could see this peculiar scene, she reminded herself to check in the morning.

          The boy seemed to be acting very strangely, as if observing his surroundings and checking to see if his body worked. He stretched his arms, legs and back. Amy couldn't help but giggle at the funny shapes he was pulling. Then the thought hit her, what if this was a secret early birthday present? Never in all her years had she been scared of fireworks, in fact she loved them. Her Daddy new this well, again, she reminded herself to thank him in the morning. An odd time of night to hold it though, maybe it was a practise and she wasnt supposed to know.  Maybe that boy had just come to watch the fireworks, or maybe he was lost, she thought, still watching him carefully.

          Her eyes didn't leave him as he looked around, hopped twice, scrunched his nose, turned to face her window and waved at her.
Waved? At her? Amy was so shocked and suprised that she shot away from the window and buried herself under her covers. Laying there for a few minutes, she listened to the sound of her heavy breathing, then poked her head up again. The lights had gone. What a blow. She had really enjoyed them, she would have to remind her Dad to buy some more. Feeling slightly more couragous now, she crept softly back towards the window. Slowly and safely peering back out through the window, the falling stars had vanished, in fact only the smallest were left in the night sky, along with the pale silver of the moon. And the strange boy was gone too. She could not find any sign of him anywhere at all now. Feeling awkwardly puzzled, she decided it was best not to tire her mind in the middle of the night, she would ponder this later tomorrow. So she took a deep breath and held it, tapped her nose three times and winked with her left eye, then her right, just for luck as her beloved grandma had taught her too.
Yawning deeply, she closed her eyes, memories of the lights twinkling in her dreams before falling asleep safe and sound.

          In the morning, Amy woke with a start. She was halfway into her school uniform when he mother came into her room, the typical cup of tea but not the typical dressing gown of a week day.
, "Relax Amy, its Saturday sweetie. And how many days till your first decade?" she asked, trying to battle the enthusiasm with tiredness. "3 days mum!!" she grinned and hurried back into her pyjama's.
      When Amy sprang downstairs she found her mum and dad fussing with her little brother Elliot. She looked fondly at them for a moment and walked into the kitchen to fetch some cereal. She almost dropped the milk when she heard her mother speak, "Shame last night was so cloudy. There was supposed to be a meteor shower. You would have loved it Amy, darling,"
Amy immediately changed her mind about inquiring into the falling stars she had seen last night. It would be unwise to bother her parents about such things, they would only worry. So she picked up her bowl of cereal and came to sit next to little Elliot and taunt him playfully with cornflakes. Her mother often remarked on how mature and responsible she was for her age but Amy disagreed, thinking it was only natural for her to act in such a fashion. Poor grown-ups, she thought, their childhoods obviously weren't full of Disney, Puff and the need to investigate mysterious events. An investigation; whatever it was, she would find that boy, she would find where the stars came from and she would have to find it all before her 10th birthday, because beyond that was another mystery all together. So began the investigation into that night, the night of the falling lights.
© Copyright 2008 Eve (riskit at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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