The sky was full of light that cold night. Stars dazzled the sky and the moon was full. Its reflection was bright against the ink-dark water. Although Kailani looked at them almost every night, they seemed to be especially beautiful only now. Maybe that's why the memory was able to stick with her for so long. Because she could never get sick of a view like this.
Achoo! But he could.
"You okay over there?" She looked to her best friend, Tyler. He moved to Lanai from Boston when Kailani was 6. They met by accident when she crashed into him while first learning to surf, they've been inseparable ever since.
He sniffled. "Yeah, I'm not used to the cold still." It's been 7 years since he's moved there and he was still struggling to adapt. Kailani wrapped the blanket her grandmother had woven for her, around Tyler. "Thanks, I'm sure I need it more than you do." They laughed. "You seem okay."
Kailani nodded, "I'm used to it, plus, with a sight like this it's easy to get distracted." She turned back to him, "it's..."
"... magical," he finished.
"Yeah, that." Everything was silent, peaceful, except for Tyler's sniffling, as they looked at the stars. They began to point out the constellations, any that they found familiar; the Big Dipper, the Canes Venatici, Andromeda. Kailani's Grandmother loved to tell them stories about the stars. About warriors who protected them, and helped our planets orbit around them. Of course, none of them were true. They've already learned how our planets orbit the stars so these tales had long since lost their charm. But they still liked to imagine it. How it'd be to fly among the stars, play baseball using asteroids, and meeting alien life. If they were out there. Somewhere.
"What if we traveled to the stars one day?" Tyler suddenly asked. Kailani had a confused look on her face when she looked at him.
"Like in a spaceship?"
Tyler shook his head. "No, like fly up there. You know like those star gods your grandma would tell us about?" He stood up and held his arms up to the sky. As if he'd fly away right then and there.
"Star warriors."
Tyler rolled his eyes but gave her a small smile. "Whatever. But wouldn't it be cool?"
Thinking to herself, she chuckled at how childish this was. "Yeah, it would."
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Tyler Kgosi went missing after that night. His mother had a search party sent out, even paid a private detective, but nobody could find her little boy. Nobody knew where he went, nor where he could've gone. And Kailani wouldn't see him again, till over a decade later.
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