9 June 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2762: The Arch of Stars

This post was inspired by today's 5-minute writing prompt in the Freewriters Community - 9 June 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2762: under the arch

Enjoy !

Image by Kanenori from Pixabay

They sat on the forested mountainside, boyfriend and girlfriend. She'd sneaked out of her parents' house in the town below after they'd gone to bed. He'd enlisted and was due to report tomorrow... well, today. It was just after midnight.

They were young, in love, and knew that they were being separated and it might be weeks, months or even years before they saw each other again.

So they promised to keep in touch. She said to him that wherever they sent him, he could look up at the Milky Way, the arch of stars over their heads, and know that every night she'd be looking up at it as well, thinking of him and praying for his safe return.

They said tearful farewells and parted.

The next day, he arrived at the base. They sent him on a transport ship to a galaxy far, far away. It had no arch of stars. By the time his term was up and he returned to Earth, the savage time dilation of faster than light travel had taken it's toll. He was twenty, and wept over the grave of the girl who had died in her nineties two centuries previously.