It had been raining for seven years straight, though it felt like my entire life. I was only two years old the last time the sun rose on this planet—Venus, the place I call home. My parents were among the rocket men and women who ventured here to build a civilization. They often spoke about Earth, their home planet, with a kind of reverence that made it seem almost mythical.
Whenever they described it, Earth sounded like the exact opposite of Venus. It was bright, full of color, and bursting with life. People didn’t have to live in underground bunkers. Flowers bloomed, and leaves changed colors with the seasons. But here on Venus, there was only one season—monsoon. Seven years of endless rain, followed by a single day of sunlight. And yet, as the years passed, I stopped believing the sun would ever come out.
I used to tell myself to be patient. Just two more years, William. But hope is a strange thing—it fades the longer you go without seeing proof. I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. The other kids my age had never seen the sun either. In a way, that was comforting. We could go about our lives without feeling like we had missed something extraordinary.
Then Margot arrived.
She was from Earth. She remembered the sun.
We tried to talk to her, but she barely responded. She kept to herself, quiet and distant. When we played games, she never joined. Even during class, she barely spoke—except when we sang songs about the sun. Then, suddenly, she would sing.
I envied her.
She had experienced something we never had. She had lived in a world of warmth and light, while we had only ever known the cold and the rain. Over time, my envy hardened into resentment. It felt like she saw herself as different, better than us.
Then the day came.
The day the sun was supposed to return.
I had spent so long suppressing my hope that I didn’t even feel excited anymore. As I walked to school, I noticed something unusual—smiles everywhere. Whispers of anticipation filled the air. Could it actually happen? I wondered.
When I arrived, I saw something I had never seen before—Margot was smiling.
I pushed her. “What are you so happy about?”
For the first time, she turned to speak.
“Don’t wait around here,” I interrupted before she could say anything. “You won’t see anything.”
She opened her mouth again, and I cut her off once more.
“Nothing’s going to happen today, is it? Nothing, nothing!”
She looked at me, her face clouded with doubt, but then she spoke softly. “Oh, but this is the day. The scientists predict it. They say, they know—the sun…”
A strange panic rose in my chest. I felt threatened. If she was right, if the sun did come out, then everything I had convinced myself of would crumble. My frustration boiled over.
“We should put her in the closet,” I said to the others.
No one objected.
We shoved her inside. As the door clicked shut, her screams echoed through the hallway. For a brief moment, guilt pricked at me. But then I reminded myself—she had seen the sun before. How unfair was that?
And then, it happened.
The rain slowed.
We lined up and stepped outside for the first time in our lives.
The world, once drenched and gray, was suddenly golden. The sun was real. It bathed everything in warmth, making the drenched forests glisten like something out of a dream. We ran, we laughed, we played. It was the most wonderful moment I had ever experienced.
And then, all too soon, a girl screamed.
Raindrops fell on my skin.
The sun vanished.
Tears stung my eyes as we were ushered back inside. The golden warmth had been replaced by the cold, familiar darkness.
And then I remembered.
Margot.
“She’s still in the closet,” someone whispered.
We rushed to the door and threw it open.
She stood there, silent, her face pale and streaked with dried tears. Her eyes were empty, hollow. She didn’t cry, didn’t scream—she simply looked past us, as though we weren’t even there.
And for the first time, I truly understood what we had done.
