Whispering stars

[Alex's POV]

Two hours later, Alex had managed to reduce the recharge time to 58 years.

The nearest drainable energy source was the lit name placard at the entrance of the park, which was approximately a 10 minutes walking distance away from the tree. It took him a full (awkward) 25 minutes to charge himself to the brim and another 10 minutes to discharge all the energy into the portal.

Roughly calculated, that meant it took him an hour to load and unload once. And each time he did so, the charging time went down with a measly 5 to 6 years.

So that lead to the conclusion that if he kept going at the same pace he was going now, it would take him about 11 hours to get to Otto.

He felt the optimism he'd felt earlier sink into his shoes. 11 hours was simply too long.

Not only that, he was utterly exhausted! Channeling energy in the way he had, took more of a toll on his body than he thought it would have. He allowed himself to drop to the ground on his back and concentrated on his heavy breathing for an instant.

It was well past six o'clock by now, and the sky was starting to darken. The days had started to become noticeably longer, but it sure still got dark early.

His dad had already tried to call him once. He'd promptly turned of his phone and even pulled the battery from the device.

He didn't want to risk his dad tracking his location. He didn't want to see his father for the time being. And it would probably stay that way until he could hold Otto safely within his arms once more.

Still, he was very aware of the fact that he'd made his father worry when he hadn't shown up for dinner and wasn't reachable for the moment.

Normally he would have made an excuse to ease his father's worrying, but he was to angry to care about his father's feelings this time.

"Serves him right," Alex thought to himself as he saw the first star blink to life in the darkening sky above him. "This is all his fault! This would never have happened if he hadn't bugged my room. If he hadn't kept so many secrets from me! I'll have to confront him. It's been long overdue. But first I'll get Otto back."

That was the plan. That was what he wanted to do. But somehow, he couldn't get himself to move from his outstretched position on his back in the soggy grass.

He was staring at the clear night sky laid out before him. One by one, more stars seemed to blink to life as the night sky got darker and Alex couldn't shake the sensation that they were staring back.

"Use us," they seemed to whisper.

"We'll share our energy with you, old friend," another said.

"Go get her!" yet another whispered excitedly.

"We'll help you!"

"We want to help you."

Alex stared with wide eyes.

He was going crazy, that had to be it. Gods and flowing energy were one thing, but talking stars? He had to be imagining it.

And yet, there was something comforting about the faint light that was raining down from them. Almost as if he could touch it and ...?!

Alex had unconsciously reached out a hand towards the sky and was surprised to find that it felt very similar to the energy he could feel radiating from devices. Did that mean he could manipulate this energy too?

Well, ... there was no harm in trying, right?

So he dropped his hand back to the ground, opened his arms wide, closed his eyes, took a deep breath and thought: "Okay, come to me."

And so, to his surprise, it came. He inhaled sharply.

The first shock was the sheer amount of energy that had flooded his system. It was so overwhelming that it overtook his senses.

The world was flooded in light, and suddenly he could see his favourite tree for what it really was: a portal. Its base was firmly rooted into the earth and it's branches each connected to multiple places in the universe.

The next shock was the pain he felt. He instantly curled in on himself, gasping for air. His lungs were on fire!

"It hurts!" he cried as he wriggled and rolled on the ground, to try and find a pose that made it all bearable, but found none. "Please! Please, make it stop!"

"Use it," the stars whispered urgently. "Use it!"

"Use it?" Alex thought. But how? He couldn't think straight!

"Use it!" the starts whispered deafeningly loud. "Remember your goal! Go save her!"

"Her?" Alex thought, a feeling of urgency bringing a shred of reasoning back to his pain-tortured mind. "Otto! The tree!"

So he crawled to his knees, pushed himself to his feet and took a first unsteady step. When he felt like the world wouldn't suddenly be pulled from underneath his feet, he took a second step, and so on.

To be honest, the tree wasn't that far away from where he'd been lying on the ground, but the pain was crippling.

When he finally managed to lay his hands on the bark of the tree, a sense of awe overwhelmed him. The portal hummed in sync with his own energy and since Alex's energy was currently overflowing, to the point of bursting, it welcomed the excess energy greedily.

"Charging time: 42 human years," the ancient voice said, but quickly followed up with: "30... 21, 11, 9, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, charging complete. Would you like to proceed with the teleportation to The Field of Reeds?"

"Just, give me a minute," Alex replied groggily. He felt much better now that the edge had been taken off. All that was left of the crippling pain was a numb feeling. The relief was so great that he felt his consciousness slip away.

Was he having another episode? Normally, his first reflex was to start the emergency procedure and call his father so he could handle the rest. But somehow, he didn't feel like doing that right now. So he let the darkness take him instead.