Ethan Walker's stomach grumbled. It had been a long day at the office, filled with endless reports, pointless meetings, and his boss breathing down his neck about deadlines. As usual, he was the st to leave. The hum of the fluorest lights in the empty office building only made the silence feel even heavier.

  He sighed, gng at his wristwatch. 9:47 PM."Great, missed dinner again," he muttered to himself as he stood up, stretg his sore muscles from sitting in the same chair for hours.

  Stepping out into the cool night air, the streets were mostly empty. The corporate buildings around him stood tall, cold, and indifferent, as if to mock his daily grind. He shoved his hands into his coat pockets and made his way to the Lawson venieore, a familiar te-night ritual.

  He ehe store, the artificial brightness and soft hum of refrigerators weling him like an old friehan quickly grabbed a bento box from the shelf without even looking at the bel. His mind was on autopilot at this point. Grab dinner, get home, eat, and sleep just to wake up and do it all again.

  The bento was a cheap, greasy one. A few pieces of fried chi, a half-cold rice ball, and something that resembled vegetables. He didn't care. Food was food. He took it to the ter, paid with his card, a.

  By the time Ethan reached the subway station, his stomach's pints had grown louder. He sat on a bench, pulled out the bento box, and begaing. The chi tasted a little off, but he was too hungry to care. He wolfed it down in a few bites, not even notig the faint sour smell that g to the food.

  The train arrived, ahan boarded, sitting down by the window. He leaned back, closing his eyes as the rhythmic motion of the subway lulled him into a light sleep. That's when the nausea hit.

  His stomach ed violently. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, and he doubled over, clutg his gut. The world around him began to blur, the sounds of the train fading aanic set in as his vision darkehe pain growing unbearable.

  "What... the hell..." he gasped, barely able to get the words out. And then, nothing.

  Ethan's eyes fluttered open, his body numb aless. His first thought was that he was in a hospital. Maybe someone found him passed out orain. But as his vision cleared, the st remnants iness fading away, he realized something was horribly wrong.

  Instead of a white hospital room or the interior of a subway car, he was staring out at a vast, star-filled sky. His heart raced as he sat up. He was in some kind of cockpit, surrounded by strange, glowing panels and holographic dispys. The seat beh him vibrated slightly, as though the eructure around him was moving.

  "What the...?" Ethan muttered, looking around frantically. His hands moved to touch the glowing trols, but he immediately pulled them back, unsure of what to do.

  This was no dream. The cold, metallic feel of the cockpit seat beh him, the faint hum of maery, and the distant stars told him this was real. But how? The st thing he remembered assing out on the subway.

  He stood up, stumbling slightly in the low gravity. The cockpit was small, barely enough room to stretch. There was a rge, reinforced gss window at the front, and beyond it, space stretched endlessly. The panels around him blinked with unfamiliar symbols, and one of them fshed red.

  Ethan didn't know what to do. His first instinct was to press buttons, but sidering his situation, he hesitated. The st thing he wanted was to eject himself into space or blow up the entire ship.

  The s tinued fshing, and a meical voice crackled to life from the ship's speakers. It spoke in a nguage he couldn't uand, harsh and guttural, but the tone was unmistakably urgent. Something was wrong.

  Ethan's eyes darted to the trols, trying to make sense of the situation. His hands trembled as he reached for a lever on the sole, hoping it was the right one. He gave it a hesitant tug, and the ship lurched violently.

  A loud arm bred, ahan was thrown bato his seat as the star ship pluoward a distant phe atmosphere around the ship glowed red as they ehe p's gravitational pull, and the ship began to shake violently. Ethan's heart pounded in his chest as he frantically pulled at the trols, trying tain some sembnce of trol.

  The ship hurtled toward the surface, ahan braced for impact. He squeezed his eyes shut as the ground rushed toward him, waiting for the iable crash.

  The impact was jarring but not as catastrophic as he expected. The ship skidded along the ground, throwing up dust and debris, before finally ing to a halt with a loud screeetal. The cockpit filled with smoke, ahan coughed, trying to wave it away.

  When the dust finally settled, Ethan sat in stunned silence, his hands still gripping the trols. His heart was rag, and every muscle in his body ached. Slowly, he unbuckled the harhat had kept him in his seat and stood up, his legs trembling.

  Outside the cockpit window, he could see an alien ndscape. Red sands stretg as far as the eye could see, with jagged roations rising in the distarange, cactus-like pnts dotted the horizon, their spiny limbs reag toward the sky. A thick, swirling fog hung low over the ground, and the air outside looked thin and dry.

  Ethan stumbled out of the cockpit, blinking against the harsh sunlight. The heat hit him like a wall, and he covered his face with his hand to shield himself. The smell of burnial and something else, something acrid and unfamiliar, filled the air.

  He had no idea where he was or how he'd gotten here. But ohing was clear: this wash anymore.