Chapter 1: The Beginning
Matthew was sitting at the lunch table outside NASA, devouring his grilled cheese sandwich like there was no tomorrow. Today was his first day working here, and he was determined to make this the best first day ever. He took his long, silky sandy blonde hair and put it into a ponytail. She threw away the foil she wrapped her sandwich in and headed into work seeming confident about what lies ahead. Little did she know what today would hold.
Matthew smiled, adjusting his tie as he walked over to his cubicle. When he got there, he waved to the others before starting work. During work, he saw old photos of Mars made from the old rover Opportunity. And when he saw the last photo made he went over to another worker.
"Hey, what happened to the rover Opportunity? They haven't sent any photos to us for awhile and their last photo is all blurry." Matthew asked, seeming confused.
"Opportunity, huh. Haven't heard that name in awhile," The other worker said, "Opportunity got stuck in a dust storm and used the last of its solar energy to send a signal and try to escape, but couldn't and we had to abandon it and left it in space."
Matthew looked at them shocked. They left a robot that could have been rebuilt or repurposed in space?! he thought, kinda getting a little mad now. But of course, he didn't yell at them that would obviously get her fired if she did.
"Why would you guys leave a perfectly good rover in space? Couldn't we have just sent someone to either wipe the dust off the panels or repurpose the rover?" he asked, trying her best to stay calm.
"We couldn't. Doing a mission like that would be insanely expensive. Plus we don't have the right technology yet."
Matthew just ran away before she could answer. He ran back to his office and locked himself in there as he sat at his desk and worked, not wanting anything to do with anyone. After an hour he was called to his boss's office. He got up and walked all the way over to his boss's office. "..Y-Yes sir..?"
The boss looked at her. "Miss-"
"It's mister. My she/her pronouns are dead." he interrupted.
"Ok, anyways.. I've been looking at the work you've completed already, and I would happily like to promote you."
"Promote me? To what?"
"Well, to study everything that comes from Curiosity's cameras on Mars."
"Oh, okay! Thank you sir." He said with a confident smile, right before walking out and back to his office.
The rest of the day was normal. He just worked. Never took a break to eat or drink anything, and by the time he finally looked at the clock it was time for everyone to go home. He smiled as he closed his computer and stretched. He then walked out, into his car, and drove home alone.
Margret arrived at his run-down apartment at about dinner time. By then he was starving, and decided to have some of the leftover chinese food from last night.
He got out the rice and put it in the microwave to heat it up. As that heated up, he looked for the other portion of his food. He found nothing.
Oh right, he thought, I ate the rest of that yesterday. He sighed and waited for the rice to finish and when it did he ate the whole thing. Then he went to sleep.
When he woke up, he found himself floating in space. He could see all of the constellations and supernovas, along with the black holes and billions of stars surrounding him. And for some reason, they were making noise that sounded like they were singing. He couldn't help but enjoy floating around and humming along with them. He was so relaxed that he closed her eyes and didn't notice the meteor coming towards him at a very alarming speed.
He opened her eyes, and freaked out when he saw that the meter was coming at an alarming rate. He closed her eyes tight, then flung up into a sitting position on his bed. His palms were sweaty, and he couldn't help but breathe a little heavily from the scare. It was all a dream… nothing but a dream. He thought, trying to calm himself down.
He looked at the time. It was 6:30. He got up and dressed for the day, then grabbed his clipboard and started to drive to work. When he went in, it seemed abandoned. But he didn't mind, he had an early shift anyway that had him come before everyone else. At that point he just went in and went to his office, starting to work.
After a few minutes, he heard something rumbling. He got up, but right before he could get out, his office collapsed. Everything became blurry and everything spun like crazy, until everything finally went black. And this time, he wouldn't wake up. At least, not in the same body.
He woke up after god knows how long, and everything around him was crazy. She saw texts on the top corner of his perspective. Everything was tinted a dark red as a loading wheel blocked the middle of his vision. What is happening to me..? he thought. What is this?
Just then the red tint disappeared, as well as the loading screen. There were about 10 people in front of him seeming pretty stressed, including his boss. As Margret looked around where he could actually see while frozen in place, he realized that he wasn't in the same body. He would never be normal again.