Outline Of A Star
The window only ever gave her stars.
What was once a spectacular sight capable of inspiring awe and universal connection had become a tiresome existential burden. The stars weaved a mosaic of origins, twisting to form every imaginable shape. From the center compartment in the “social quarter,” Aliyah spotted Joran leaning into the curve of the window's familiar glass display. His outline flickered. Her survival instinct begged her to feel some level of compassion toward him, but she couldn’t bring herself to look past his artificiality. For a while after she arrived, he couldn’t even talk. He just sat there, glimmering uncontrollably, before graduating to broken sentences. As far as she knew, she was the only living being on board, drifting toward her eventual destination.
The ship never hummed or buzzed. It never pulsed with the rhythm of engines, and no thrusters could be seen or accessed from anywhere on board. The vessel seemed to breathe in tandem with its passenger. Aliyah didn’t remember how she boarded or how long she’d been there. By this point, it could have been years. Never so much as an introduction to their circumstances or their navigators. Her only solace was knowing she hadn’t gone without her necessities, from the crisp cabin oxygen to the bottomless feeding tubes in their quarters.
Joran looked at her through the crack in the compartment door. She pressed a finger to her lips as a familiar metallic sound emanated from the other side of the social quarter. As he turned away, she brushed her fingers over the symbols on the inside of the compartment. These weren’t random gouges. They were all around the ship. She traced the elegant strokes, the sharp hooks, and the looping forms. This was no language from Earth. She had spent most of her time on board copying them the way she had once done with obscure languages she’d been paid to decipher. Translating had once been her job, her only talent. Now it was her tether. If the ship wanted her to solve these, she would. But for now, she was hiding.
A faint scrape greeted her from the other side of the mainframe door. She stiffened. The Snake, a large coiled appendage, pried the door open. It pulsed with an interior glow as it hovered in front of her. Recently, it had been trailing her with more frequency. Even though it had never become violent with her, she dreaded the sight of it. Every time it latched onto her, she was filled with a desolate sense of panic. The first time she saw it, she screamed until her voice gave out. Now, she could only hide. Unfortunately, there weren’t many places to hide on board. And the Snake knew where she spent her time. It reached toward her, avoiding a swing of her arm before attaching to the back of her head. Its light glowed peacefully for a few moments before detaching and withdrawing into the corridor.
Aliyah let out a slow breath and pressed her forehead against the wall, promising to resist it harder next time.
Joran’s reflection caught her eye. He leaned against the glass with his usual charismatic smirk. “I don’t know why you run. It finds you every time.”
“You wouldn’t get it,” Aliyah said as she sat next to the window and pulled out her notes. Her only Earthly possessions included a pencil, some paper, and a simple pamphlet from a linguistics conference. Though her resources were limited, she was still determined to make some sense of her surroundings. She laid out the papers, which listed the symbols she’d accumulated.
“What’s the angle this time?” asked Joran.
She didn’t bother asking him anything. He was as much a part of the ship as the Snake, and therefore an agent of her captors, but he wouldn’t even admit they existed. So she only used him for occasional conversation. It helped sometimes.
“Patterns. If Zipf’s Law applies to their language, then maybe I can at least determine the most common words.”
“What’s the most common word?”
“The.”
“Second most?”
“Quiet.”
“Ok. But you might save yourself some trouble by just letting the Snake get you.”
Aliyah sighed. He was referring to her theory as to why she was there. It seemed like too much of a coincidence that her abductors would randomly take someone versed in linguistics. The stars on the walls weren’t static; she was heading somewhere. She had no idea how long it would take, but she believed there was a purpose for everything. She briefly entertained the idea that the Snake might be implanting her with information, but after repeated encounters with it, usually every couple of days, she wasn’t convinced. No matter how long she looked at the symbols, she couldn’t make anything out. Still, there was little else that could provide as much motivation as believing you were chosen for a higher purpose.
Aliyah’s memories of Earth were little more than a soup of confusion. Sometimes she remembered her hometown being flattened by bombs in a war, other times she remembered the outbreak of a virus. It seemed like the longer she was on board, the less sure she was of what had happened.
She looked at the pamphlet again, its folds worn soft. This was probably the best indication she had of how long she’d been there. She compared the words inside to the markings on the walls. She moved her mouth, trying to ascribe some phonetic to the characters, testing the sounds against her teeth.
Aliyah jumped to her feet as she saw the Snake returning with an immediacy it had never exhibited. Why would it be coming back so soon? She didn’t have time to theorize. It crossed the length of the room in seconds and attached itself. She froze before she could resist. Warmth spilled from the base of her neck down into her extremities. Images flooded her skull: markings bright as neon, sounds she had studied. She gasped, overwhelmed.
When the Snake pulled away, she sagged against the compartment wall.
Joran tapped the glass. “We’re almost there. I can feel it.”
Aliyah barely absorbed his words as she let her face cool against the glass. As she stared out into the tedious cosmos, she let the majesty pass across her vision. Recognition struck her in a formation of stars. Her heart pounded. She knew this formation. The hourglass cluster, the arrangement in the corner resembling the number “36.” Her age, or at least what she thought her age had been. She remembered seeing the formation long ago, reveling in the novelty of seeing her age in the stars. How long had it been since?
She had seen this exact view before. The image had looped.
Aliyah backed away from the window. Joran, uncharacteristically observant, approached her. “I know this looks bad, but you won’t have to wait much longer. You were chosen for this.”
Aliyah crumpled one of the papers in her hands. “You’re not even real! None of this is!”
She hurled the ball of paper at Joran. It passed through him harmlessly, bouncing off the window’s glass. The image slightly warbled.
Joran smiled, as if her doubt amused him.
Aliyah picked up the pamphlet, her only tangible possession, and opened it. She tried going over her notes, but her brain faltered. Words she had read countless times now swam into nonsense. At least, to her. Letters twisted and emptied, no longer recognizable. She blinked hard, but the clarity didn’t return.
“I can’t…read…this…” she stammered.
Joran peered over her shoulder. He read a line from the first page without difficulty and shrugged. “No, but I can. Thank you, Aliyah, for your contribution.” A darkness overtook his expression before he flickered and disappeared.
For the first time, the ship shuddered. The hourglass cluster in the window fractured, then blinked out of existence with the other stars. Aliyah pressed hard against the glass. No nebulae. No galaxy. Only black.
She thumbed through the pamphlet in her hand, desperate for grounding, but the text was emptied of meaning. She looked at the walls covered with markings but found them no more familiar. She tried to summon her memories. Her last conference, her family, her city. Each thought slipped like water through clenched fingers.
The Snake coiled down from the ceiling and surveyed her from the other side of the room. It slithered toward her and wrapped around her. This time, she didn’t fight. It connected with finality. Images and symbols flashed through her mind, just out of reach.
Her primordial instinct begged her to yell out, but the words wouldn’t come. Aliyah stared into the void, thankful to be part of something greater than herself.
Christian Barragan is a graduate from CSU Northridge. Raised in Riverside, CA, he aims to become a novelist or editor. He is currently an MFA candidate at Hollins University. His work has appeared in the Raven Review, Westwind Journal of the Arts, and the Tough Poets Review, among others.
