Long Into The Night.

"There!" The joy in Lexie's voice squeals out as her right hand shoots to the sky, her index finger pointing into the sky "There! There! Did you see that?!"

The two of you are laying on your backs, in the makeshift bed that Lexie laid out on the ground. Your side by side, laying on one blanket for the added cushion while the other is covering both of you up to your chests. You have your arms out of the blanket though as the two of you are looking up into the sky.

"Oh, you're just making it up! No way the stars are falling..." you say, not believing her.

"No! I'm serious...It was right there! Sometimes the stars fall! I swear!" her hand still pointing upwards.

"Okay okay! I'll keep looking" you say sarcastically "Stars falling out of the sky...oh Lexie, those are just..."

Suddenly a shooting star skirts across the night sky right above them, leaving the burning white trail high into the sky for a split second before fading back into darkness. "WHOA!!!" you say completely surprised.

"See! See!" her playful tone returning "I told you!!"

"What was...how did...I've never...." you're dumbfounded "That was so cooooool." your head is now rolling on the ground as you move it all around the night sky looking for these falling stars "What is it?" you are in shock, you've never seen this before. "Was it the mountain? Was it the sky? Was somebody fighting way up there?"

Lexie's left hand slowly drops down and snakes it's way into your hand, interlocking her fingers with yours.

"Stories go, the Gods sometimes like to kill off old stars so new ones can be born. When a star gets too old, the gods will banish it, causing it to move and disappear into darkness like you just saw. It's why there are so many stars up in the night sky. As old ones die, new ones are born. Old stars need to die though, or else the entire sky would be white and there would be no darkness in our world."

"So, we just saw a star die?" you ask "Did a new one appear then?"

"If the stories are true, yes, but it's hard to know which stars are new and which are old because look around, there are just so many."

"Astonishing..." you mumble to yourself. You've seen stars before but have never see stars actually die. You grew up in areas where there was constantly torches or fires lite. But up here, towards the top of the mountain, away from any type of light besides the moon, you could see thousands...if not millions of stars all covering the night sky.

"How do you know all this?" you question Lexie