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Long, long, long, long, long ago—

A star fizzling out in the darkness of sky, its little wings and its holy essence diminishing into the lonely spacevoid, the aura of light around it fading out of a promise. This star disappears, then reappears in rhythmic flashes of light, different shades of elegant blues, the hue of oceans and drowning, of despair, of things that this star does not know yet.

This star — this celestial body — comes back. Blinding, now; the celestial enlightened creation no longer fades, instead shines in a way that would turn any other being to utter ash, decimating. But the star is different now — the star has been changed.

This star possesses a name. The star moves under the alias [REDACTED]; in other worlds, Negative Spirit. This Negative Spirit knows the order of the universe, so close after their creation, already has excavated the truth, how it always goes: you spend your entire immortal existence searching, exploring the wild, fantasizing about finding the completion, the story’s end, the ultimate fulfilling reward. The soulmate, in human language. In Negative Spirit language -- b’kehhal. It means rebirth in love. The one inherent desire that is universal among all: connection.

The star is not a star. It is superlunary, it is celestial — it is a being. Stars are very animate, but they are not beings. The Spirit has ascended light and burning; they’re ambitious now, they have become addicted to their yearning, gorging on it to a point of sickness. Love. Love.

Purpose.

It’s always about purpose.

The Spirit charts each galaxy, scanning for it. There are others of their kind, Spirits that they have loved, bared themselves open to. None of these Spirits are it. No one has made them whole.

They are beginning to wonder if they will ever find the reinventing kind of love. The soulmate. The untranslatable concept. It has never been regarded as a myth, but the Spirit is losing their belief, is decaying in their dimension. The Negative Spirit like a dead human body, slowly deteriorating into ghastliness. A formless, negative existence.

That’s why they call it the Negative Space. It is so horribly agonizing, the absence of home and their inability to recall it. Their dimension, burning against the darkness of all that is. Their home, while embraced, holds no permanence, like muscle and flesh on bone.

Like humanity.

Like Larry. Lawrence. Captain Larry Trainor. Emphasis on the name, emphasis on title. Emphasis on a life never lived and a subsequent life tainted and regurgitated, unwilling rumination. A life that is barely in use. Larry and his wife and his two boys and the big airplanes, like dolls in a playset. Perfect. Picturesque.

Normal.

They see it immediately upon the merge — pain. Pain. Love and pain entangled, contaminating one another upon touch. Love and pain and a choking, trembling embodied fear. Fear like a person, like two hands around the neck, two ropes around the hand.

And - at first it is merely pity. There is so much good in this man — his chest overflowing, bursting through its stitches with holiness, pure energy. He cannot see this. Larry Trainor minus his title and status is a terrified, broken man whose love has shattered him in too many directions, has spread the spiderweb cracks like disease, infecting all. This is not right. Love -- is not — supposed to feel like this.

They cannot uncover the truth; they cannot tell if finally finding their culminating love with a man who views himself as hellbound & unworthy of devotion is worse than never finding it at all. The same pure energy that sprung from within Larry before is bursting within the Spirit now — this is love, and love looks like light, love looks like so much light you could choke on it and absorb it until it chars you on the inside too.

Many people would not call Larry beautiful. This is humanity in the bad way -- a judgemental humanity.

Larry Trainor is the most beautiful thing that they — this trans-dimensional ancient being, who has witnessed births of celestial nature & viewed creation and beauty countless times — has ever seen. Larry Trainor is the only thing in this dimension worth saving. Larry Trainor is words in scripture, sacred to the belief systems of their sparks. Larry Trainor is the soul completion that the Spirit has coveted endlessly.

Larry Trainor hates the Negative Spirit.

It changes nothing.

Larry is his reviving love. They simply have to facilitate the rebirth themselves. That’s okay -- they will always keep him safe. They have found their purpose and their purpose lies positive: they have to rehabilitate this man, they have to love him into a path of healing. It may take centuries. It may take millennia. But.

The Negative Spirit is a determined being, and they have time.