text: Beyond all of the stories you might hear passed or told, you may always take comfort in the idea that perhaps they are not real. I am going to quickly take away that one comfort that you have clung to. What I tell you, nay, what I rave to you is the utter truth. Perhaps that should make it more than a story, but a warning. A warning, to never look upon the stars. A short amount of backstory before I begin in earnest. I always had peculiar dreams, but oftentimes the worst moments were before I went to sleep. The time where I sat in that darkness and thoughts raced faster than your mind. These thoughts are a benign experience to a person. Perhaps it was a prior experience, or maybe you had too much electronic time before bed. Easily explained, easily dismissed. Well, until one fateful night which will live as I live. It began as most things do in the night. A moment of delirium there, a spectacular display of your mind over here, but most importantly was the thoughts. You know the thoughts I speak, the half-formed ones that sit on your waking tongue. Aye, I believe that all of you do know of what I speak. I remember these times like a blur, as when the countryside became a single conglomerate of green and browns on long road trips. These thoughts hardly mean anything, but I remember it so unbelievably clearly still. &#x200B; The world became quiet. Utterly quiet. This was an odd thing to me because I had tinnitus, so these moments of true quiet were a welcomed moment. Something to be welcomed as a dear old friend comes to visit before a long journey they don't intend to come back from. A thought startled me then, thought about the stars. I remember writing it down, and I will transpose it here. &#x200B; " The stars, when they are so close. When the sky is so low you can hear the crackling of the fires, like the crickets at night or the gulls above the ocean. You can't reach for them, because it is something we can't reach, only something to aspire to reach. " &#x200B; Well, I had that thought. It was a half-thought, not given very much time to formulate in one's head. More of something that you believed without reason than something that you didn't believe with reason. It was shortly after that I felt that I should try, really try, to grab one of the stars. I concentrated. I lay down upon my bed, and I had never been so comfortable before. I took one of my hands and stretched it out from my shoulder to as far as I could extend it into the air in front of me. I imagined myself in that place with the stars. I suppose you could call it space if you were a romantic. &#x200B; Then I gripped one of the stars, closed in a fist that my hand had formed around it. I dragged it down out of the sky, and then I opened my hand. It was the most trembling of moments. The light was blinding, yet my eyes did not close. I was alone in that darkness, a floating form in a vast empty space. In my hands lay a star, one plucked out of the sky. I looked upon it, and let the light flow over me. It was the most unbelievably expansive moment of my life. It felt as if it lasted hours, but it could have been no more than a moment. No more than a moment was all it took. I cried then, the first time in a decade. It was not a trembling beast, nor some alien entity, it was myself. &#x200B; It was everything I had done, my sin's laid bare to myself. For a while, I cried and shook inconceivably, and yet I found myself laughing. Laughing because this was it, the truth. The truth I sought about myself so much, and it was laid in front of me. At that moment I hated myself but found an acceptance as well. It gave me strength. Yet it was a strength given, not taken. I resolved to make myself a better person, for I could not live with what I had done. I fell asleep shortly after, although I could give you no exact time. I found that upon waking I felt good, great even. It was the best sleep I had had in years. &#x200B; Yet time stands still for no man, least of all. The next day, I had risen. I felt good. I continued on, resolving to be a better person. I failed spectacularly and shortly fell into old habits. I was lazy, and overall not a good person in my most private of moments. Then I felt what it really was, it was not some blessing. It was a curse, a penance. It spoke against your nature and gave you goals beyond what you could achieve. It drives you mad, to know what you want so desperately, and to know that you have not the strength to do it. Oh yes, completely and utterly mad. &#x200B; Thus events lead us here. The present. I feel it calling, always. A desire to look upon the star once more and see judgment. Yet I am scared too. I have phrased it many a time differently but when it comes down to it, I am just scared. I am scared because I know what that Star is. It's a door, a door to madness. I have the keys to it, and I can't get rid of them. It calls to me, not in some schizophrenic voice way, but it's there. In a way, it's comforting. I can leave everything behind, with just a turn of a nob. &#x200B; You may question the horror in this story. You may sit down and state your beliefs, but of this I remind you. You no longer have the comfort of maybe, perhaps, it was all a story. You forfeited that when you read this story. That is the horror of it, that no matter what you think, you are a witness. You will imagine that star eventually, and it will change you. Some of you sooner than others. By telling you, I have damned you. I am sorry, and that is truthful. &#x200B; Now, I am on the edge. I take deep breaths, my hands move deftly on the keyboard. My room smells of old socks, the hallway of filthy water. My screen is slightly too bright and puts a strain on my eyes. The lower of my back aches slightly because of how I have been sitting. The one light in my room is off. The room is deathly quiet. &#x200B; The light is off because I am going to look upon the star again tonight.