Fires in the Sky

Cody sat by the window of his psychiatric wardroom, rocking back and forth, his mind lost in the past. Ten years had passed since his life had been shattered. Since...

He shook his head violently, trying to shake off the memories, but they clung to him like vines, wrapping around every corner of his mind. He remembered it as if it were yesterday:

He was nine years old when he saw the strange light over the field. Without a second thought, he ran towards it, his heart pounding. As shooting stars streaked across the sky, he searched the field, his eyes scanning the darkness. All he found was a small, metallic, square box, its light flickering feebly before going out completely. For some strange reason, he felt compelled to carry it with him constantly, even sleeping with it under his pillow.

A few days later, he was standing by his bedroom window, watching a bird perched on a tree branch. Suddenly, he felt an irresistible urge to draw. Before he could finish his sketch, he heard a faint tapping on the glass. The bird was standing on the windowsill, tapping with its beak. He looked at his drawing incredulously. He had drawn the exact same scene.

A week later, he fell and hit his cheek. Standing in front of the mirror, he drew his face, without the bruise, in his notebook. The bruise vanished from his reflection, but the pain remained.

From then on, he drew constantly. He drew even when Ralph and his friends taunted him, trying to steal his lunch. One day, when they were teasing him, he drew one of their pants slipping down, and it happened. He also drew when they tripped a classmate, sending her tumbling to the ground. Then, he drew Ralph's juice box bursting, soaking him and his friends but leaving the girl dry.

Until one afternoon, he decided to take a desperate gamble. He drew a car speeding towards him in his notebook. Just before the drawing reached him, he drew himself on the other side of the road.

He went outside and waited. The real car's tires screeched as it slammed on the brakes. He felt a shove, and he found himself safely across the street. He smiled in relief, only to scream in horror a few seconds later. His mother was lying on the road, bleeding. She had pushed him to save him. The driver knelt beside her, looking distraught. Cody ran home, grabbed his notebook, and started drawing frantically, trying to change the past, but it was futile. He tried to make her stand up, but his mother was dead, and he couldn't bring her back.

He continued to paint with a feverish intensity. He painted even when his father blamed him for her death. He painted, promising his dad that he would change everything. He promised him that his paintings were magical, capable of bringing her back to life. He painted until the very moment the men in white coats seized him and dragged him to a white room.

From that day forward, he never painted again. He retreated into himself, a solitary figure who spoke to no one. His father never visited him.

***

The flashback ended. He stood up and began to pound the walls with his palms. He was cold. He rummaged through a drawer in the closet and found a jacket. Just before closing it, he saw a faint glow. The light from the metal box flickered. He closed it in his fist.

A flash of lightning caught his attention. He ran to the window. A meteor fell. Then another, and another, and another. Deafening noises echoed all around. And as suddenly as they had started, they stopped. He looked at the box. The light was out.

No one could explain the phenomenon. The scientific community had not predicted it.

A few days later, the fires rained down from the sky again. People ran in panic, buildings and cars collapsing around them. Screams and howls echoed through the streets. Cody sat calmly by the window.

‘Maybe it's better this way’, he thought.

But before surrendering to his fate, he wanted to say a final goodbye. He looked at the box on his nightstand. The light flickered. Without knowing why, he slipped it into his pocket.

He forced open the door and slipped into the hallway. The patients were in a frenzy, jumping and banging on tables and chairs. No one paid him any attention. He descended to the ground floor, where the staff had vanished, and the furniture was overturned. He scrabbled through the wreckage, his hand closing around a knife. He headed for the exit. He crossed the courtyard and burst through the gate, finding himself on the road.

Meteors rained down around him, following his every move but somehow avoiding him. A ragged-looking man, muttering to himself, bumped into him. As soon as he saw Cody, his eyes widened in terror.

"You!" he shouted, grabbing Cody by the collar. Cody pulled away, but the man held on tight. "You!" he insisted. " Only you can put out the fires in the sky!"

Cody managed to break free and quickly walked away.

"I saw you in my dream! Only you..." A deafening crash sounded. The man fell silent abruptly.

Cody didn't look back.

***

He reached the courtyard of his house, his head bowed. Through the living room window, he saw his father embracing another woman, who held a crying baby. They were both terrified. The furniture was bare of any photos of him. Tears streamed down his face. He turned and walked away, his head hanging low.

His steps led him to the field where he had first found the box. He sat on the ground, watching the meteors rain down around him. Their pieces were scattered everywhere, except for the area near him. He wiped his eyes and looked around curiously. How was that possible?

He took the metal box out of his pocket. The light flickered, growing increasingly intense. As the light grew brighter, so did the fires that tore through the sky.

The strange object suddenly leaped into the air, vibrating with energy. He threw it to the ground, scrambling backward in terror. To his horror, it began to grow, until it was the size of a person. His eyes widened in astonishment as he held his breath. A door creaked open, inviting him inside. He hesitated before stepping through. The room was small and square, its walls covered in intricate drawings. He approached them, examining them closely. They depicted people trying to extinguish the fires in the sky, others showing the meteors breaking apart just before hitting the ground. He shook his head. There were so many... he could never paint them all. Some images showed the box soaring high into the sky, dragging the stars with it.

He paused to think. He could stay locked inside until the world as he knew it ended. And then? What would happen when whoever had sent it came to inspect their work?

‘Only you can put out the fires in the sky!’ the ragged man had said to him.

He glanced at the door behind him. It was still open. He thought of his dead mother, his father's accusations, and the scene of him with his new family. Tears streamed down his face. And then he knew what he had to do. He realized that this might be his last chance to make amends. He couldn't paint something he didn't know. He couldn't just send the box up high, because it would only go as far as he could see. The only way to succeed was to go with it.

He wiped away his tears and pulled the knife from his pocket. He carved a huge window in the wall. The metal melted immediately, replaced by a giant glass panel. He drew the door closing and carved the path of the box into the sky. He felt himself rising, the fires swirling around him. As he ascended, he painted furiously, knowing that his oxygen would eventually run out. He knew he couldn't go on forever. But he hoped that by then, he would have managed to extinguish the fires in the sky of Earth, dragging them with him.

***

(100,000 years later: Planet G-23)

Eleven-year-old Red hovered in her soap bubble, a human-like figure with red skin, white braided hair, and yellow, pupil-less eyes. A bright flash pierced the dark green sky. She pressed a button on her wristwatch, landing gently on the blue dust-covered ground. The soap bubble vanished. She jumped onto a nearby cloud and floated towards the spot where the flash had originated. She landed on the ground, bent down, and picked up a small, metal box. A light flickered on one side. Just then, several stars streaked across the sky. The light flickered a little more before going out completely. The meteors stopped falling, and their fires temporarily disappeared from the sky.