"Captain, the pressure is holding," Lyra’s voice echoed in his head.
The train lurched to a halt. The doors hissed open. The cold morning air rushed in, dissolving the rings of Saturn and the deck of the Solaris . Elias stepped onto the platform, adjusted his bag, and merged into the sea of commuters. He was back in the "real" world, but as he swiped his badge at the turnstile, he whispered a single word to the crew still lingering in the corners of his mind: What do my day dreams look like this mental health month? Day Dreams
In his mind, he wasn't a junior data analyst with a damp umbrella and a lukewarm latte. He was Captain Elias Thorne, standing on the deck of the Solaris , a ship that sailed not on water, but on the shimmering rings of Saturn. The air there didn't smell of wet wool and diesel; it smelled of ozone and stardust. "Captain, the pressure is holding," Lyra’s voice echoed
He closed his eyes again. The Solaris was approaching the Great Blue Vortex. His crew—characters he’d built with intricate lore over years of commutes—waited for his command. There was Lyra, the navigator with bioluminescent tattoos, and Kael, the engineer who could fix a warp drive with a paperclip. They were more real to him than his coworkers. The cold morning air rushed in, dissolving the
"Next stop, Blackfriars," the intercom crackled, momentarily thinning the veil of his fantasy.
