In The Stars

Written by Amy Xia from Holton-Arms School, Maryland, USA

The only thing separating us from complete darkness was a candle, not much larger than the size of a bottle cap.

Its light flickered as we trudged through the narrow entrance of a cave where forebearers had left their marks hundreds of years earlier. The glimmer cast the shaky shadows of an eighth-grade class across the damp, uneven cave walls. Mud clung stubbornly to every surface of my worn-out sneakers and found ample opportunity to cover the insoles, making each step slower and even slipperier than the last. Droplets of water echoed somewhere ahead, too loud yet too quiet for me to estimate precisely where they might occur next.

I could only see my friends a few feet in front of me, holding their respective candles, before the light dissolved into impenetrable blackness.

While I waited in line to army-crawl over a muddy puddle, I imagined myself a trailblazer navigating the caves before flashlights existed, trusting nothing besides the dim glow from the candle in my hands and the marks I was leaving on the wall.

I gazed into the abyss before me, terror rearing its hateful head for what I couldn't see beyond the ring of foggy candlelight.

“Hey, Amy? You good? It’s your turn,” Grace whispered as she nudged me from behind.

This is really happening; you are not dreaming.

***

The school hallways were filled with middle-schoolers trying to work out a 10-letter-day-rotation timetable, while, unsurprisingly, eighth-graders dotted around the corridors, whispering about how seventh-graders should be looking where they were walking.

I stood, in the middle of this teeming hallway of lit-up excitement, pleased by the feeling of being the oldest and therefore the leader of middle school, and also by the palpable anticipation of the OutDoor Ed trip that only my grade would go on.

Working through five days of classes mixed with mirth, I hardly noticed how fast the day arrived.

September 10th, just a week after the convocation that marked the beginning of eighth grade, was the start of our three-day trip to West Virginia, when we would trade our electronics for compasses, maps, and hiking boots.

If I had been told that I would be challenged to navigate a mountain with only a compass, I certainly would’ve laughed. My reply would be: “A compass? Geez. In 2025? That should be a museum artifact permanently. I’ll stick with the GPS on my phone, thanks.”

***

The next three hours spent in the cave left a memory that was more a collage of sensations than a series of events. Knees sinking into thick mud, pulling them out harder while resisting the drag, left me breathless. The sounds of helmets scraping against jagged rock ceilings clashed. Predicting that we wouldn’t be able to shuffle through the narrow crevices, which seemed too tight for teenagers to fit through between chambers, I did not crouch down until my peers had disappeared into them.

My core burned. Burned sharp. Who knew scootching fifteen yards would turn into a whole ab workout?

Somewhere along the line, I felt the fear I carried into this cave gradually thaw. Instead of worrying about what lay beyond the perimeter of the space my candle could illuminate, I found myself lifting it higher. Unexpectedly, with the addition of my headlight, faded figures etched into the arid wall became visible like forgotten stories. Each one had me wondering who had stood here exactly in my spot, and how many years before.

When we finally crawled back into the reassuring warmth of daylight and lofty trees, covered head-to-toe in mud, we felt victorious, accomplished, and (if I’m honest) genuinely relieved.

Later that day, when the night descended upon us, it no longer felt dark. No, we had experienced true, breathtaking darkness in the cave. We had made it through unscathed. I had been taught to appreciate every glimmer of light, but nothing could’ve prepared me for what Mother Nature had to present. As the last streaks of apricot-colored sunset vanished behind the mountains, we dragged our sleeping bags from our tents and sat shoulder-to-shoulder in a circle with our instructors.

“I thought I was going to get stuck in that crack,” someone joked, earning a chorus of laughter.

Poking at the fire while adding more kindling, our instructor replied, “Well, I hope you never forget how beyond capable you were.”

“Look up,” one of my friends whispered.

Above us, the sky was painted with thousands of stars that shone luminously across the darkness, something I had only seen through a Google browser. It was impossible to stare at a single star sitting peacefully in the borderless constellation of galaxies.

The Milky Way is above you. You are sitting in Spruce Knob, West Virginia.

