I looked out into the night sky, and found it dark and forbidding. The clouds were ashen, lightning flashing behind them as behind a thin veil, briefly illuminating the paleness, the greyness. Thunder rumbled, and I listened - I listened to the whispers, and they struck me as hostile and unbecoming. They told me - yes, they told me - I was alone. I had no one. No one to call my own. I had been forsaken. I listened, and the whispers grew louder, louder - they became hysterical screams, resounding into the emptiness of the night, deafening me with their repeated chants of loneliness and hostility, overwhelming me, throwing me into a web of darkness, a mire that was inescapable. They screamed, and I screamed - screamed at the unfairness of it all, I screamed, knowing, knowing that no one would hear me. I was forsaken. I knew it was pointless. I fell, fell into a vortex of spiraling fear and loneliness. I knew I was alone, I knew, even as the screams stopped and became whispers again, whispers that laughed at me, even as the wind curled its cold fingers around my throat, and the lightning flashed. The clouds faded, faded into their own paleness and greyness.

I was alone.

I fell, fell for what seemed like an eternity, until I heard whispers again. I did not know what they said, I only knew that they were welcoming me, they were cleansing me, cleansing me of the guilt and the pain and the loneliness. I closed my eyes and let a lifetime of weariness get washed away. The whispers surrounded me, and I felt their warmth, their closeness.

I opened my eyes, and looked out at the night sky. In the vast darkness twinkled a few stars, their light so remote, but so piercing, so bright. They whispered, and though I did not know what they said, I felt their warmth, their closeness. All was calm.

The stars twinkled, twinkled in my night sky, and I knew I was no longer alone.