Charlie isn’t exactly proud of getting kicked out of college, and his parents aren’t thrilled, either. But pot is his escape from reality, from the futility of life. Without it, he is Sisyphus pushing the rock up the academic hill only for it to come tumbling back down again. Drugs just happen to be his temporary relief from that cycle, his prime coping skill. It’s not his fault he happens to live in a state where marijuana’s prohibited.
Which is how he ends up in the position he’s in, on the couch while his parents bitch and moan.
“Unless you get a job by the end of the week, you’re out on the street!” cries his dad.
Charlie rolls his eyes behind his glasses while his mother jumps to his defense. “He’s just a teenage boy, Pete!”
“You say that like he’s 13, but he’s not! He’s turning twenty and needs to learn ambition. Look, I’m not saying he has to become a doctor all of a sudden, but if he’s not in school, he needs to be doing something.”
“I’m on your side, hon. I just think threatening to kick him out is extreme.”
“Extreme my ass!” he snaps. He’s red in the face, now, pacing back and forth. “He’s taken advantage of us. Of our hospitality, free rent, and our-our- booze! Don’t you have anything to say for yourself, kid?”
Charlie, as apathetic in the face of authority as ever, shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly. He detests these family meetings, perceiving them as unproductive to his mental health. After this depressive episode, he’d be back on his feet. If only his parents understood that instead of being a couple of ignorant idiots.
His father’s patience, which has always been immensely thin, dissipates. “Ugh! I’m out of here. I’ll be in my man-cave. I need to cool off. Cheryl, bring me a beer.” He storms down the hallway, slamming the door behind him with a loud bang!
Charlie’s mom gives him a dirty look, but it has no effect on him. Instead, he goes upstairs and locks the door, anxiety beginning to pool inside his chest the moment he's alone. Who is he kidding? His dad is right. He’s a shitty, deadbeat son who had piss poor grades even before campus police caught him. Had he not been expelled, he would’ve flunked out.
Charlie removes his vape from his pillow case, the tension he was holding onto leaving his body in a few puffs of sour smoke. He takes a couple hits of Malibu rum, too, while he’s at it, hiding the bottle back under his bed.
A buzz notifies him that one of the games on his Steam wishlist is on sale. He turns his computer on and opens up his library after downloading it, but all of his games aside from one have been deleted.
“The fuck?”
The only game in his library is one he’s never seen before called Celestial Ambassador. Usually, he’d be freaked out, but he suddenly feels like he’s destined to play this game. He blames it on the weed, and clicks it, but nothing happens.
He deems it as a virus. Some person’s sick idea of fun. He decides to take another couple of hits, then turns off his room’s light. He walks back to his bed where he’s surrounded by empty energy drink cans and dishes. He reads some manga on his phone and falls asleep, blissfully unaware of what’s to come.
<><><>
He dreams he’s a falling star that night.
Charlie is plummeting down at a rapid speed head-first. He screams, but his voice is swallowed by the accelerating roar of zipping through galaxies. His skin is peeling off from the heat until its just his essence, his bare soul being thrown across the universe, violently booming by planets and stars, meteors and satellites, racing through a vacuum until–!
“Celestial Ambassador!”
Charlie jerks awake. Beside him is a beautiful woman. He’s confused– did he black out again at a college party? The memories of the previous night slam into his brain all too quickly, and he realizes with a jolt that this theory is impossible.
“Who are you?” he asks, still dazed. “Where am I?” He’s suddenly aware that a siren is blaring, filling up an unfamiliar bedroom with a bright red glow.
“There’s no time! Our ship has been hit!” She pushes his glasses onto his face and pulls him up out of bed by his wrist, then out of the room into a white hallway. People wearing the same red uniform she are running about, the “ship” in pure chaos.
“This is a pretty vivid dream for just an indica,” he muses.
They finally arrive at a door, which scans the woman’s bright blue eyes. It flies open, and in it is an area much like an inner parking garage with only a few vehicles left. “We’re getting out of here, don’t you worry!”
She throws open the door to the tiny aircraft farthest away from the door to what must’ve been a room of escape pods and she stares in disbelief at Charlie. “Get in!” she shrieks. There’s an inhuman screech from the door far behind them, and Charlie turns around to witness a giant eye outlined in obsidian. Fear floods through him as his “dream” takes a nightmarish turn.
“Got it,” he says, and enters the strange ship, heart pounding against his ribs. He buckles himself, noticing he has soft, white silk pajamas on. He turns to the woman in the driver’s seat. She presses an upper button and metal grinding on metal echoes in his ears as an exit begins to appear, opening much like a garage door. There’s several large bangs and then Charlie hears a crash, turning around in his seat to see the monstrous entity pooling into the garage.
“Hurry up!” he yells.
“I’m trying!” she shoots back, driving towards the exit. They arrive when the opening is just wide enough to squeeze through, flying out into the cold vacuum of space.
He’s starting to think, much to his horror, that maybe this isn’t a dream after all.
