Soon, night fell, and darkness began to spread across the forest, deepening beneath the canopy of trees.
The shed dimmed as well, gradually swallowed by shadow. Overhead, the bright moon cast an otherworldly glow, causing the darkness to retreat into the deeper corners of the woods.
It was cold too, thanks to the evening breeze and Ralph's slightly damp clothing. The fire offered little relief, its warmth barely noticeable.
Though it had dimmed, it still cast a faint glow through the shed, golden embers flickering into the corners while shadows crept into the spaces it couldn't reach.
'I feel colder compared to the night before' he thought as he shivered slightly from the night breeze.
He glanced toward the far end of the room, where the door stood, then slowly got to his feet and walked over. Peeking outside, he scanned the area for any predators or scavengers that might be lurking nearby.
But it was eerily quiet, almost too quiet, with no signs of life except the occasional distant howl and the rustle of movement in the bushes.
'It's seriously cold out here'
He crossed both arms over his chest, shaking them up and down in a steady motion to stir some warmth through his shivering frame. The cold of the forest was relentless, wrapping around him like a second skin.
When he looked up, the sky seemed clearer than it had from the shed's window, no longer obscured by the restless rustling of leaves. A breeze swept past, tugging at his clothes, as he stared at the constellations above, their soft, distant glint glowing from a galaxy not so far from his own.
'I wonder how they look like up close, would they still be small or bigger than they look? A serious warm up from those won't be so bad' He thought as he stared at the constellations.
Soon, a meteor shower began, lighting up the forest in ethereal glows as streaks of light zoomed by in the distance.
'What....the...hell...is...that..?!' He thought as he stared at the magnificent display just within his eyes reach,
'This...this is pure art!!!'
It looked like dozens, sometimes hundreds, of shooting stars zipping across the sky in rapid bursts.
These shooting stars aren't stars at all, though. They're tiny bits of cosmic debris burning up as they slam into Earth's atmosphere at ridiculous speeds, think tens of kilometers per second.
Most of them are no bigger than a grain of sand, yet they burn bright and fast, creating silver-white flashes that disappear in a blink of the eye.
The meteors seemed to spill from a single point in the sky, a point they called the radiant, but they shoot off in all directions like chaotic fireworks.
Some leave glowing trails that linger for a heartbeat before fading into the dark. Others blaze and vanish in an instant.
On a good night, it feels like the universe is throwing a silent rave with nothing but streaks of wonder searing across the sky like it's showing off.
'I can't believe my ey–, woah!!'
His leg ached with the pain from the earlier injury he thought should have gone by now, and he nearly slipped off the branch of the tree he confidently stood on.
'Oh my–' he held himself with another branch that happened to be within his reach.
As he steadied himself, tear streaks began rolling down his face as he stared at the shadowed ground that looked extremely dark from where he stood.
"Why!! Why did you do that to me dad!!" He screamed out, voicing out his inner thoughts he had been holding back since he left the clan.
"Why didn't any of you guys speak when you all had the chance to!! Even you mom!!" He raised his head at the otherworldly display that lit up his eyes with the glow of the sun.
"I can't believe you just accepted everything like that, did you actually love me or you just wanted to get rid of me so bad?? You could have literally spoken to dad and he would have definitely accepted your agreement as his wife, you had utterly no reason to side with him at all!!"
More tears rolled down his face as he screamed, ignoring his surrounding could be filled with lurking predators.
He stumbled back and leaned against the tree behind him, then slowly slid down the trunk until he was sitting.
Drawing his knees toward his chest, he wrapped his arms around them and buried his face in the space between.
"I would have worked every single day just to make it up to you guys, I would have done anything, anything you wanted me to do, you really didn't have to throw me out and force me never to come back again"
He jerked his head up, a string of snot slipping from his face as he stared up at the sky. The meteor shower was still going, but it had started to fade, the streaks of light growing fewer as time quietly marched on.
"This wasn't how I prayed everyday for my life to go, this isn't how I wished for it to go!!. I won't accept this fate!!," he sniffled, taking in air.
"I will make sure to turn it around!, they say your own fate lays on your palms right?" he pulled off the pendant his mom told him to keep safe, and lifted it until the ethereal light from the meteor shower reflected on it.
Wiping off his tears with his other hand, he opened his eyes and stared at the pendant with an eye full of pain, agony, suffering and fury.
"I will make sure to change my fate, for I won't accept this fate you have placed in my palms for me to accept. I don't care who or what wrote this fate into my palms, I'm rewriting it."
"I will make sure I survive this banishment, and I will return to take all that rightfully belongs to me, no matter the cost."
Slowly rising to his feet, he used the pendant and smeared on the remaining blood that clung to his thigh before he raised the pendant on his palm high enough.
"This is a promise I make to this very land in which I stand on, and I will do well to keep this promise, even if it leads me to my dying bed" he declared, letting go of the pendant.
As he turned to leave, a bright light streaked across the sky, the last of the meteor shower faded in the horizon, the forest returning to its silence, dim light and quiet.
The pendant landed in a soft jingle, and he didn't stay out any longer, with a dragging breath and red eyes, he went back into the shed.
He moved toward the end of the room where the window was and sat close to it, staring out the window to the glittering sky.
His gaze stayed fixed on the stars until, slowly, his eyes closed, and sleep finally took him.