I stared up at the sky. It was so dark and so endless, the stars within it were the only specks of light. All around me there was darkness, the darkness I could see though didn't compare to the darkness I felt within my chest where my heart light used to be. Inside I felt so unbearably cold and empty as I continued to stare up at the black sky.

Suddenly I heard Elliot speak. "We have to go now, E.T.," he said. "We're so late already."

I knew it was late, but I couldn't leave. I remained still in my spot... just searching... Searching for a signal... for some sign that my companions... my planet... could hear me... that they would come here and find me before it was too late. But I could see absolutely no sign, the more I searched the less I could find and the deeper the void within me grew.

Elliot stood in front of me. "We have to go home now... hmm?"

My home was not here. It was far away from here. Beyond the moon, beyond the stars, beyond the milky way... it was so far away... it seemed it was out of reach, in spite of the transmitter I had built which was still buzzing and humming with activity. Perhaps they were too far away for me to reach and my hopes and my efforts to make contact with them were all in vain.

"You should give them some time," Elliot said, as if he were sensing my thoughts in the moment.

I had no idea how much time I had left in me. The light in my heart had completely gone out the moment I had lost my connection with my companions, and since then I had become weaker with each passing hour I was on this foreign planet with its terribly polluted atmosphere, and extra gravity which was closing in on me constantly. I knew I couldn't possibly have much time left in me, and then I'd be lost forever from my home and from my beloved family.

Slowly I placed my hand to my chest where it was as dark as everything around me. "Ouch..." I muttered. I had learned this word was used to express pain when Elliot had cut his finger which I at once healed for him, though I could not heal myself, I needed my companions to heal me if anything could heal the constant terrible aching I was feeling inside of my chest. I wanted to cry, but the tears just wouldn't come and I didn't know if it was because of how cold I was, or because my eyes were already sore from staring so much.

Once again Elliot spoke as if he were sensing my thoughts. "You can stay with me, E.T.," he said with tears in his voice, almost pleading me. "You could be happy here... I can take care of you... I'd never let anybody hurt you... We can grow up together, E.T."

Be happy here? I could never be happy here. This planet could never be like my home planet. It was quite true I loved Elliot, but still nothing could ever replace the love and completeness I felt for my companions and our home, the Green Planet and all of the beautiful and wonderful plants that grew there which we took care of. I yearned so much now for my heart to light up again, to feel the warmth, love, and joy it brought to me as it was radiated from my companions. But all I could feel was total empty darkness, and I felt so very cold and numb inside of my chest, I could feel my breathing and my heartbeat beginning to weaken.

"Home... home..." I muttered, it was all I knew how to say what I was so intensely longing for, and missing, and needing, and also what I couldn't find in all of the darkness as I continued staring up at the black sky just searching... searching for a way to find my home, my light, my soul...

I began to feel tears running from my eyes, then I glanced downward and I saw Elliot sitting down beside me with tears silently trickling down his cheeks. The aching in my chest increased as I realized he was suffering because of me, my pain was becoming his pain. If anything, I didn't want for him to suffer with me. I cared so much about him, I loved him. It was like the love I felt for my companions, and yet it was also a different kind of love.

I slowly reached out and wiped away his tears with the tips of my fingers. I watched as he looked up at me. I smiled gently, not that there was much to smile about, but I did not want to see Elliot suffering or in tears like he was now. He had given me so much in such a short time, had given me Reese's Pieces, had cared about me when I was all alone, had taught me new things, and most importantly had shown me human beings were really gentle beings. I tenderly stroked the side of his face. I knew I'd never forget him and I'd tell everyone at home about him... if I did go home.

I looked up into the sky again and still I could see nothing but darkness amidst the stars and constellations. I swallowed as I could feel a terrible pang of loneliness overwhelm me completely. It was no use, I felt. They would never come for me. Never. They had given up on me. They think I'm already gone... and I wished I was so this terrible torrent of loneliness would be gone as well.

"Home..."

I tried to hold back the sobs that were pushing upward from the hollow of my chest and into my throat, but then the tears filled my eyes, blurring my vision so I could no longer see any stars at all, only utter darkness and I was all alone.

"Home..." I cried. I let the tears cascade down my face and my neck. It was just the worst feeling of all, it was completely unimaginable. The feeling was of being gone and yet still being alive and I just desperately wanted it all to end. The hurt, the pain, the torment, the anguish. I wanted it to go away, to just leave me in peace.

I moaned and wailed in hopelessness. The light of my heart, of my soul, was just gone out forever I could tell. There was nothing left inside of me, there was just emptiness and darkness, all of the colors were diminished. I never knew it was possible for my heart light to actually go out before now, I thought it was impossible. Now it seemed I was beginning to forget what it was like when my heart light was on.

"H..h..ho..ooo...oom..mmm!" I choked on my sobs and swallowed my tears which were unbearably bitter tasting. Then I suddenly felt a pair of gentle arms reach out and embrace me. I collapsed into Elliot's arms and rested my head onto his shoulder as I bawled.

