The Stars

  Howard was a strange man. Barely having reached the age of thirty-two years, one could almost feel the palpable aura of cold cynicism radiating from the man. Or maybe it was just the sickness. Howard had been sickly nearly his entire life; because of this, as well as strange looks and interests, the other children had avoided him. Living such a secluded life, Howard found comfort and kinship with only the stars. When even the boys own parents could not be trusted to socialize with him, he turned to the grand cosmos overhead and lost himself in the shimmering miasma of the night sky.

  The practice stuck with him all through childhood, and into adult life, so it was no surprise when on just such a day of frustration he found himself out shivering in the ark, waiting for what was supposed to be the greatest star-shower of the century. His thin form was racked with asthmatic coughs as he adjusted the telescope, and the frigid night air stabbed at his feeble lungs. Wiping his mouth, and running his hand through tight brown hair, Howard peered through the looking glass into his cosmic wonderland.

  Being a man so obsessed with the galaxy, and far off stars, Howard strangely held no faith in the concept of otherworldly beings like aliens or Gods. No real material proof existed, and he was a man of science! If it were to be real, it could be tested, and felt: experienced, and known. Everything else was just conjecture, and Howard had little time for anyone else's theories. Faith and God had no place in Howard's life, save the faith in his precious stars, and their omnipresent light.

  As he looked into the winking starlight, Howard felt a rare experience of ease and kinship as he began to jot down his observations and findings on a small pad of paper that rested before him. Unremarkable notes, as could be expected so early into the night, but such may be able to provide contrast with hopefully remarkable findings later during the course of the star-shower.

  Panning across the sky, Howard shifted his focus onto the full moon, standing sentinel in the sky like his own porcelain guardian. The night was completely motionless out in the field behind his solitary country home, caught in a strange sort of gossamer under the lunar titan. The trees and grass stood stock still, as not even a breath of wind could be felt, and it was unnaturally quiet for the rural area; normally the multitudes of crickets would be well into their cacophonous chorus by now, and the slinking masses of nocturnal predators would be skulking about. But not tonight, it would seem.

  'Good.' Howard thought aloud, 'There will be nothing to distract me from tonight; I've had to wait too long for this.' Licking his lips, and slowly panning once again across the night sky, he decided to check his watch. 10:43 pm the small digital display read, and Howard smiled his approval. The star-shower was set for circa eleven o'clock, and he was growing impatient with the ceaselessly monotonous night. Scarcely a minute could have passed before he checked his watch again, cursing his impatience.

  A bright flash out of the periphery of his vision caught his attention, and he quickly swivelled thinking it was the beginning of the star-shower, momentarily forgetting that it was supposed to happen in the north, and this was more south-south east. Realizing his mistake, Howard began to turn away until the bright flash glared again. Even without his telescope, Howard could tell that the fulcrum star of Cygnus was pulsing strangely; the flash was bright enough to be a floodlight shun upon him.

  Startled by the abrupt pulsing, Howard stood transfixed, gawking at the solar strobe light. It wasn't long, however, before his scientific curiosity re-asserted itself and he grabbed his telescope to observe the star more intimately. Adjusting the lens for the distance, and squinting against the glare, he peered into the depths of the light.

  What he saw seemed impossible. Behind the overall glare which would go from blindingly immense, to diminutively dull, the star was clearly writhing and contorting. Scratching the observations wildly on his notepad, scarcely looking away from the pulsing star, Howard knew he had to slow his excited breathing before he experienced another coughing fit.

  'So strange, I wonder what could possibly have caused this. Could the star be dieing?' Howard thought sadly at the concept of the ancient flames extinguishing, yet he was all at once excited to be granted a real time view of a stars death. 'So unusual that it would happen so suddenly and violently. Stars usually go through hundreds of years of noticeable decay before dieing... Very strange indeed...' Jotting down similar information to the margin of his page, Howard began to wince in the glaring light.

  Abruptly, Howard's vision began to blacken and blur. It felt as if a palpable heat was produced by the starlight, and it was drying out his eyes. Howard pulled away from the telescope and wiped at his eyes to re-moisturize them. Wondering at the strange event, he absently marked it on the notepad. Deciding to give his eyes a rest from the strain of the lens, Howard examined the star with his naked eye.

  Disappointed that he had forgot his camera, Howard stared intently at the sporadic light, trying to memorize every detail, and was surprised as his vision began to darken again. Faster this time. The darkness entered his vision like a pestilence descending on a crop. He flailed his arms wildly as he fell to the ground after it seemed some ethereal force shoved him down. Beginning to hyperventilate as the oppressive darkness clouded his vision; Howard succumbed to a violent coughing fit as it crushed his lungs. But as he tried to sit up and draw breath, the force smashed back into him, pounding his body back into the turf with an audible CRACK! Of his head.

  'Grovel, fleshling.'  An impulse of pure inferiority came through Howard's being as an omniscient voice spoke to his mind. 'You will be made to suffer in the dirt which birthed you.' Trembling, and again trying to regain his feet, Howard was predictably smashed back into the ground. Struggling blindly, Howard tried to fight the invisible and ethereal power that detained him.

  His fight, however, was short lived as he felt the strange force blanket his entire body, smothering him against the ground. After his blind thrashing, Howard no longer knew which side of him was pressed against the ground as he felt the omnipresent force on every side.

