When I was little, my sibling told me about stars.
They said the surface-dwellers looked up at them- thousands of shining pinpricks of light, speckling the surface of the sky.
Neither of us had actually seen the sky, before. But we wanted to- so, my sibling got a vial of glowing ink, and made hundreds of tiny dots on the ceiling of the cavern we slept in. The ink was only so bright, but in the darkness, it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. They explained the idea of 'constellations', and we spent hours searching for shapes and symbols hidden in the speckles.
I loved it so much, when the ink began to fade, I begged my sibling to repaint them, and they did. Over and over again- but, with so many, they forgot exactly where they went, and they ended up being in different spots each time. I didn't mind- I dreamed they were dancing overhead as I slept, shifting around like millions of tiny glowbugs.
Eventually, I started getting comics from a relative who imported goods from the surface. I couldn't read them, I didn't know the language. But I could look at the pictures, and one of them had this two-page illustration of a group of pirates on the deck of a ship, with the night sky hanging overhead. I looked at those pages so much, I could probably draw it from memory.
I immigrated to the surface years later, and I got to see the real sky- and it was nothing like my little cavern. It was too bright, too far away, too big. If I looked straight up at night, I felt like I was falling, towards a ceiling infinitely far away.
And of course, there was that one star. I'd always known the sun was dangerous- when I told people I was moving topside, they'd ask me about it in concerned tones, like they were talking about someone behind their back. It was one thing to hear their warnings, it was another to smell my skin burning. Experience is the best teacher, I guess.
I'd spent so long dreaming of seeing the stars.
But the stars were not my friends.
Story of my life.
...
But.
Sometimes, at night- when I can actually go outside.
I'll walk over this bridge, and peer down into the river it crosses.
And I'll see the stars reflecting in the water's surface- bobbing up and down in the gentle current. Not far away, not too big- close, right in front of me. And I think to myself, if only I had a net, I could reach down into the river and scoop one up. It'd be the size of a marble, warm to the touch, and I'd go home with my pockets full of them.
Then I'd go to my room, and put them all up on my ceiling. And as I slept, they'd dance around, watching over me.
My own little sky.