‘Mom, there’s something weird outside.’
	I woke up to her hazel-green eyes flickering in the street lamp light behind me. Painted in an intrigued, yet desperate, face, I could tell she was looking to me to have an answer to an inexplicable event. ‘What is it?’ I asked, a little bothered that she woke me up, but I really shouldn’t have been. I just knew work was going to be awful now.
	‘There’s a giant light coming from behind our house. Deep in the trees.’
	‘It’s probably someone from across the hill starting a fire.’
	‘But it’s a sort of… purple?’
	I shot up. She shuffled back. I glowered at her. I didn’t mean to: now she was terrified. I loomed imposingly over her, my shadow from the streets draping. ‘What do you mean?’
	‘Yeah, and it looks, like, really really tall? Like a spotlight of some kind. And it’s really bright. And the only reason I am coming is because this super loud noise woke me up. Like, really shrill? And when I woke up, I saw the light coming into my window. And I went to my window and looked outside and saw the spotlight and then the noise came again from that direction. And so I ran to you. I’m really scared.’
	There was no way. The portal was back. It had to be it. I can go back. I can see it again. The vistas. I can see the generations of friends. Of family. That I left, that I missed, had missed for so many years. They’re back. They’re calling for us. For me. Finally, yes, finally, thank you God.
	But, looking at the window facing the woods, I realized there was no lavender light coming through to hug me in its warmth. I leapt out of bed in my dressing gown. I looked out the window; there was no light.
	‘Where is it?’ I asked hurriedly. She slowly stumbled upright and cautiously over. She doesn’t like the excitement, the possible trembling, in my voice. She pulled back the curtains and pointed to the sky. ‘Straight in front of us.’ I followed her finger like an arrow to the city glow stained darkness of our woods. There was no lavender in the sky.
	‘What do you mean? There’s nothing there’ I disappointingly, achingly, hopelessly said.
	‘What? It’s right there. Coming out of the woods!’
	‘There’s nothing there sweetheart.’
	‘No, there is!’ She grabbed my head and forcefully spun me so I was inches away from the window, and pressed her finger hard to the fogging pane. ‘I promise. It’s there. In the sky, coming from the woods, a huge beam. I can even see it in your eyes. It’s on your eyes! How are you not seeing it‽’ She teared up. She was looking from me to the sky to what was me.
	‘We should go then.’ I muttered.
	‘Wait, what?’
	‘Let’s go make sure it’s nothing dangerous.’
	‘Ar...are you sure?’
	Is she lying? How would she have known? My poems? Was shew hallucinating? Why would she lie to me? Why would she mess with me? Please, don’t do this. She better not have done this. This is cruel. Why? Don’t. Don’t do this to me. Please please please don’t.
	I made for the door. ‘Shouldn’t we get dressed?’ she, shocked, asked. ‘No. Get your shoes. I’ll get a flash light.’ I hurried down stairs to the kitchen, without flicking a light on, guided only by memories of the floor, tore open a drawer to a chaotic clash of contents, and fumbled for the long, black flashlight, switched it on, blinded myself with the beam, then off again and to the door where [Diana] waited. She’s crouched, hurt in the black corner of entrance hallway. I stuffed on my tennis shoes, no socks needed, and threw the door open, almost hitting [Diana]. She followed me out, gently shutting it behind.
	I marched, her trailing in a slow, stilted, worried trot, past the side of the house and to the woods, where it instantly became a high grade climb. I turned the flashlight on. I jammed it into the crook of my neck, shaped my head around its circumference, sticking it in place. I grabbed the dead leaf moistened ground. It crumbled as I ripped forward. I went again and again and again. The flashlight glow only intermittently illuminated the path forward in my spasmodic motion.
	‘Mom, you’re not going the right way.’ She whispered. I was already deep in the woods, and [Diana] was much further behind then I realized.
	‘Sorry.’ I was gasping in thick, humid, untouched forest fog. ‘You’ll need to lead the way. Here.’ I proffered the flashlight, but she shook her head in the void. ‘It’s so bright for me. I can see fine’ which she proved by stepping over a downed oak tree. She leaned over to climb up, and I followed her too closely.
	We silently hiked, every so often having to trek tight patches of nettle or brush, or scale steep loamy ledge sides of the hill. [Diana] was quiet other than grunts. She looked behind every so often to make sure I was fine, but quickly turned back. She seemed frightened of me. She clearly had never seen me so energetic. But this may be a chance to go back to a world she only knew from floral fantasies in my work. If she had even read it. She could join me though. We could go to [Flosstrep] together. We could find the world [Terrance], Henry and I gave a future too. [Flosstrep] must have prospered since we came foolishly back to Earth. My forgotten friends, my long lost lover whose name is nothing but a noise engraved into the weathered cracks of my brain. If the years we’d spent there was only hours here, then generations had prospered while I had been haughtily recreating for humans the alien world they could never have known.
	But, suddenly, unwantingly, the thought entered my mind. What if it was worse? What if all the efforts my friends and I had expended was for not. My alien family’s world crumbled into a dusty waste. As their destiny before if their planet had not reached for answers outside itself. While they lived on, at least for moments beyond when we had left.  Same as the humans I beguiled with my tales of the world, I was ignorant to what state [Flosstrep] was in. Then tears poured. [Diana] stumbled when the first hurt weep overwhelmed her, but she did not extend condolences, unless muted.
