He first dreamed of stars. The stars moved like a tide, waves after waves. Images burned into his mind, and arrived without sequence, a collapsing star of sensation, a kaleidoscope of moments too strange to comprehend…and from the black night above, a hand immense in size cut through the visions. Behind it, two white eyes burned with immense fury. Its fingertips were almost upon him until…
Umino's eyes snapped open. He quickly laid his hand on his chest, half-expecting to be dead. The only thing that he felt was the rapidness of his pulse, and the dampness of his sweat-soaked sheets. Umino noticed he'd been having the same dream for a couple of weeks now, ever since the week before his eighteenth birthday. The dreams became more and more vivid with each passing day. Although these dreams were consistent, he never thought anything more of them.
He swung his legs out of his bed and looked around his room, scanning the place. Sunlight streamed through his window, illuminating small motes of dust. On his desk was an arrangement of items. Classic literature, half-built model kits, and other things of that nature. There were no photos of friends, no team banners, and no souvenirs from trips. The room was certainly a museum of one. He sighed, and eventually got up and started his morning routine.
He made his way to the bathroom, and splashed some cold water on his face. In the mirror, he looked at his face. He had messy black hair, and amber eyes that his mother said came from his father's side of the family, as well as a lean build that came from forgetting to eat rather than any exercise routine.
He took a shower, put on some clothes, a pair of jeans, and a t-shirt. What he would eat for breakfast would be whatever he could grab on his way out of the house. It was currently nine. His first class wasn't until ten, but he'd learned that leaving early meant avoiding his mother's questions about whether he had eaten properly or not.
He stopped at his bedroom door and then turned around, looking over his room one last time. "I really need to make some connections…" he thought to himself. He shook his head and then made his way downstairs,
"Good morning, son. You look tired. Did you make sure to not stay up too late?" His mother set a plate of rice and grilled fish in front of him, her hand briefly touching his shoulder. She herself also had messy black hair that refused to cooperate. It seems like that ran in the family. "Make sure you go to sleep on time today this time, okay? And there's leftover curry in the fridge if you're home late." He managed to make a smile, promised he'd take care of himself, and accepted her brief hug before heading out the door.
He then stepped out into the morning sun, breathing in the fresh air as he closed the door behind him. He took the train to his university's campus, which stretched across several city blocks. His first class was 'Introduction to Astrophysics'. It should have been a fascinating class, but instead it felt like he needed some coffee to stay awake. The professor kept going on about stellar evolution, but Umino's attention kept drifting to the windows, with his eyes halfway open. Despite his tiredness, something felt…off. Though, he couldn't articulate what this feeling was exactly. The sky looked clear, and the sun was bright. This should've been a great start to the day.
By lunchtime, the feeling had intensified. Umino sat in the cafeteria alone, barely touching the food in front of him. Around him, conversations flowed, complaints about assignments, gossip about relationships, plans for the weekend, along with things of that nature. Normal university life. Underneath it all though, he felt a sense of wrongness. He needed to get home.
He eventually found himself on the train back. The anxiousness still wouldn't leave him. Dinner was about the same as any other day, usually skipped. He went up to his room after helping with the dishes. Sleep, when it finally came, was deep and thankfully dreamless. For a few hours, he was left alone. However, instead of a dream, it was something else that woke him. Not sound. Not touch, but smell. A thick scent alien to him invaded his nose. It was smoke, but wrong.
It wasn't the smell of a wood fire, or the burning of an outlet. This smell was…heavier somehow, like burning metal. Umino's eyes were now wide open. His room was dark, but a faint purple glow could be seen under his door. "What the hell is this?" He threw off his covers, his bare feet hitting the floor. The wooden boards were extremely hot. There was a fire breaking out in his house.
"Mom?" he asked? "MOM?!" he yelled, his voice cracking as he stumbled down the hallway toward the stairs. He looked around him. The house was now completely engulfed in an unnatural fire. Purple flames that writhed up and down the walls. There was no fire alarm going off. He took down the stairs two at a time. Halfway down, the landing offered a view into his living room and the kitchen beyond.
He stopped in his tracks.
The scene below was imprinted into his mind. The kitchen table was overturned, and in the center of it all stood his mother, held upright in the arms of a figure. It was tall and unnaturally thin, draped in a hooded cloak of a material that was darker than the midnight sky. The flames recoiled from the being, refusing to touch its form. Umino couldn't see its face, only an even deeper darkness within the hood. One of its arms was wrapped around his mother's waist, holding her limp body with no effort. Her head was back and her eyes were closed, but the slight rise and fall of her chest showed that she was still alive.
Time seemed to stop. Umino's breath was caught in his chest. Then, as if sensing his presence, the creature's hood tilted up…then it moved. It was a blur of motion. In one fluid movement, it turned around and shot out through the back door, his mother slung over its shoulder. It didn't even bother opening the door. It had simply phased through it, the solid wood warping around its form before it solidified again.
Umino launched himself down the remaining stairs, and then threw all of his weight against the door, slamming it open. He ran after the creature, and ran like he had never run before. His legs ate up the pavement, fragments exploding outward. The world around him became a blur of color and light. A car driving down the road seemed to be standing still as he overtook it, with the driver's pale face in the window. Umino didn't seem to notice his speed. He could only focus on what was up ahead, the creature.
Ahead, the cloaked figure moved across the ground, almost gliding above it. It reached the end of the street, an area that opened up into a large park. The creature stopped. It raised its free hand. The air before it vibrated, and then the fabric of reality tore open. Without a backward glance, the creature stepped through the rift, his mother's form disappearing into the light.
"NO!" Umino screamed, pouring every bit of his energy into a final, desperate sprint. The rift began to close, the edges closing back together. In one second it would be gone forever. He wouldn't make it. Despair threatened to paralyze him, but then the image of his mother's unconscious face flashed in his mind. With a determined look on his face, Umino leaped the last twenty feet and thrust his entire body into the closing rift.
He was now falling…no, not falling, drifting. The silence was absolute. A deep cold seeped into his being. He blinked with his eyes struggling to adjust. All around him was the infinite blackness of space. Above and below him was an endless array of stars, more brilliant than any telescope could ever show. He was alone, with no cloaked creature or mother in sight. His breath caught in his lungs, or rather, he tried to catch it, and found that there was no air to breathe. And yet, he wasn't suffocating. He was just existing. Suspended in the vacuum of space.
The adrenaline faded, and the cold now seeped deeper, into his mind. His thoughts grew sluggish. The brilliant stars began to dim, and as the infinite blackness claimed him, he finally went to sleep, drifting aimlessly into the starry dark.