Twelve Stars (An Intro)

Meli took care to avoid the cracks that peppered the sidewalk on this street; this was not a route that she would normally take, but she wanted to get to the museum before the crowds arrived. She pressed her lips together as if tasting tangy citrus on her tongue, and breathed through her pursed lips to soothe what seemed to be about the tenth migraine threatening to creep up into her temples and take hold. It pinned one side of her head to an invisible board in pulsating prickles that throbbed in time with the lighshow behind her eyes. She honestly did not get these incapacitating episodes. She had always been relatively healthy, never suffered more than the common cold in her life, not even her childhood was littered with the usual infant ailments. Why now? Why get these debilitating headaches in her mid-twenties?

As if an uncanny sense developed in her since she began experiencing these incidents, she braced herself for the wave of blinding light and sensation of being weightless that she somehow sensed was coming.

The wave pushed at her skull as it did in the past. But instead of abating after the first dreaded peak, and starting to build in intensity and pain again, it rolled onto her neck, and shimmied, a cascade of sparkling energy. This sparkling feeling rolled deliciously, over her shoulders and swirled within her abdomen. It was almost like, well, sex. Hell, maybe even better.

She struggled to stanch what felt like ripples along her inner thighs—their onslaught were continuous and relentless and she squeezed her knees together to keep them from buckling. The raw electricity fighting to find every crevice in her body all of a sudden released into the air and manifested as a blinding light again in front of her.

What the Goddess..?

Before she could recompose herself on the busy throughway, a smiling child crowned in stars and holding an orb solidified amidst the light. He floated above her nose seemingly held up by nothing at all. Was anyone seeing this? She looked wildly in every direction to gauge other’s responses to this phenomena, but except for a few curious glances at her—the crazy lady spasming on the street—everyone else seemed to be business as usual.

*****

“Do you know where you are, Meli?” The voice seemed to be coming from somewhere above her, but she didn’t think children had such deep voices. Did they?

She couldn’t see anything. She had gone blind! She flailed for a moment in a panic until she realized she was staring at the back of her own eyelids. Testing first one eye by blinking, then the other, she sighed, relieved that at least that was still normal. After another moment, her vision cleared and she saw more clearly the two faces hovering with concern over her: her best friend Tessa and Tessa’s gorgeous new boyfriend, Mac.

Damn—she was reclining on Mac’s lap, wasn’t she? How embarrassing, if she was. Without thinking about it, she reached up behind her head and the tip of her fingers met with some very firm, very well-muscled thigh. Yup, definitely Mac’s lap.

“Honey...are you doing OK? This voice emitted now from a little farther away. Tessa had moved to sit at one of the bar stools cross-legged, one leg bouncing erratically. A habit, Meli knew meant that her best friend was annoyed, but trying really hard to mask it. She watched the muscles in Tessa’s face rearrange rapidly; an appropriately worried face to match the concern she was trying to show in her voice. Meli noticed how her bestie’s eyes kept darting to her boyfriend’s face, and to Meli on his lap. She wasn’t happy, and from somewhere deep inside, Meli knew the unhappiness wasn’t stemming from any worry on Tessa’s part about her recent mishap.