In the central harbor of Santa Del Mar, a city engulfed in flames by the sea, a single yacht pulled out into the water. It was moving very slowly, and clumsily. But it was moving. From the haze of smoke from the inferno, it emerged out into the clear water, traveling perpendicular from the coast straight into the bay. The smoke obscured the sky in many places, and it had a bright red hue from the sun setting over the sea. Soon, it would be night time. But before that, a girl walked out onto the deck and found the anchor. It took her a few tries to get it to descend, but it was lowered by a sort of electric winch. She did finally get it to drop into the water, and let it fall for quite some time. She felt it when it hit the bottom. Satisfied, she pulled it up just enough so there was no slack in the chain.

“This should keep me settled, right? Right mysterious boat stranger helper? Wait, you’re not the boat are you? Like a sentient… boat? Talking to me through my phone?”

She was glad no one had been around to hear that. But she shrugged and made her way inside. The inside of the yacht was quite nice. It had electricity! She thought she saw some largish solar panels outside, but they were up high enough and she was tired enough that she didn’t feel like examining them right now. There was a comfortable looking bed. A small kitchen. A bathroom. The captain’s chair, and even a small living room area. With a TV!

Even a blu-ray player! She loaded her perishable foods into the fridge on the kitchen, and closed herself in the cabin. This day had been a nightmare, but she was finally, finally safe. She could relax. She climbed onto the couch in her little living area, put in a random disk from the box set of Friends that was close at hand, and watched half an episode before she fell asleep. The second she had stopped moving and working was the second her energy completely gave out.

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Lily woke from a dreamless sleep. The title screen of her Friends disk was repeating the intro sting loudly. She reached up and turned it off, feeling miserable. After taking a second to use the bathroom, she decided to see if she could still see the burning city in the dark outside. So, she wobbled up onto the deck, and sat down. It was dark. It was so, so dark.

She looked around the sides of the ship, but she saw… nothing. Like she was floating in a completely empty void. It was almost relaxing. She could see a little bit of the light from the moon glinting out of the water. But there was no other light to be seen. Not from shore. Not from the sky. Nothing. It must be all the smoke cover.

So, she laid down for a minute, and watched the sky. The sky had been a lot of things to her over these last twenty four hours, and now she suddenly felt like she was floating in it. The most insignificant spec of dust in existence. Floating in an abyss the size of the universe with only the moon to keep her company or give her any idea of scale.

Wait. That… wasn’t right. She woke up a little more, her mind struggling to turn. Something was off. She could feel the gentle rocking of the boat underneath her, so she wasn’t in the air or something. What was it? She looked at the moon again. The moon.

The visible moon. With no smoke obscuring it. That can’t be right. How could she see the moon? How could–

“Oh god. No. Nonononononononono. I’m just being stupid. It’s an illusion. Something is– Something is happening.” But she knew it was real.

She stared up into the sky. The perfectly cloudless and smokeless sky, without the lights of the city to drown out the view.

In that perfectly clear inky abyss there was not a single star in sight

“Hah. I really am going insane.”