Every year, we all gathered at the river and looked up in the sky.

We brought telescopes, kites, paper planes, fireworks, balloons, and floating lanterns.

Our dream was there, above us.

Our dream, but also our demise.

A gargantuan black sphere that devoured everything, even light. It would soon devour us too.

Some of us escaped, a few luckier ones. In ships made of steel.

My gift, today, is a paper swallow. I always pray it's enough to buy even just another day for one of us.

The last time, it took the entire city. Tore it out of the ground with hundreds of its black hands, then swallowed it whole.

We don't know why, but Belsaari, species of flying medusas, love that monstrosity. They migrate here and willingly float up to the sky, to allow themselves to be devoured.

Belsaari never were clever animals, their behavior had driven them to the point of extinction. This might be the last year we see them... but I'm thankful for them. Their sacrifice is not in vain, they've saved my life, and not only mine.

Thanks to them, more of us were able to escape, or to live longer.

Sometimes I wonder, If perhaps these creatures who never hand mind, are just better than us, and intuitively think with their hearts.

I'm scared, so scared.

I just want to live, against all odds.

It's time, we attach keys to our gifts. Elders try to reassure us that death is just a natural phase, that this monster is nothing but infinitely many gates to other dimensions. We attach the keys in the hope to close the doors leading to the bad afterlives.

What I know, that this is just wishful thinking. Death there is brutal, death there is dark, death there swallows and digests you whole, until nothing is left. Nothing.

Another ship leaves, her SI is named Atala. It's a variety of black butterflies. Thousand of our best people will leave, tickets were drawn for another thousand.

I'm not a chosen one, I wish I had studied harder. Those people, those who will escape, earned it. They helped to study the gargantuan monster, they helped to understand it, develop our science. Without them, we would never reach the stars in time.

I'm thankful for it. It was never about rich or poor, ill or sick. It was about what you did to save us.

Me? I couldn't save even one person.

I couldn't.

I've tried so hard, I've overcame anxiety, fear, and stress. I've woke up every morning with that goal in mind. I've searched for answers.

Was it about luck?

I don't know, but I've always could've put more effort.

I don't know why I didn't.

In the end, it turned out as it always would. I'm not special. I just try to live another day, as many of us.

It's kind of sad, because I'm still alone in this world, but it's okay. I've got more time to try again and nobody will cry after I am taken away.

Atala is launching, her blue fires shimmer like hope.

It's time to send our gifts, in the hope they will be taken instead of her.

Thousands of lanterns in the sky, thousands of wishes, and thousands of regrets.

...and here, I'm crying again. It's like I've left there a part of me, and like I'm never going to take it back, like it's a sacrifice for the devourer.

Atala... no... the hands are reaching for her. Please, don't take our hope away.

Our hope...

A part after part, section after section. Her entire hull is being destroyed.

I've turned my eyes away, I couldn't look at these people in their suits, being taken, forever.

That's why I missed it.

The strange being, with long white hair, appeared out of nowhere.

It just touched the ship and it was shrouded by purple light, like made out of millions of tiny stars.

What was left of Atala was unaffected by the arms of devouring blackness.

The ship sailed, towards the unknown.

Our savior was there, but I was too broken to keep my eyes on the crashing waves.

My swallow is being taken. It's terrifying, but for the first time in my life, I've got to see it.

Maybe from this day on, I won't avert my eyes.