Elliot sat down and rocked me and stroked me almost as if I were a infant

As Elliot held me I began to calm down, somehow the feeling of having his arms around me brought me peace and less suffering, and it rather warmed both me and him against the chilliness of the night air. So I clung tightly to him and to the cloak he was wearing. Shortly afterward I came to realize he had fallen asleep in my arms. I listened to the sounds within the stillness of the night, and soon I began to hear the thick, raspy sound of my breathing and also a weak thudding from within my chest. I knew, of course, what these meant. My time was almost over with.

I sighed deeply as I slowly, gently, disentangled myself from Elliot's embrace. I looked at him briefly in the faint light of the moon. I remembered when, just hours ago, we had been sailing freely through the stars and above the tree tops on his bicycle. It was such a magical, beautiful, wonderful memory and I hoped he would always remember it along with me, long after I was gone. I knew I had to leave him.

How my heart ached to have to leave him alone here in the woods, but then when the morning came he would find only my lifeless body lying beside of him anyway and I believed that would be much worse. My only hope now was that in the morning he would awaken and find his way home, and maybe he would then remember me as only a passing dream.

I turned around and began to slowly trudge away from the clearing in the forest with the tips of my fingers dragging slowly on the ground. I no longer had strength to cry, and I was feeling weaker and weaker every minute. I stumbled on rocks and fallen tree branches as I trudged along. I could feel the air in my lungs evaporating quickly, and my heartbeat faltering very rapidly. I didn't know how much longer I could go on.

My vision was beginning to blur, though I could see there was a small stream of water a little way up ahead of me. I remembered how much I loved water, to relax in it as I refreshed myself, in body and in spirit. I crawled weakly up to the stream and laid down in it. I instantly felt the soothing sensation of the clear, cool water. I didn't think I would live for much longer, but I loved the water so much I felt I'd like to just pass away right here within it, for it was such a peaceful and soothing way to go.

The water seemed to be sustaining my body, but it could do nothing for my spirit, for it was as much without light as the empty darkness of the very furthest depths of the galaxy. My breathing became more and more labored and harsh with every second. I could no longer move at all. I had lost all feeling of my whole body and in place there was a rigid and cold numbing sensation everywhere. The pain within my chest became very physical and very agonizing, it grew intensely and spread through my whole body, all the way to the tips of my fingers.

Weakly, the ends of my eyelids opened when a sudden sound startled me. I could just barely see straight, but I could still see that the first rays of dawn were beginning to light the horizon above me now. Then, from the corner of my eye I saw how my once dark brown skin was vastly turning a sickly shade of white, it seemed to represent my complete loss of energy and strength as well as signify my life leaving my body.

I began to try to imagine what would happen after I was gone. Would my soul leave my emptied body and descend once again into the cosmos? Would I be united with my ancestors of my planet, whom had lived long before Botanicus? Would there be light and stars and peacefulness? Or would I be in nothing but eternal nothingness, just as I was now. Just a lifeless organism forever drifting in the water and soil.

The worst thing of all was this was all my own fault. If only I had paid more attention to my captain. If only I hadn't wandered so far away from my companions. If only I hadn't looked at those lights... There were so many if onlys.

"E.T.!" I heard a voice in the distance call out.

"E.T.!" "No!"

Suddenly I was aware there was someone bending over me, I could hear him breathing quickly, I could feel him laying a hand on my ice cold chest. Weakly opening my eyes I saw it was... Michael... Elliot's big brother, as he called him. I was so relieved to see him, and yet I was at the same time very distressed. I wanted to just be left alone here to die a peacefully sad death. But I was unfortunately unable to let him know this as I felt him tenderly wrapping me in a thin white sheet, and then tucking me into the basket of his bicycle.

After the bumpy ride, he picked me up and carried me inside to his house. He took me into a white room which I could just vaguely remember being in before. He laid me down on the floor, and then I suddenly could feel another human hand take hold of my own and tightly clutch it. I recognized it at once as being Elliot's hand.

I gazed into his gentle face and I saw how pale he was now, and his eyes held a very tired and bleak expression, and yet within his lifeless features I could still see something which I had seen from the moment he led me into his home, compassion. His hand which held my own was just as cold and damp, and the only strength I could feel from it was the radiation of his love for me.

I could vaguely hear the two humans speaking to each other, I could easily tell it was about me and my condition. Then I saw Michael leave, and Elliot remained where he was. I could see he was suffering all because of me again. I didn't want him to, I never, ever did. I wished I could just take the pain and suffering away from him, and yet I knew I couldn't just as sure as I couldn't take it from myself. I continued to hold onto his hand, but I couldn't reassure him, it seemed like everything was worth nothing now.

"I'm... so sorry... E.T.," Elliot whispered beside of me.

I couldn't understand what he could mean by that. He had never done anything to me, all he had done was care about me, and keep me sheltered from the rest of this strange, alien world. He had only done the best he could do for me. It wasn't his fault what was happening to me now. No, it was my fault. Everything was all my fault, and I knew that if I would actually escape from this black hole which was swallowing me up I could never forgive myself for causing Elliot so much trouble.

