“Because the Stars Shine Again,” by Lansoror Raj Kumar: April 2025 2nd Place

The sky is velvet tonight.

Indigo folding into amethyst, fading into silver, shifting as the world tilts on its axis.

The stars are dim. They always are.

Beneath the velvet sky, a girl cups her hands around a jar, whispering a wish.

But the wind, swift as hope, sweeps it away before it’s whole.

She chases it, laughing. Through golden wheat, and across wildflower meadows. Her hair flying, her feet bare.

She doesn’t quite catch it.

But she sees something else.

A silver ladder, climbing from nowhere and disappearing high into the clouds.

She climbs.

Past the soft lilac duvet of clouds, past the powdered starlight that clings to her cheeks, past the cold and the quiet, and the weight she’s carried for so long.

She meets Atlas, who gives her a tired smile. He lets the sky shift from her shoulders for a moment, and she can breathe. She meets the one who hung the Moon and the Stars, chats with the Old Man in the moon, runs along Saturn’s rings and she has tea with the star-girls.

She sees the world from above, the light and the shadow, all of it. The glimmers of wonder. The wild beauty of the sky.

And finally, she finds it.

The North Star.

She sits beside it, toes dangling into the dark, and polishes it gently with polish she found in her jar. She hums lullabies and whispers secrets. Polaris giggles because it's ticklish.

Her hands shine. Her heart, too.

When morning comes, she wakes with stardust in her palms.

The North Star glows a little brighter. No one notices. They never do.

Except her.

She never finds her wish again.

But that’s alright.

Because every night since, the stars shine again.