I was alone and confused, my mind and body numb, suspended in darkness. Memories were fragile and tenuous, like cobwebs dissolving at the slightest touch. Panic rose in my chest, and I groped blindly, for something, anything in the oppressive blackness.

From far away, a pinprick of light appeared, growing slowly at first but with increasing speed.

It beckoned to me. It pulled me inexorably closer until it became the whole of my existence. The light was blindingly brilliant, and though I squeezed my eyes shut, I could feel its warm glow upon my eyelids.

Alone and stranded, drifting through space, I felt a sudden surge of euphoria. A soothing, welcoming sense of coming home. Fear and hopelessness were gone as if they had never been. A thought lingered in the back of my mind, like some long forgotten memory, that I’d been waiting for this one moment for my entire life.

Through eyes blurred with tears of joy, I watched with eagerness as the sun filled my vision, consumed me, and I became stardust once again.