Blank Space

Isabella Salazar (11°C)

The night was cold, and the moon was shining brighter than ever, the stars looked like diamonds in the dark sky, and the sound of the enormous waves hitting the rocks was calming me. I felt that my mind and my soul were finally at peace. Standing in the dark, I could feel how the rushing wind was hitting my face, my hair was getting messy and the sand was within my feet. I started walking closer to the sea, near the freezing water and then, I thought that I could finally be free. As I walked, my feet carried me faster towards the deep blue, I could feel how the wind was pushing me closer and closer to the ocean’s mouth. Then, I started running with a big smile on my face and when I finally got into the water it became warm and I felt calm, it was the serenity that I’d been searching for, for a long time. My body started floating and as my eyes looked up at the sky, the sun started to rise, and the stars disappeared along with the precious moon. The colors of the sky were calling the birds, and the waves started to cease, the temperature of the water was getting warmer and there was finally a gleam of light. As I floated in the water, the sky turned white, the water started vanishing and everything around me started to fade away. At that moment I heard a high-pitched beep and saw an overwhelming bright light that left me blind.

As I opened my eyes, it was dark again and the feeling of sadness and frustration consumed me, I felt alone again in a world where there was no light, in a place filled with grief and misery where everyone was saturated with constant fear. I left my bed and started trembling through the narrow pathways stumbling as I walked, immediately standing up when I fell, and continued walking in the darkness until I finally got to the living room, where the loneliness felt stronger than ever. Then I spent my days trying to look for the light and searching for a solution. The world was normal until at least one year ago, until time stopped, the earth stopped spinning and suddenly the sun vanished, now there are no stars and there is no moon so everything around me is in complete darkness, in complete silence. In the news it was said that if the earth was going to stop then it would start burning and finally disappear and collide into the galaxy but that wasn’t what happened. As the earth stopped spinning, the sun vanished along with the stars and the moon, the waters, oceans and rivers waves ceased, and stopped moving. There were no more currents, temperatures decreased, and it was a complete disaster, it was what some called the end of the world. 

On earth everyone was dying. Without light everyone started to become blind, there was no oxygen, no light, no food and eventually most of the people died. It was just a matter of time until everything we knew disappeared among us. I knew that within seconds I could die, so I decided to live trying to forget, forget all the pain and horrible things that happened, forget what I had been missing the last few months, ignoring what made me cry at night and overlooking what made my heart ache. In that precise moment I put my mind blank and started to imagine how it was to see again. Creating my own imaginary world, which was full of light and had two suns just in case one of them died or disappeared. A world full of life, with beautiful colors, colors that I had never seen. The flowers and the trees were bigger than ever, everything was huge, the light of the two suns was the life of the planet and it made it grow faster and prettier, everything was completely amazing. Then I started flying through the wonderful fields of gigantic sunflowers, which amazed me as I passed, the flowers were as big as a normal tree, and they had a peculiar smell, its smell reminded me of my mother, and I felt such an intense sense of euphoria at that moment, that I can’t explain it, but I started smiling out of nowhere, I felt butterflies in my stomach and I had a great sense of relief. When I looked up to the immense blue sky, the clouds were bigger than ever and with a peculiar shape, this was my new favorite place, in which I would spend the rest of my miserable life, but at least there I felt such a strong feeling, which some call happiness. 

In that instant I heard a terrible sound, I looked upon the blue sky; it suddenly started turning gray and then black, it was the flowers and the trees, everything in the planet was falling to the ground making a disturbing sound. My heartbeat started to race, the clouds started to melt into a gross substance, which I believe smelled like pure iron, but tasted like blood. At that point I could feel the darkness again, the rain of blood that fell from the sky started covering all the beautiful creatures of the planet, and eventually it started covering my entire body, the clouds were absorbing my happiness. When I closed my eyes, I felt the darkness, that was consuming my soul and leaving me out of breath, I could feel the pain, and I was alone again. 

In that darkness, I could feel my body colder than it ever was, I couldn’t hear anything or anyone around me and I started seeing the bright sun in front of my brown eyes. I could feel how my body and my soul were separating. With me, there were hundreds of butterflies, beautiful blue butterflies, carrying me towards the eyes of heaven. As I looked around, I saw others flying along with me and their own butterflies, which looked like diamonds and then like stars and finally faded away into the darkness of the universe. We all were getting closer to the brighter star. I closed my eyes and felt the heating sun all over my body. This time the light was the one that consumed me, it was the energy of the sun merging with my soul. It made me feel free. I could feel how the light was embracing me, consuming me and transforming me into a celestial body, a young blue dwarf star; from up there I saw worlds and planets arising from nothing and then collapsing into the darkness, I saw love, happiness, sadness. I saw wonderful things that I had never seen or felt. I spent at least trillions of years like that, and even though I was alone, it didn't feel like it. The infinity of the universe gave me comfort, and the brightening stars made me feel safe. Until, one day, I closed my eyes, and it was dark again.