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The sky opened and Samuel looked up.
Above, the starry backdrop fountained, a bulging cosmic mass that shimmered and glowed, raining down a bright azure light on the world below. Samuel watched the display first with hope, then with trepidation, then finally with despair. His eyes remained fixed on the sky long after the rupture had closed, long after the only light left came from a faded, glabrous moon.
Another rescue, and another day that Samuel was left behind.
A year ago, the Earth had been teeming with his kind. Everywhere he went, he could find someone like himself, a fellow traveler who would help remind him of who he was whenever his human skin began to feel too tight. But eleven months ago, Samuel’s world had called them home, and Samuel had yet to be taken with them.
Had they forgotten about him? Surely not. Their kind were numerous, and the evacuation would take time. Holes would be torn through the night sky for years, even decades, and every day, the number of Samuel’s species would dwindle, leaving him a little more rare, a little more alone.
Someday, they would get around to him. Someday, they would take him home.
But when?
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This post was originally published through Patreon on October 10, 2018.
Simon leans close, fighting old arthritic joints, and lowers his head into a concrete trash bin. He rifles through its contents, pushing past sandwich wrappers, half-empty soda bottles, and crumpled sheets of paper. He digs deeper. Deeper. Finally, his arm emerges, dusted with crumbs and dirt.
Nothing.
He turns, sniffs the air, and heads for the next bin when he hears laughter and turns back. Nearby, at an outdoor table, two teenage boys avert their eyes, mouths turned up in identical sneers. Simon returns the gesture with a sneer of his own.
Stupid kids.
If they knew what he could do, they would cower like slaves. Anyway, they’re beneath him, hardly worth his time. He has more important concerns, like the object he senses in the trash.
Most of Simon’s discoveries are scraps, crumpled wrappers that once secured powerful relics and which still contain traces of residual magic. Those sorts of artifacts he doesn’t sense unless he’s lucky enough to brush against them, and even then, they’re few and far between. But this one… He felt it even before reaching the trash bin’s rusty outer ring, and he thrusts his hand into the moldering garbage with breathless anticipation.
His skin prickles, a feeling not unlike exposure to static electricity, and soon, his body is vibrating to the rhythm of a massive unseen energy. When his fingers close around the item he seeks, he seizes it like a starving child.
A ring, crudely fashioned out of iron. Anyone else would dismiss it out of hand as a worthless trinket, but Simon knows it must have been forged by a powerful magician.
A priceless treasure, and now it’s his.
He’s spent his entire life scrounging through other people’s refuse, gathering minuscule scraps of power and distilling them until their combined energy was enough to accomplish something useful. Not an efficient way to practice magic, but the only avenue available to him.
Now, he’s found a single source of power a thousand times as potent. A miracle, one that might release him from his punishment at last. How could such a relic fall into his possession? There has to be a catch.
He frowns, considering, and decides he doesn’t care.
And so, not seeing the man cloaked by the shadow of a nearby building, he palms the ring. He flashes the teenagers a triumphant smile and, with head held high, begins the long walk home.
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