When stars reach back

“We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe to figure itself out—and we have only just begun”— Neil Degrasse Tyson

With nimble fingers adjusting the focusing knob, Caela exhaled in sharp puffs that clouded the crisp spring air. Her breath caught as she gazed through the eyepiece at the enchanting night sky above.

The stars, in their myriads, sparkled like brilliant bulbs on a lazy Sunday evening and in mere minutes thousands of them would fall in streaks, with different hues they’d burn the peaceful night sky. Their glow kept people in awe. One of the few times of unity; all heads arched, all eyes on the light.

It was also one of the few nights Caela felt connected with everyone else. So every night of the Lyrid meteor shower, she shows up with her ridiculously large Telescope, A tradition she’s upheld since the night her dad first showed her the marvels of space.

Tonight, she'd almost missed it—not because of work or obligations, but because she'd lost track of time in the comfortable chaos of her apartment. Coffee-stained papers covered every surface, empty takeout containers balanced precariously on stacks of astronomy journals, and clothes draped furniture like fabric sculptures. The mess should have bothered her, but somehow the disorder felt like home. In a world that demanded structure and schedules, her little sanctuary of controlled chaos was the one place she could simply exist.

But not tonight. Tonight, everything felt impossibly sharp and real.

Through her telescope's lens, the universe unveiled itself layer by layer. She watched with wonder tinged by a familiar ache—somewhere in that vast expanse lay the answers to every question that had ever mattered, secrets written in stellar light and cosmic dust. Yet they remained frustratingly beyond her reach, no matter how many nights she spent searching.

Her father used to say the stars held stories older than Earth itself. "Maybe that's why you love them so much, Caela," he'd whispered during their last stargazing session. "You've always been searching for something bigger than this little world."

A brilliant blue spark suddenly flared in her peripheral vision, far brighter than any normal meteor. She pulled back from the eyepiece, blinking against the afterimage burned into her retinas. The object blazed across the sky like a sapphire tear, growing larger and more intense with each passing second.

Something was wrong. Meteors burned up in the atmosphere—they didn't grow bigger, didn't seem to be heading directly toward—

Her telescope began to vibrate, a low mechanical whine building to an urgent crescendo. The star-bright object filled more of the sky, and within its blazing core, Caela glimpsed impossible things: fragments of her morning coffee ritual, her father's gentle smile from years past, equations she'd never seen but somehow understood.

Her eyes widened as the light engulfed everything.

The telescope's whining stopped.

Then came the silence—not the absence of sound, but something deeper. A cosmic quiet that seemed to swallow noise itself. She felt herself falling, not downward but outward, as if the night sky had become liquid and she was sinking through layers of stars.

For the first time in her life, the universe was reaching back.