My Shooting Star(k)

Prologue

All she remembered was the explosion...

It knocked her off her feet, sending her flying. She landed roughly on the ground a few meters back.

A small machine landed beside her. It cracked, and the small light in it flickered between on and off.

She felt a searing pain in her chest, and then... all went black...

She had entered the land of dreams. Usually, her dreams were weird and full of crazy adventures. But this time they were different...

Memories... 

Memories of good times, and bad.

The black melted away, and she found herself on the roof of her home, staring at the golden stars.

She looked towards the mainland, Malibu's coast. The stars twinkled at her, but she wasn't looking at them. She was looking for something else.

She caught a glimmer of orange in her peripheral vision, and quickly turned to look at it. The glimmer burst into a blaze, and she smiled, "There you are."

She watched it soar across the sky, "My Shooting Star...", she mumbled.

She knew, of course, that it was no real star, let alone a shooting-star, yet it caught her attention, time and time again. She exactly knew what it was.

It seemed to come back for her.

A smile made its way to her lips, and she didn't stop it.

She could have sat there forever, staring at the stars, hoping, knowing that her Shooting Star would come back for her.

But, soon enough, she heard her mother calling for her. 

"Coming!" She called back, and clambered down from the roof...

Her vision went black again, and she drifted to another memory... She saw the explosion coming this time, it had all happened before.

Moments later, there was a loud bang, a flash, and... pain...

There was always pain in her memories.

She screamed, knowing what was about to happen, but there was no way to avoid it. She shards from the missile hit her hard, and she wanted to scream again, but the sound refused to come out of her mouth.

The poison made it's way into her body, and she heard her mom calling her, vaguely in the background. 

More pain... And then all went black once more. Actually, she preferred the black to the harsh memories of her past. The black was much more welcoming.

She pushed the thought away, as another memory flashed into view.

Her mother sat with her at the table, ranting about her father.

"He was rich, but uncaring. He never shared any of his money with us. He pretended to love me, and then left me before I even saw it coming." A tear slipped down her mother's face.

She knew very well that much of this story wasn't true, but she couldn't do anything except listen.

"He abandoned me," her mother continued, "and didn't even care to look back."

She sighed.

She was pretty sure that her father died a long time ago, and that explained the whole 'abandoning and not looking back' thing. She'd still rather not be reminded of him though.

She shook the memory away, and she was back in the black space. She could hear herself breathing, it was so quiet.

She blinked, and then she was a kid again. 

She smiled, and dashed after the old, broken ball. It may have been kaput, but it was all they had to play with, so they did.

She smiled at the memory of playing 'soccer' with her old friends, and that smile broadened as the wind caught her almost black hair.

She kicked the ball, as hard as she could, and it flew right between the two sticks that they called a goal.

"Gooooooooooal!" She yelled, as she dashed across the field, cheering.

She tripped over a tree root which was embedded in the rough ground of their 'soccer field'. She slipped into the mud, but got up laughing. 

Then she heard her mother call her for lunch and groaned. She knew she was in big trouble...

Luckily, all went black again. She sighed and wiped for the next memory to appear.

After a while of nothing, she reached out into the darkness. But there was nothing to touch...

She was alone, in a world with nothing but black space...

"Help!" She called.

But no answer came.

The black stared back at her, but then her hand touched something. She was relieved at first, but then she realised that the black walls were closing in around her.

"Help!" She called again, more desperate this time.

Nothing.

The pressure was becoming hard to bear, and the lack of oxygen was stuffing up her thoughts, but the darkness kept closing in.

"Help..." She muttered one last time.

And then she was lost...