The sun had set and it was past time for Rey to return inside, to settle in for sleep so that she could rise early enough to take advantage of the cooler morning for her day’s scavenging, and yet she found herself still sitting in the sand, watching the stars. In the distance a starship was rising into the sky, preparing to blink out of sight, and Rey felt a bone-deep ache as she imagined what its occupants must feel, as she wondered if they even knew what they had, the means to escape, to go where they wished, and, perhaps, companionship.

She had scratched out another tick on her wall for today, another mark in the flood of endless days spent waiting, and with every tick the tiny voice inside her that told her she would be alone forever, they were never coming back, grew a little bit harder to drown out.