This is the story of a person who was never meant to become a hero. Someone with neither powers nor responsibilities. A kid who got into something way over their head and would never be able to return. Like a child playing in the surf, chasing the thrill of standing up to the waves only to swim out one stroke too far and get swept away by the ocean. Ironic considering it all began at that beach. On that one late spring night when I made a wish upon a falling star. A wish that would soon be granted. A wish that I could never take back.
April 16th, 2052, midnight. I was lying down on the cold sands of Old Birch Beach, looking up at the clear, star-filled night sky. My eyes had begun to pool with water as salty as the Pacific Ocean, but refused to burst down the side of my face. For a moment, a star streaked across my field of view before burning up into nothing.
I muttered under my breath, “I wish you were here to see this with me.”
I opened my phone to a photo of me with my best friend Silvia on our school trip to our local hero agency, taken only a week ago. We had the biggest grins on our faces.
“I guess you and that star aren’t too different, huh?” I sighed.
I hopped to my feet, reached into my backpack, and pulled out a comic book.
“They say never meet your hero!” I yelled, throwing my first print, mint condition, Drako-Knight issue 1 into the ocean. “I wish I had listened.” The tears finally broke containment. “How dare that man call himself a hero! He saw my friend being dragged off by villains and did nothing! There has to be an explanation! Is he working with them? That sounds crazy, and I don’t have any proof, but I know what I saw!”
I fell back down on the sand and thought aloud, “I keep telling myself that there was nothing I could have done, but that doesn’t help. I’m still just a powerless coward. I know it’s just a wild dream, but I keep thinking, if I were only stronger, if I were only braver, maybe we could both be there tonight. Now all I can do about it is wish on shooting stars.”
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I paused for a moment and took in the sky. Suddenly, another streak appeared in the darkness of space. As it began its blaze across the sky, I wished, “If I can’t trust heroes to save the ones I love, then give me the power to—” I paused when I noticed that this comet didn’t burn away like the last one; in fact, it was getting bigger, or rather closer. Frantically, I got my binoculars to catch a look at it and found it didn’t look like any normal meteor. However, before I could tell what it was, it crashed into the mountains outside of town.
“Holy crap!” I gasped, “That’s not too far from here. I hope no one was hurt.” Then I got to thinking, wait, an object of that size should've made a bigger impact. I should have been able to hear in the distance at least. Was I imagining it? My heart began to race. My mind was telling me to go back to the safety of my home, but something deeper was compelling me to chase after the fallen star. Either way, I couldn’t stay there, so I got on my bike and left the beach.
Soon, I reached the fork in the road, one path led homeward into the city, and the other went out towards the mountains. I paused for a second as the indecision flooded my brain, but then I caught a figure slowly creeping out of the shadows of the alley behind me. I nearly jumped off my bike, but as it stepped under a streetlight, I saw it was merely a small calico cat. It calmly walked up to me and rubbed against my leg. I got down to pet it and read the name on its collar.
“So you’re Mirai, huh? Strange name.” I asked, “Well, I’m Rayleigh. Are you lost, little guy?” She just gave a quick meow as if to say, Follow me, then ran down the road towards the mountains. That strange feeling came back. It was as if she were calling out to me, speaking to my soul. Without further hesitation, I followed. She took me far away from the city until the road began to turn away from the steep climb on the mountain. Mirai stopped to look back, and just as I caught up, she darted into the thick, unpathed wilderness.
“Why do I get the feeling you know where you’re going?” I questioned. I thought this was crazy, but I’d come this far, so might as well see where this leads. Leaving my bike behind, I chased her through the woods. She was unsurprisingly much faster and more agile than I, not to mention nearly impossible to see in the dark. Just as I was about to lose her, I saw a light in the distance. It was a dim, pulsating purple glow that Mirai had led me straight to. Without thinking, my legs carried me closer and closer to the source. I pushed through a thick layer of bushes and arrived at a small clearing created from the crater of the falling star. There I found that strange cat sitting on top of a U.F.O.
