klancepride with cal

day 8- stars

Keith hated how the light pollution in his city obscured the stars. One of his favorite things to do when he was back home in Texas was looking at the stars, drinking them in, lost in the feeling of being so insignificantly small. 

It was one of those nights- he was home at the Texas farmhouse his parents owned and he was sitting on the roof, spread out on a blanket with a glass of ice-cold lemonade and his speakers playing Wallows softly. 

Summer nights in Texas, while still pretty hot, were cool enough to enjoy, especially if it was a clear night. Keith was resting his head on his folded hands, shirt riding up, barefoot and sunburnt. He loved the blissful feeling of these types of nights.

And tonight was especially perfect- there was supposed to be a meteor shower in- Keith checked his watch- 2 minutes. He'd only ever seen one really exciting meteor shower before, two summers ago with Shiro. It had caught them off guard to see so many shooting stars at once, as they hadn't known there was going to be one. 

But Shiro was with his family this week so he'd call Keith afterword so they could discuss the shower. 

Keith spotted the first shooting star and settled back, turning up his music and allowing a cheesy smile to spread across his face like honey on the toast his mom made him for breakfast. And then there was another. And another and another. Keith made a wish on every meteor he saw. 

He stayed out on the roof for an hour, watching the comets zip by, making arbitrary wishes here and there. 

Keith was just about to climb back inside through his window when he heard a faint rumbling roar. He searched for the source of the noise and his eyes landed on a shooting star. However, this meteor wasn't traveling across the dome of the globe. This one was aimed straight towards Earth. 

And another thing- the comet was bright, shining blue. Not like blue fire. Not like a blue sky. This was like melting sapphires, like the cobalt of a peacock, like the lapis lazuli in his grandmother's heirloom ring. 

Keith sat up and skittered like a crab across the roof to his bedroom window, hesitating at the sill to track the meteor's trajectory roughly with his eyes. Within the minute, he had thrown on a sweatshirt, shoved his feet into his vans, and was grabbing the keys to his motorcycle as he ran outside. 

The roaring of the comet was growing louder by the second and the object itself was hurtling closer and closer to Earth. Keith jumped onto his motorcycle, thrust the key into the ignition, and then kicked off down the pavement, following the comet's path with his eyes. 

His motorcycle purred beneath him and he urged it faster and faster, almost racing the comet. Together, they pushed their speed, the comet falling from the height of a house to the height of a tree to the height of a person to... CRASH. 

The meteor kept skidding along the sandy dirt ground for several hundred feet even after it hit, even bouncing a few times as it slowed. Keith carefully skidded to a stop and parked his motorcycle before jogging over to the object. 

It was then that he realized that the comet was not a comet at all. It was a large, perfectly round, sapphire-blue orb. Keith stepped closer, eyes wide and mouth agape. The thing was pulsing. And then, with a hiss, it split down the center, a plume of vapor releasing from its interior. 

Keith stepped forward cautiously, the flashlight of his phone scanning the interior of the egg-like object. The vapor cleared and, sitting huddled in the center of the fragments of the egg sat a boy. 

He didn't look much older than Keith and his skin was the color of mocha caramel and mahogany, his hair a darker shade. He looked up and his eyes met Keith's. They were as blue as the egg that fell broken around him. Two boomerang-like markings glowed a soft turquoise on his cheeks. 

"Well, hello," the alien said softly. 

...

lmao deja vu of the outliers prologue i just realized lol whoops