“This can’t be.  I mean, it can’t be real.  Some kind of mass hallucination or something, right?” His mother looked at his father, hope and fear in her eyes.

Allistor’s father, George, was a former mayor, town councilman and retired soldier.  He’d fought in three different wars over the fifty years he’d served.  Nearly half of his body, including parts of both legs, one arm, and his right eye, were cyberbiotic replacements for bits he’d lost in combat.  Just over halfway through the 21st century, the human race had gotten almost as good at putting the body back together as they were at tearing it apart.

George shook his head slowly, putting an arm around his wife and daughter as he looked at Allistor.   “This sounds almost like one of your damned games, boy.  Could somebody be playing some kind of prank?”

Allistor didn’t have a clue.  He tried to reason it out aloud.  “They said the sun went nova.  I remember the sky being on fire.” He looked out the window.  Everything outside had a bluish tint to it.  “Look!”

His bedroom had a single French door leading out to the back deck that overlooked their pool.  George opened the door and stepped out, looking up at the sky.  He cursed quietly to himself as he stepped to the side and made room for the others to join him.  Allistor and the others looked up.

There were two suns in the heavens above them.  One a pale, almost white ball of fire just cresting above the horizon.  The other was a much smaller dark blue, almost purple sphere higher up in the morning sky.   Allistor searched the rapidly lightening space above them, looking for any of the familiar constellations.  He blinked at the sheer number of stars visible.

George had a similar reaction.   “It’s… the sky is so full.  Even out in the desert during the war, the sky was never this full of stars.  I mean, they were always out there, but not close enough for us to see like this.  I… think maybe they really did move Earth.  Or, move us and make us think they moved Earth.  But wherever we are, I think we’re much closer to the center of a galaxy than we were before.  The density of stars…” his voice drifted off as he took in the implications of their new situation.

Leah had stopped crying and was staring at the suns.  “So, like, these people moved our whole planet a bazillion light years in seconds?  And where’s the moon?”

Her mother rubbed her back gently and answered. “They can’t be ‘people’ like us if they want to kill ninety percent of us!  And Leah’s right? Where’s the moon? Without it there should be earthquakes and tidal waves, right?” Tears were running down her face now, and she hugged Leah tightly.  “Is this the end of everything?”