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Ingo has been in this tent for as long as he can remember, around a week maybe. He lays in bed and slowly paces the room as he recovers from an injury he doesn’t remember getting. He wakes up every morning and falls asleep every night with nothing to do but worry and feel like something is missing.
Tonight, he does something else, something new. He needs to do something other than sit alone with his thoughts. He grabs the only things he knows are his own, the black coat and hat he doesn’t understand why he cried over the first time he saw them safe, and leaves the only place he knows for the first time.
Ingo knows he will get in trouble if he’s caught, but part of him needs confirmation, proof, that there is more to this world than the small room of this tent.
The night outside is cold. The ground is covered in snow. His breaths puff out in clouds.
It is quiet.
Ingo sits, still sore from his exercises earlier in the day, and looks around at the world he forgot, hoping for something familiar.
But there isn’t anything. Not in the snow or the cold or the tents or the cliffs. Certainly not in the way he sits alone.
It would be nice to have someone by his side. A smile to his frown, white to his black, movement to his stiffness. Maybe there is, back at the home station he can’t remember.
But it doesn’t matter now. Even if they do exist, they aren’t here now. At least, Ingo hopes they aren’t here. He has to. They would be lost in this cold and snow if they were here. Ingo wouldn’t be able to bear it if that were the case.
The only things Ingo is getting out here are cold and sad. He sighs and stands. Maybe tomorrow he will remember something new, even if he hasn’t yet. Before turning around, he looks up to the sky.
He sits back down.
The sky above him is covered in stars. Pinpricks of light that are scattered as far as the eye can see. Clusters of them form in clouds of purple that cut a line across the sky, which in turn is more of a dark blue than the expected black.
Some stars shine brighter than others. Others still are more orange, more yellow, more blue. Together, they weave a messy, chaotic, beautiful tapestry that hangs delicately far above Ingo’s head.
And it’s something familiar.
It’s familiar in an old way, in a way that he thinks he missed, that he hasn’t seen in a while. It’s nothing concrete, but Ingo will take vague familiarity over nothing when given the chance.
Ingo wraps his coat a little tighter around himself.
He hopes the person he thought of earlier, if they even exist, is enjoying the same sky.
Unknown to Ingo, thousands of miles and hundreds of years away, a man in a white coat sits on the back deck of his parents' house. The outside and backroom lights are both off, allowing him to marvel at the stars that hang above him.
It’s a welcome sight and one terribly missed when the man is at his home in the city. The stars are still the same as when he was a child, but still, every time he sees them feels like the first.
The backroom light turns on and the screen door opens. The man’s mother appears in the doorway, folded blanket in hand.
“Your Dad and I are headed to bed,” she says softly, not wanting to interrupt more than she already has.
“Okay,” the man says, “I will be quiet when I come in.”
His mother nods and holds the blanket out to him. It’s an old thing, crocheted by the man years ago as an anniversary present to his parents. It’s still as soft as the day it was gifted due to his parents’ meticulous upkeep and care for it.
The man takes it and wraps it around himself with a quiet, “Thank you.”
“Your dad will probably be out in a few minutes to say his own good night,” she says once he’s settled again. “Try not to stay up too late. Good night. I love you.”
“I love you too,” he says in turn. “Good night.”
She places a kiss on the top of his head and ducks back inside. The screen door slowly squeaks closed and the light is turned off again, leaving the man to look back up to the stars.
He hopes his brother, wherever he may be, is enjoying the same sky.