Cross Council Page 18

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  If it was possible to pass out on your feet and still manage to stand erect, that was the state Aimee was in. She held her hands out, seeking something to hold on to. She saw the bed she had just fled. It was elevated and covered with a plush silver spread, similar to the material Salvan wore. On either side were two bowl-shaped chairs, silver in color as well. There were no lamps, but light emanated in a soft glow from the ceiling. Another source of illumination was the far wall, which was comprised of a bank of windows. It was to this wall that Aimee moved on numbed feet. A scream bubbled up in her throat again, but she choked it back as she reached the glass and stared out.

  The hard steady glare of the stars unnerved her. Stars do not twinkle in space, she remembered her geosciences teacher telling them. On the nights that she would sit out by the pond and memorize constellations, they were nothing more than distant pinpoints of twinkling light spaced in random patterns. Out this window though, they simply stared back at her and took on an alien structure and there were literally billions of them as if a hole in the atmospheric layers had opened up to offer this unique vista.

  But it wasn’t the stars that fascinated her so much. The stars were easy to look at compared to the giant bright orb she saw through the other half of the wall of windows. She recognized the sight from text books and documentaries. Blue. The deepest blue ever imaginable, with swirling white clouds like the pattern inside a cotton candy machine. It was so close she couldn’t even see its full circumference. She struggled to breathe as she took in the familiar land patterns, recognizing the forms beneath a foamy layer of clouds as the distinctive outline of Africa.

  The sphere that was illuminating the room was a planet.

  It was Earth.

  Aimee passed out.