	Then, as quickly as the pain had entered, a relief came. The light! Of course, the light! The world may be in danger, but there! Otherwise, why the light! My exaltation returned. I climbed the degenerated soil faster. There was a reason for all of this.
	We reached the peak of the hill, and slightly below was a smooth, flat glade. [Diana] pointed. ‘There’s the light.’ But she was turning her head, wincing at the source.
	‘What’s wrong’ I asked, still catching my breath.
	‘It’s so bright, I can’t stare at it too long.’ That didn’t make sense. It wasn’t that bright. She must have been wrong. ‘And it’s really warm.’
	‘Let’s keep going.’ I stated.
	She shaded her eyes with her hand and incremented forward. I followed, flash light pointed directly at her back. We reached the glade moments later. She still turned away from the middle of the glade.
	‘Can you not feel this’ she sacredly asked.
 	‘No. I don’t feel anything.’ I leered toward the middle of where she had pointed. ‘It isn’t uncomfortable, but God it’s overwhelming. And so tall too.’ She said, looking up into the sky. ‘Doesn’t look like it ends either. Where is it going?’
	But I don’t reply. I knew where it went. But why could I not see it! I went towards the middle.
	‘No Mom don’t! It’s too much. It’s going to burn you!’
	She reached her dirt covered hands toward me. ‘Don’t!’ I screamed. She fell backwards, landing on the hillside. ‘I’ll be fine. Just. Stay there.’
	I stepped toward the middle. Nothing. Another. Nothing. I kept going, ignored the worried sniffles of [Diana]’s cries. But there was nothing. I sped up, almost racing to the center of the clearing. But nothing. ‘Mom, please, stop.’ She begged.
	But then, at the center. I felt something. It was faint. Imperceptible. If someone other then me was to stand where I was, they would have had no clue what to make of this warmth. The flickering of movement as the light radiated down from the heavens. Striking the ground, or maybe passing through it? Maybe the other side of the planet had a beam, exactly like this one, coming from beneath after it had traveled from here to the other side of this minuscule world. I could almost see it.
	I looked straight into the sky, trying to see the origin of the warmth. And, from where I stood, staring toward space, I saw a faint, faint twinkle. There. That must have been it. There it was. I’d found it. Please. Take me. Take me back. Please. Let me feel your, warmth, your forever light. Let me see your kindness once again. Please. Why won’t you take me. Bring me back.
	‘Mom?’ in the distance. Then, steps. Steps came towards me. Steps that rang through the forest. Steps that followed the pillar of light I could no longer see to the heavens. To the world where I once was and now no longer. Their grace. Their momentary reprieve from the sorrow of having not been torn from the ground. ‘Mom?’ closer. ‘Are you alright?’ And then. Nothing. The steps were gone. The forest had no words. The warmth disappeared as if it had never been there at all. Or was it ever?
	‘It was only my imagination, wasn’t it?’ I said aloud. But the air had no reply. That’s when I realized.
	I looked to where [Diana] had been. And she was no longer there. I shined the flash light on every part of the circumambient laughing forest. But there was nothing. I walked to where she had been, and noticed, faintly, a spot where foot steps tracked towards where I had been, and then, having decided there was no longer a reason to, were unable to finish there journey.
	‘No. No no no. No.’ I cried. I looked up, even pointed the flash light as if space would reveal [Diana] suspended within its confines. But the stars did not answer, and the man on the moon, horrified, stared back.
	I sat on the ground, straining my head down towards the ground. Then, acceptingly collapsed on my side. She’s gone. She must have been summoned. They didn’t want me. I was no longer useful to them. They chose her instead. Then, suddenly, the pity slipped from me into the dirt. I rose. I realized: they wanted her because she was a part of me. They needed someone of my caliber, but that could rise to the challenge. I was still important, just not in the way I wanted. But that was okay. I gleamed.
	And so, I sat. The flashlight, puttering on the ground, beamed behind me into the trees. Sat, starring where she must have been teleported to [Flosstrep]. Sat, waiting. Waiting for her to return from her adventure. Sat, glowering at the center of the clearing. Hours would be years. A million emotions in a minute. Sat, every so often, glancing toward the sky and eyeing what some would have lost in the disarray of stars to most. But not me. It stayed exactly where I knew it to be. Fixed into place by my stares. Sat, so excited to hear the tales; of the flora, of the never dimming planet light, of the people, of the sadness, of the jubilation, of how it had changed with time; and how it was all worth it. How she had sacrificed so many things, but was left a hero to her spontaneous family. To a lover. To futures. Sat, thinking how she may hear tales of when I was there. Hear the triumphs of [Terrance]. The cunning of Henry. Hear these, and be proud of me. Of what I had accomplished so far away. Sat, waiting to see how she had aged. Sat, even as the sun began to choke the darkness and creep into a purple skyline. As it obscured where [Flosstrep] beamed in the firmament. Sat, knowing it would be soon. Sat, still.