Note from Steph: I am becoming picky about the voices. I've tried a bunch of different providers now and I like OpenAI's TTS and Eleven Labs the best, but Eleven Labs is so expensive. OpenAI is pretty cheap, thankfully. I'm still using MicMonster occasionally, but their voices have so little inflection.
The stars are going out like candles at closing time, one by one, leaving holes in the constellations I’ve known since childhood. I mark another empty space in my star chart — Betelgeuse finally gave up last week. Orion’s shoulder has gone dark.
My boots sink into wet sand as I walk my usual route between the sea stacks. Their dark silhouettes remind me of the radio telescopes I used to work with, before we admitted defeat and shut down the observatories. No point in studying dying stars when we still don’t understand why they’re failing.
But that one…
I stop, checking my charts again. That bright point above the tallest stack? All the stars in that sector went dark months ago, yet there it is, pulsing like a heartbeat. Getting brighter.
“What are you?” I whisper to the impossible star. The waves crash behind me, their rhythm almost like an answer.
I’ve been tracking this star for weeks now, hiding my observations from what’s left of the astronomical community. They’d just say I’m seeing things, desperate for hope. Maybe I am. When you’ve spent forty years studying the stars, watching them die is like losing family.
But this one… this one feels different. Personal, somehow. Like it’s been waiting for someone to notice it’s breaking all the rules.
Like it’s been waiting for me.
The mist parts, and the star pulses again, brighter than yesterday.
I pull out my spectroscope — old school, analog, because digital equipment stopped working when the stars began to fade. The readings make no sense. This star isn’t dying.
Maybe it’s evolving?
My hands shake as I make notes in my journal. The composition is changing, becoming something I’ve never seen before. The hydrogen signature is there, but twisted, like it’s being rewritten.
A wave crashes closer than expected, spraying my boots. I should head back. The tide’s coming in, and at my age, night vision isn’t what it used to be. But…
Another pulse. Brighter. Almost like it’s saying hello.
“This is ridiculous,” I tell myself, backing away from the encroaching water. “Stars don’t say hello.”
The star flashes twice, as if disagreeing.
I laugh, the sound strange against the crash of waves. When was the last time I laughed? Before the stars started dying? Before we lost Polaris and had to rewrite navigation? Before —
The light shifts, and suddenly I understand. It’s not that this star refused to die.
It’s that it chose to change instead.
I open my journal to a fresh page and write: “Day 847 of the Great Darkness. Today, I observed the first star to evolve. Will it be here tomorrow?”
Above me, the star pulses like a promise.
Image made with Midjourney.
Flash Fiction written by S. J. Pajonas with assistance from Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
Listen to this story on YouTube at https://youtu.be/WcMN0r_XST4