I then felt the presence of more humans entering the room. I turned my head feebly to the left and I saw Michael in the doorway and also the tall and willowy human creature whom Elliot and his siblings referred to as Mom. I knew there must be a reason why they had brought her to me now and I gathered the very little strength I had in me and I reached out to her.

"We're sick... I think we're dying..." Elliot muttered.

"M-oo-om-mmm..." I croaked weakly.

I saw the shocked and petrified look on her beautiful face, and I heard them all speaking in a jumbling of sounds which had little meaning to me. Then suddenly I saw the taller humans gathering the smaller ones in their arms, and I watched in agony as they ran out of the room. I tried to reach for them, but I couldn't. I could do nothing at all.

I began to scream and cry out in all of the horror and agony as I was left all alone to die in this cold room. My shrieks echoed off of the walls around. I continued to cry out, not that it did any good at all, no one could hear me. Soon my whole throat ached horribly from crying and screaming and I stopped and just lay still gasping for air in this completely alien world.

Then I suddenly heard the sound of new footsteps entering the room, and these were much bigger and heavier than the ones of those I was familiar with. Then as I turned my gaze upward weakly I could see three giant sized aliens clothed all in white with large round white heads with what appeared to be one big eye in the center and I could hear dreadful rasping sounds coming from them as I helplessly watched them come in, pick me up from the floor, and all of three of them carry me out in their thick, white arms to where I didn't know where, or wanted to know.

Everything else then was all a blur as they laid me down on something, and I heard dozens of sounds, mostly from the white aliens as they poked and prodded at me, and stuck things into me which I knew nothing about.

I was dying, I knew I was dying, I'd known it now for a long time. I was closer now than ever, I could tell because now not only was it agonizing me to move, or to speak, but it also hurt terribly to even try to breath. I was falling deeper and deeper into the black hole of despair and sadness and pain which had been created the moment the light of my heart had gone out and had left me in total darkness, just as a burnt out star does.

"E...T..." I suddenly heard Elliot speak, and he sounded like he was almost as much at the point of death as I was.

"El..li..ot..." I weakly choked out the sound of his name. Somehow just knowing he was close to me was a tremendous relief, like knowing nothing could really happen to me just as long as he right there with me.

"Stay with me, E.T..." he murmured pleadingly, he seemed to be experiencing the same kind of feelings and the same suffering as I was.

I knew I was being swallowed by the black hole inside of my very being, but was Elliot also being swallowed. No, he couldn't possibly be! The universe wouldn't be that cruel and unjust, would it? The universe could take me, but please spare Elliot, he doesn't deserve it.

"Stay... stay..." I muttered almost mindlessly, pleading for him to stay with me. The word was new to me and yet I could still tell what it meant easily.

"I'll be right here..." Elliot said with tenderness and reassurance. "I'll be right here..."

He would be right there for me as I needed him to be.

Then I lost all feeling and all thoughts of anything as everything within me and around went completely black.

I'll never, ever, know exactly what happened next. It all seemed to happen in one instant. I felt as though I were floating through space and through time. I could see darkness, and then I could see light, very bright light, and I was flying directly into it. It was so warm and seemed to be beckoning to me and my once empty and pain filled little being was filled with its very essence and energy. The closer I drew to it, the brighter and more magnificent it became, and then it seemed I was actually right in the center of it and I felt happy, happy again.

Then it seemed as if all of time and space were standing perfectly still as I felt so completely at peace, so completely at one with the universe... and then I heard voices. They all were voices I knew very well.

"E.T. Come home!"

"Maybe if we wish really hard... he'll come back."

"I'll always believe in you, E.T, I love you."

"E.T... We are here... we received you're message... we miss you... we will come for you... we love you..." I heard the clear, distinct voice of my captain and of my companions.

Then I heard just one voice, Elliot's voice. "E.T. I love you."

Then all at once the light vanished and everything became still once again, and then suddenly I saw... and I felt... a burst of light and cosmic energy around me and inside of me. It was a ripping, searing, ecstatic, enticing, loving, joyful sensation which filled me wholly until I thought I might explode.

I gasped as I awoke, and I shuddered, feeling suddenly warm and cool at the same time. I was still in darkness, and yet there was also a light, a very bright red, blazing light all around me. It was inside of me.

"E.T. phone home!"

I saw Elliot's face. His gentle, kind, innocent young face. He looked alive as I was again, and he looked happy and at the same time terrified as he cried out ecstatically. I knew it was because he was happy to see me again, just as I was.

"Elliot!" I pronounced his name, enjoying the feeling of renewed love, energy, happiness, and life flowing through my being. It seemed a new life, like a newborn star, had ignited within the light of my heart and I had somehow been reborn. I was given a second chance.

Elliot then noticed my heart light. He was finally able to see it for the first time. One of the many wonders of the universe. "Does this mean they're coming?"

"Yes!" I said with renewed strength filling me once again. I had succeeded! I still didn't know what had just happened, but I did know one thing for sure! I was finally on my way home!

"E.T. phone home!"