A Star in The Sky

By Amy Rose

"My future was bright, and I was bright, and I Drymmed with brightest enthusiasm…"

 

Amy Rose's striking dystopian novella A Star in The Sky paints a grim future of a nation wrecked by socialism and social justice, where a heavily surveilled populace is governed by Absolute Equality and educated by state-run simulations. In the midst of a peaceful but oppressive twenty-second century, academic high school student Marian Sane is catapulted into danger when she uncovers the dangers behind seeking her own opinions. After she joins a society that encourages freedom of speech and ideas, her way of life is threatened when she is revealed to have one of the most dangerous pieces of contraband imaginable: a pair of un-censored physical books hidden in her dorm. In a story narrated in a uniquely stylized voice, Marian must decide for herself whether to betray her friends or surrender her growing convictions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen And Glory Press LLC
• Release date: May 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393395775

Book preview

A Star in The Sky

Amy Rose

A Star in The Sky

Copyright © 2024 by Amy Rose. All Rights Reserved.

Published by Pen and Glory Press, LLC.

Cover image designed on Midjourney.

Originally published in 2020 by Amanda Clemmer

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Contents

1.Part 1: Marian

2.Part 2: Aaron

3.Part 3: Sofia

4.Part 4: Mall

5.Part 5: Marian

About The Author

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Part 1: Marian

1

Shall I begin?

The summertime constellation of Sagittarius had twinkled affectionately over me and blessed my journey on the nights before we left, and I—Miss Marian Sane, cloudy-headed and starry-eyed and fourteen from head to toe—prepared to commence my freshman year in Rosemond High, which was one of those really excellent and quality schools with tall windows and ivy and three meals every day, decorated with a tennis court and a stone garden; and Rosemond High was the kind of place where all the students wore pressed uniforms and graduated to change the world and the community around us; and when the man on the screen listed my number among those expected to attend and I saw the announcement from my desk at my old school in Florida, I felt the celebrating could never end; and my father was congratulated at his work by his colleagues who would never share such an opportunity with him because they could never be so lucky, and my mother shared all the adorable pictures of me in my new uniform that year with the medals and the diplomas awarded me in my earlier years of education for its completion and quality, and my friends invited me to each of their summer bashes and wept over me with their own happiness and hugged me until I began to choke; so with all the cheering and merriness, my family decided easily to move to Massachusetts together for me to attend such a prestigious institution and learn to be an influencer and inspiration for all of society to look up to, and my parents moved into one of those little apartments several stories up in Boston while I moved into the Freshman girls’ dorm at Rosemond High (Sycamore Hall, we called it), and I was so happy that I smiled for days during the move all packed in the bus sandwiched between my parents and with my little red backpack pressing my feet to the floor like a heavy weight with all of the books and my Drym headset because I wanted to come in prepared even though we hadn’t stopped by the store to buy everything, but when we arrived I collapsed in my parents’ new home first thing before having a chance to visit the beautiful green campus; and after I had woken up and had some muffins to eat, we drove to the beautiful address where my new school was situated, and we all beamed with pride at the fact that I would be learning here and that in four short years (such a short time, like the blink of an eye we all said!) we would all celebrate likewise my graduation from this place with a current High School Diploma as a proof of my great learning and effort, and then we stepped inside of Sycamore Hall’s main entrance (this dorm had many entrances and a giant study hall and cafeteria that I looked forward to frequenting after I had settled in and unpacked and started all of my merry classes), and we looked for my room number, which as I remember was room 303, and we climbed two sets of stairs before reaching the proper floor and fitting my key in the door, and I stepped inside and said at once how big it was and how I could never hope to fit everything in, but my parents cheered me and assured me I would, so I chose the lower bunk for myself and we put my clothes in the chest on the wall underneath one of the mirrors, and I sat on the mattress of my bed after it was made and swung my feet off of it like a little girl and said that this would be a fun place to stay, and then we all went out for a long supper before my orientation began, and my parents said they would miss me a whole lot, but my roommate Mall looked like a good person to spend my time with, and the girls next door (Jessie and Van) were perfectly sweet, so I was sure to be a good fit with them if I continued to study as hard as I had in my career to this point—but I didn’t see how I could fail, so I happily bid my parents goodnight and then miserably cried myself to sleep in my little blue pillow that night because I was already homesick, though it had only been hours since I had arrived, and I felt I had only the stars in the sky as company.

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2

Now I have a few words to say about my friends that year as I began to settle in: I had several companions, starting out, and everyone at Rosemond High was incredibly friendly to me while I was settling in and asking me questions about the warm weather in Florida and about my parents and what I thought of Massachusetts so far, without my having yet explored it; and they all asked me about my Drymming and what games I best liked to Drym—now, most of these questions naturally came from Mall, my roommate and established official friend for the school year, since at Rosemond everyone is paired with at least one official friend, and more if accommodations are made and the reasoning is understood, so Mall was born under Gemini just as I was, and she liked the color red as much as I did and she enjoyed reading and academic puzzling, and so we were guaranteed to get along well for the rest of the year as we studied in the same classes with the same schedule; but the big difference was that Mall was a local from the area whose great-grandparents had come over on one of those antiquated ships hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and she had never dreamed of riding buses anywhere outside of the Boston area, and I meanwhile had lived in three different states now and was well seasoned in the art of traveling but knowing nothing of the local area itself or the Arctic climate that I would eventually have to surrender to when the winter started and the water all froze over and the rain fell in the form of snowflakes and ice; well, Mall knew all of that and more; but to my great amusement and frustration, I soon learned that she was the kind of person who acted very differently around all our parents and teachers than she did when we weren’t in class because as soon as we were alone, she offered me a location dampener for my phone; and I told her that was too dangerous even though we weren’t going to go anywhere, but she didn’t seem to mind it and claimed that actually she didn’t like the idea of people spying on her, though I don’t know who would spy on a child as young as either of us, so I refused and she packed the dampener away and said it was no big deal before telling me about her favorite club in the area, that being the wild Video Lounge right outside of campus and more frequented by the older students and some of the adults, with its alcohol and loud music and frequent dancing; and so I told my roommate that I usually only liked to stick to more respectable interests like reading and stargazing with the occasional Drym games, and she said that she would have to loosen me up if she had the chance (I vowed never to give her the chance that she wanted so dearly, because I always wanted to prove myself to be one of the upright and elite, and I wanted the entire world to be proud of me), but Mall was only my roommate and the best friend available; and I also saw a lot of Jessie and Van from next door, Van being forgettable with her bangs and