  'You're going to die, Howard.' The voice teased, 'But not just yet. It is not so often that Rithulsen permits me to play.'

  Howard's mind screamed for logical security, but none could be found in the completely illogical situation. Could he be being abducted? No. That simply wasn't possible. What use could alien races have for humans, even if they did exist?

  'Exactly, little fleshling. What use could such pitiable dust ever be? Your insignificance offends me.' It was terrible that The Voice, the oppression, and his fear were the only things for him to experience. The Voice was damning, the oppression suffocating, and the fear maddening. Howard felt completely drained, but he knew the struggle was far from over.

  'Wrong, puppet. Your struggle was over the moment you drew breath. You and your entire race are simply puppets, victims to the whims of those greater than you. You share in the same destiny as the rest of your race: death. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. You, are impotence; you, are failure.' 

  Howard cowered mentally from The Voice. It talked to him with such a burning hatred, that scorched flames through his very being that went on to burn the very essence of man, and the roots of the race. It was almost as if The Voice wasn't just criticizing him, but the entire human race. Worse, he wasn't even able to speak to, or defend himself, from the oratory talons of the omnipotent Voice. Howard tried to struggle again, but still found himself held within the crushing grip of the strange force.

  Ploopsh. A thick sound of some large, gelatinous substance hitting the ground startled him with its sudden nearness. Howard cringed internally as he had an impulse that The Voice was laughing at him, and he could very audible hear a thick oozing and slithering sound draw nearer. Then he felt a hot, sticky, jelly like substance run onto his body, burning slightly where it touched his flesh. A muscular appendage of rubbery, slime covered flesh snaked across his chest, which Howard fancied as a tentacle.

  This is impossible....

  Howard winced as the tentacle was joined by many more, and the burning ooze spread further on his body. Howard felt his lungs begin to tighten, and he knew another coughing fit was inevitable. Fighting his hardest to avoid the show of weakness, the battle ended in vain as the rasping cough erupted from his throat. The fit was quickly cut off as the thing covered his mouth with the goop, and he was left spluttering until he retched the slime off of his face, and out of his mouth.

  'Disgusting, creature. But worry not, your filth ends soon. This entire race, this, human stain, will wash out.' 

  Howard shook as the strange creature continued its thorough coating of his body in the hot goo. Even shaking was cumbersome with the force bearing down on him. The only thing worse than the paralysis was the blindness. For all of his conditions and illnesses, Howard's eyes had always been perfect. Now even that had been taken away from him. The fear in his chest tightened, and he feared the coughing, or retching might return if the terror didn't dissipate. And as the creature continued its work, tightening tentacles on his now slick body, adding to the pressure; he knew he would die alone, in silence. He didn't even scream.

  He couldn't...

                                                                        *  *  *

  The next day, the local paper boy was quite startled when he found that not only the mail box, but Howard's entire house seemed to have disappeared. Running onto the property, the delivery boy promptly visited the neighbours to have them contact emergency services, fearing a fire or other such calamity. When the police and fire fighters arrived, the latter were quickly dismissed as if there had been a fire, it was long past preventable. Everything was gone.

  The police spread out to search the area, and a few of the neighbours joined the search party, but no explanation could be found. The house was gone. All signs of Howard's residence and personal property had vanished with it, and the neighbours were utterly flabbergasted. Although none had been close to him, all knew he had lived there and that no signs of fire, or calamity were present were decidedly unsettling given the disappearance of the house. The search went on for several hours, but little by little, people began to give up, and many wondered if there ever really had been a man named Howard living there. It had been years since anyone had made contact with him. Maybe he had moved away? But the paper boy insisted he had seen Howard just recently when he had come to take his mail the previous Thursday, waving a sheathe of letters addressed to Howard at this location. It was not long after that when someone came forward with Howard's notepad. The man's face was pallid as he handed it to the nearest officer.

  Taking it gruffly, the officer read the notes passively until drawing close to the end, where Howard's script ended, and was replaced by a new hand's writing. The writing was meticulously and perfectly crafted: the kind of writing only a computer could craft. But the instrument used was clearly the same pen as the earlier notes.

  The seemingly mechanical printing was a mockingly scientific dictation of Howard's capture, torment, and murder by the "Sky-Beings". The notes spared no detail, and gave an in-depth description of all the emotions and feelings Howard experienced during the course of the night. It also ended with a singular message that this was only the beginning, and that for the "human stain" time was reaching its end.

  The cosmos were closing.

  The notepad was passed amongst all the officers, as the civilians were dismissed and thanked for their help. Once they were sure everybody had left, the officers burned the notepad. It was decided that Howard would never be talked about again, and all his personal records were to be destroyed. Howard's family was never sought out, or notified of his passing, and his scientific findings were accredited to other men and women of his field. His property was eventually condemned, and then rebuilt over, and many of the country-folk did their best to forget that Howard had ever existed. But all the country-folk also feel that their own time draws near, and every year on November 3rd, the date of Howard's disappearance, the fulcrum star of Cygnus has been mentioned to be "strangely glowing", and any number of patients in nearby mental institutions have stated that very star as the reason for their violent crimes, and loss of sanity.