Jory sat cross-legged in the hallway across from the open door where her fellow sufferer of Starfall syndrome sat. His name was Kevin, he was a year older than her, and just out of high school. He also wore the darkest sunglasses she’d ever seen.

“This is really too bright for you?” she asked.

“Even with these on I can see you just fine,” he replied.

“Are they like welder’s goggles?” She’d worn some a few times during her shop class last year and these reminded her of them.

He chuckled, taking them off and tossing them to her, his eyes now fully closed.

“See for yourself,” he said.

Jory caught the glasses and tried them on. She could still see, albeit faintly. So, they weren’t as dark as welder’s goggles, but still far darker than normal sunglasses.

“Can you see in total darkness?” she asked, tossing the glasses back to him.

They landed in his lap and Kevin put them back on.

“Not total darkness,” he said. “I need some light to see, but not much. I’m also starting to see new colors.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, the doctors say the new cones that are growing in my eyes should let me see three new primary colors. Right now I only see hints of them, though.”

“What’re they like?”

“Can you describe red to a blind person?” he shrugged. “All I know is they’re not like any other colors I could see before. I will say you look really crazy with your skin glowing like that. It’s like a kaleidoscope.”

She looked down at her glowing hand and turned it around for both of them to look at.

“It’s only pink to me.”

“HEY!”

Jory and Kevin both jumped as the same person from before came around the corner, this time carrying a stack of towels.

“Get back in your rooms!”

Jory leapt to her feet and scampered back to her room.

“Nice talking with you, Kevin,” she said, waving.

Kevin waved back before retreating into his room and shutting the door. Jory was about to shut her own door when the spoilsport reached her and put a hand up to stop the door from shutting.

“We’re going to have to put a lock on your door if you don’t stop breaking your quarantine,” they warned.

“Fine, I’m sorry,” Jory sighed.

The person in the hazmat suit nodded and let the door shut. Jory went back to her bed and flopped down on it, staring up at the ceiling. It’d be pretty cool to see extra colors, she thought, but didn’t envy Kevin of his hyper sensitivity to light. Seeing in the dark was fine, but having to wear those blackout glasses all the time during the day would be annoying, though she supposed she’d get used to it after a while, like wearing regular glasses, really.

An hour passed and Jory just lay there, thinking about what the other people with Starfall syndrome were like. How were they all different and why? Why didn’t they all have the same changes? Eventually she turned the TV back on.

“…continue to be baffled by the different star formations,” a news anchor was saying. “So far, all reports point to our entire solar system being in a completely unknown part of the universe, dozens of light-years away from our home in the Milky Way Galaxy. Unrest continues in–

Jory changed the channel, not wanting to be reminded of the real world and the problems people were having to deal with outside. In a way, she was glad she was here. At least in quarantine she could mostly pretend the other things weren’t happening. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder if it was aliens, or some eternal judgment or whatever. She had a hard time believing any of the proposed explanations since they didn’t make any sense to her. Why move the solar system all the way over here, wherever here was, start making people glow, or see in the dark and in more colors, and then what? As far as she knew there hadn’t been any sort of grand announcement made or revelation given about what this was all about.

Maybe a wormhole in space opened up and they were just lucky enough to get caught in it. Nothing but random chance. That didn’t explain Starfall syndrome but it made her feel a bit better. Random chance was better than someone or something doing this on purpose to them.

She kept flipping through the channels until she found a cartoon. It wasn’t one she was familiar with, or even all that interested in, but it was a distraction. When the cartoon ended she watched another one, and another, and another, until the sun outside was setting and the day was almost spent.

The knock at her door caught her by surprise since she’d already had her usual battery of tests for the day. She answered the door as she always did and there was the same person in their hazmat suit from before who had chased her into her room.

“I’m sorry,” Jory said at once, fearing they were here to tell her they were going to put a lock on her door. “I really will stay in my room from now on.”

“It’s alright,” they replied, waving their hands to calm Jory down. “I just wanted to let you know that in a couple more days we should be able to tell whether or not you’re contagious and, assuming you’re not, we’ll be letting you and the others mingle a bit more. We’ll still be keeping you here a while longer for observation since some of the others have been experiencing some medically significant complications, but I think you’ll be able to go home within the week.”

“Thank you,” Jory felt her shoulders relax and a rush of emotions she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding back flooded over her. Tears began to stream down her face and her hands shook.

The person in the hazmat suit stood there, awkwardly, and then patted her on the shoulder.

“You’ll be alright,” they said. “Just a few more days. Hang in there.”

With that, they left and Jory shut the door. She kept on crying long afterward and curled up in her bed. She hated crying but couldn’t stop it now that it was happening. All she could do was let it run it’s course. She fell asleep, still sobbing into her pillow, and slept fitfully, waking up repeatedly in the night as horrible dreams shocked her awake, and yet as soon as she was aware of her surroundings she couldn’t remember what it had been in her dreams that was so terrible.

She hoped tomorrow would be better.