‘I’m still holdin’ on to everything that’s dead and gone’

Someone suggested we sing In the Stars by Benson Boone. Our voices filled the campsite and drifted up into the fresh mountain air, merging with katydids and the crackles of a campfire nearby.

‘I don’t wanna say goodbye ‘cause this one means forever’

“Tomorrow’s our last day,” our instructor continued after the chorus had faded. “It’s been wonderful to meet you all.”

Everyone stayed silent for a while; time flies by when you’re having fun.

“Then let’s make tonight count,” we all agreed.

A needed pause in this rapid-paced life brought a group of eighth graders together as they lay beneath an incredibly full sky, making the rest of the world feel distant. Without screens and notifications lighting up constantly to demand our attention, time had lost its edge. No distractions pulled our eyes away from each other.

‘Now you’re in the stars and six feet’s never felt so far’

As the sun disappeared entirely from the horizon and a curtain of black descended, obscuring the sky, our counselors called us over to the firepit.

“Let’s pivot real quick. I know y’all want s’mores. You guys will need to equip yourselves with heat, fuel, and oxygen to keep the fire running.”

Carrying the new scientific expertise that made us feel more qualified than we were, we scattered into the woods in search of a massive amount of sticks and kindling. Soon enough, the warmth of the fire reminded us of our underpacking (why didn’t I bring that extra layer?) and underestimation of the temperatures once the sun had gone to bed.

‘Here I am alone between the heavens and the embers’

Marshmallows quickly turned golden over glowing flames, or, in some cases, darkish brown to add a little crisp, or burst into flames after being held overconfidently in the heat, turning into embers. Sticky fingers, melted chocolates, and more-than-parentally-approved amounts of s’mores were earned through trivia. With our faces illuminated by the firelight, it was surreal to consider that, that morning, many of us had barely known what our peers had even done over the summer. Now we would be bound together by stories and laughter from memories we had shared throughout our time here.

Somewhere at the midpoint of traversing through caves and singing under stars, the advisory had begun turning into the home we could all lean upon for the rest of the school year.

***

Had I thought the cave was challenging, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Our last morning arrived with tired legs and lethargic bodies, both shivering from the chilly air. After breakfast, each of the three groups received nothing more than a compass, a map, and our discretion as we stood at the foot of the mountain. Our instructors had one pressing rule: no speaking. I found myself glancing over, trying to catch even their most subtle expression change, which might indicate we were headed the right way.

They never did.

The bottle-lid-sized compass became our only voice and guidance. The three groups had fallen into a constant rotation, with the pace set before we started, while the other non-leading groups placed significant trust in a tiny, magnetic needle. We stepped over knee-high plants, ducked beneath low-hanging branches, and found our path between towering trees. The journey seemed to stretch endlessly ahead. Rice crackers and raspberry wafers would have to sustain us through the three-hour, gruelling hike. While we struggled to manage the compass, we continually checked each other for tick bites every time we paused.

Eventually, the trail grew steeper as we approached the last quarter of the climb. Just when we were about to suggest another break, the trees slowly became sparse, giving way to open space.

A sign greeted every visitor: Spruce Knob – Highest Point in West Virginia.

We took it all in! At last, the victory of the silent hike. A few huge boulders sat at the top of the mountain, offering an overlook of the Cordillera and its ridges. I waited for my friends in other groups to catch up with us, soaking up fresh air as the wind's fingers brushed through my hair. Ignoring the concerns that my Canon digital camera would only get dirty on this trip, I dug it out of my backpack. Through the lens, I captured the mountain view bathed in sunlight, too beautiful to leave only in memory.

And yet, that photograph would prove disappointing. Despite everything the camera had captured, what people couldn’t tell at first glance was that I had outgrown the person who thought a GPS was all any person could need. Nine months later, the same set of pictures would be displayed in our class’s middle school graduation video. Despite the tendency to cringe at how messy we appeared, covered in mud, all I could think about was how those stepping-out-of-comfort-zone moments had become some of the clearest and happiest memories of my eighth-grade year, surprising me with how much I had enjoyed the experiences I had initially been so hesitant to embrace.