Only as the world around quietens; when all which wriggles into her left ear is the tick, tock, tick of a bedside alarm clock, do her eyelids part. She blinks, again, and again. Darkness, akin to that which lurks behind the drapes drawn over one's eyes, greets her each time. And the room's sole source of light, a desk lamp fixated on a row of children's novels, shines too depressingly downcast to provide any additional comfort.

For I am blind now, to that which is obvious. For I am awestruck now, to that which sparkles. For I am blind, to that which I see before me.

Kea's words parade the girl's mind. Words unspared, and therefore distorted by the effects of dementia. Words once decorated in phrases luxurious with meaning. Words since diminished to gurglings less understandable than a sphinx's jargon by the time her grandmother had told her them. Still, she cannot resist the urge.

Giggles, unrequested and shrill, hiccup from her. They're welcome in different circumstances, like ice cream on a cold morning. For if the outburst is overheard, the household's occupants would drag her out to celebrate and socialise. She can change naught but trust that it was well-and-truly ghosted into the fabric of a pillow she had conjured from under her neck and shoulders.

Astronauts are professionals. Professionals do not laugh when they try to stay quiet. They are composed, they have to be. Would you want someone about to confront the unknown to be so unpredictable? Astronauts are not children who cower from public attention.

The girl's not her usual self. She's failing to act like the one-percenter, the prodigy that navigates space simulations with unmatched precision. She's a child hiding from her family because she's ashamed. Ashamed of what?

Ruffled by her own active mind, she decides to act. The girl worms from the duvet's embrace and sits upright, sandwiching another pillow between her back and bedframe. Even deprived of sight, she knows the room's layout to a book's particular slant; windowpane a bed crawl to her left, a bookshelf a couple of metres farther than her feet, a kitchen door on the right, and a closet standing tall behind her head.

This is too much.

Out the window and into the night; it's an instinct-based decision, like her earlier memory-related lapse. Though this time she doesn't suppress it.

Her toes delve into the dew-brushed grass shoots, blanketing themselves in the tickles of ankle-high greenery. Playing with the air currents like a pair of migrating geese, she swings her arms about. Even her jaw joins in, hungrily snapping into the cool night.

"Freedom," she says, and then begins to run.

It's not the sand underfoot that notifies her, nor the rock pool she stumbles into and swears at. Neither is it the waves and sea foam climbing her body, pulling at the logoed clothes she wears. Only once the lady spots the starfish and rescues the animal from a crab in pursuit, piecing together a few disembodied legs for the echinoderm, does she realise she will miss her bus back.

Panicked, the girl resurfaces and scrambles back to shore. There, standing on a dune en route to the house, is a shadow. She's seen it before. She will see it again, even if outer space comes to collect her. It's her own, and it says to her:

What's the rush? You've already saved a star today.