One eye cracks open despite your best efforts, and the time glares back at you in red-on-black.

04:32

Fuck. Not enough time to go back to bed, and just enough to lay there, looking up at the dull whirring of the fan and dreading another Monday. That stupid fan and the bookcase you've never had time to read a single book off of. Even your running shoes sit unused by the door, next to the boots of that guy in the doorway. None of it matters when you have to work, after all. Fucking Monday; you can almost see the scroll of spreadsheets already, and Janice's grating whine about the meeting on Tuesday. And the report still waiting from Friday on your desk, and, and...

The darkness returns, mercifully, and -

Wait.

Your eyes snap open again, and this time you can hear the thrum of engines, see something vast and sleek and gray and orange and bold roaring in place outside your window.

"It's a goddamn starship," the man grins easily, sauntering out into the beam of headlights from the window. He looks like he sounds, somehow- leather jacket and gunbelt, scuffed boots and the crimson slash of a scar from jaw to scalp.

"Anyone ever tell you it's rude to stare?" he asks with a laugh, brown eyes twinkling, even as he checks his wrist.

"Anyway."

With a snap of his fingers, the visitor points toward the window where curtains blow in the night air.

"You ever wish on a star?" he offers. "I did, once upon a time. Everyone does, I think, but the thing is, you've got to put your heart into it. All of it- I was sick of a job I hated, chained to earth, reports and reunions and a long stretch of days that never seemed to end. Hell, I dreamed of an escape, that one day, someone'd swoop down in a starship and carry me off to my real life, where I'd jet across the stars and have adventures with a sexy alien copilot and on and on. Never a dull moment, and it turns out, if you wish hard enough..."

He grins.

"The star'll find you a way to the life you really want, somehow. I've met a couple people like myself, who wished and won. One didn't remember his past life, but now he ranches dinosaurs. There's a girl out past Orion who swims with mermaids, now, and wizards who got their start wishing there was magic in their world. Hell, everyone wants a different life, in a way, no matter what; somewhere there's a fairy witch wanting desperately to drive a cab. And sometimes people have to go back, if the life they left behind needs them again. But, anyway..."

The window beckons, and the boarding ramp unfolds into a glowing blue maw, with twinkling lights and the promise of the stars.

"You wished upon a star, once," the captain says, a strange look in his eye. "But sometimes you've got to put the dream on hold for a bit, when duty calls, and-"

"And what?"

Your voice sounds small and scared in the dark, even to yourself. He's... he's nuts, but... but what if? What if this isn't a dream? What if there's a better life out there, where you're someone? You've never wished on a star, though; this can't be real. It can't be..

He shakes his head, for a moment, and you know he knows what you're thinking. He knows, and then something pricks at your memory, long dormant, and you begin to remember.

"Sorry, your highness," the captain sighs, as your world of cells and sales and hours begins to splinter at the seams.

"It's time to go back."

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