A boy no older than 15 sat staring up at the stars in the night sky. Each one the brightest and most sparkling, he could see blue stars, yellow stars, faintly orange ones as well. A whole array of different lights and colors played tricks with his eyes and they all gleamed just for him. But they didn’t, none did, he was nothing special. The stars though did not know that and glimmered on. They seemed so close he could touch them, all the brightly sparkling things up there. He was tempted to reach out his hand and grasp at the stars. So he did.

He reached out his hand as far as it would go, reaching and stretching, trying desperately to grasp at one star. When he felt something grab his hand. It was warm yet cool, it felt like soft blown hair. The fingers laced with his own and he pulled down the most beautiful woman.

She had stars in her eyes, constellations on her skin, deep black hair like the emptiness of the abyss of space. Her dress was a collection of nebulas and her bracelets were rings of ice. She smiled at him, her teeth blazing like a thousand perfect white crystals. Her other hand grabbed his and she stared into his eyes.

“Who are you? What are you?” the boy stammered over his words. She was beautiful and unnerving. Her skin felt soft on his hands, it was almost empty though, it held no weight what so ever.

She grinned at him, her smile once again nearly blinding. “I am the universe, I am every star, every planet, every moon, every black hole, every nebula, galaxy, asteroid, meteor, wormhole, and comet. I am the world itself, I am the thing you look up at every night and wonder, are we alone? I am the universe, here and now.” Her eyes glistened and blazed and sparkled.

“You’re just a girl,” he replied rather dumbly. She simply chuckled and patted his head.

“I am so much more than that, I am every living creature, here and there, I am every space ship and shuttle, I am every destructive and live saving about the earth and planets like it. I am not a girl, I am life, I am death, I am everything else in between,” her soft voice chided, gently like a mother would.

The boy swallowed and looked away, she pulled his face back toward her own. “Do not look away, you have nothing to be ashamed of.” He looked up at her and nodded.

“Why are you here?” he questioned.

“Because you willed it so. You reached out for me and I came. Why else?” she tilted her head to the side.

“Am I dead?” he blurted then. “I’m dead aren’t I? This is just some hallucination I am having before I go brain dead.”

“I promise you that you are not dead. You were sitting in the field, you remember coming here, if this was brain death you wouldn’t remember coming here.”

The boy remembered climbing up the hill from the farm house where he and his family lived. He remembered tripping and nearly falling back down on that one rock that always got him. “Oh… Why me?”

“Because you asked the question,” she whispered to him as if it were a secret.

“What question?”

“The only question that matters,” she looked around and pulled him close to her, she leaned down and cupped her hands around his hear. “Am I special?”

“No I didn’t!” he protested.

“Yes you did, when you were staring up at me and me down at you, you thought to yourself ‘am I special?’ and then you reached out for me.” She looked at him her eyes full of the stars he was so familiar with.
“Is that it?”

“Yes.” Her mouth pulled into a closed lip smile. “And you are. Special, unique, a destiny forged just for you with choices and hardships. You have the power to do as you wish with this world.” She clasped his face in her hands. “You decide what you do, where you go and how you get there. I just made you, you create who you are,” she said as she jabbed at his chest. “Remember that my child.”

“Wow…”

She began to float then, her feet levitating slightly off the ground. Her hands where still clasped with his. As she flew up into the air he held tight. “Coming with me?” she asked.

“Yes.”