Ruby leaned against the wall outside the old House. Shadows dripped from the skeletal figure like ink, clinging lightly to the contours of her face beneath the garish orange street light. Smoke drifted listlessly from the end of her half-used joint. She had to be off her head to do this job.

Suddenly, as if an entirely involuntarily present force had awakened inside of her, Ruby’s pointed face turned to the sky and she stared straight into the eye of the singular star, the nearby moon glazed over by murky clouds.

Calmly a voice whispered in her head,
You can leave here now. You don’t have to be this. We are here. Become one of us. A star. Just reach up and—

The star disappeared, masked by the black expanse of cloud that crawled across the sky. Ruby retreated back into the House, rubbing her head confused, as above it the star cursed silently, watching hope and light vanish forever in its last hours, hoping for her daughter to look one last time upwards, to place her among the stars as Queen once more.