Tap, tap, tap.

“Phar!” my mom called, announcing her arrival before she even reached my bedroom door. I continued tapping at the keyboard as she poked her head in. “Go to bed sometime tonight,” she said, her melodic voice exhausted from a hard day’s work.

“Yeah, yeah. I know,” I muttered in reply, not taking my eyes off the many conversation windows scattered across the screen. She just rolled her soft blue-green eyes, flicking the light off as she left the room.

Soon the rest of the house darkened as well, leaving me alone in the luminescent glow of my computer. I smiled, typing “be right back.” My friends would have to entertain themselves for the time being.

I tiptoed as quietly as I could past my parents’ bedroom, slowly making my way through the kitchen to the back door. The kitchen still smelled of roasted chicken from dinner only hours ago. Turning the dead bolt, I cringed as the sharp creak pierced my ears. I gave a sigh of relief when the only sound that escaped my parents’ room was a snore from my dad.

A strong blast of winter air struck me as I opened the door. I stepped into the silent outside world, leaving indoors behind with a faint click as the door closed.

I shivered as I sat down in the frosted January grass, wishing I had brought my warm black sweatshirt out with me. But I ignored the biting chill, falling back gently to lie in the lawn.

Engulfed by midnight’s calming darkness, I stared in wonder at the clear sky, for every fraction of a second another hundred stars came into my view. Soon a million glittering lights – some burning brightly and others, oh so faint – were staring back at me, lying a million worlds away in a distant winter’s icy grass.

Staring into the sea of swirling starlight, everything slowly fell away. It was just me and the night – no emotional turmoil wringing tears from my eyes, the memories of days gone past pushed into the depths of my mind. I was pulled into a peaceful trance, my breath coming serenely – breathing in the scent of cold pine air, breathing out misty warmth that pierced the arctic sky. The stars seemed to be whispering to me in their sing-song voice, “She isn’t real...you can’t make her real...”

A pack of coyotes soon drowned out the stars and woke me from my dazed delusions. I sat up, listening to their high-pitched mournful howls to the Wolf Moon above them. In my gut, I knew they were looking to the sky and crying for a deceased comrade.

They were looking for the same thing I was.