The credits were still rolling when Mark Turner stumbled out of the theater, but his mind was still light-years away in the Hallelujah Mountains.
The theater lobby felt sterile and cramped. The air smelled of stale popcorn and floor wax—a pathetic substitute for the scent of crushed moss and woodsmoke he'd just spent three hours imagining.
He leaned against the glass exit doors for a second, his reflection staring back at him: just an ordinary guy, an amateur boat-builder who spent his weekends in a garage sanding wood, now feeling the crushing "Post-Avatar Depression" harder than ever.
"Why couldn't it be real?" he whispered, pushing the doors open.
The world greeted him with a violent slap of reality. It wasn't the warm, bioluminescent mist of Pandora. It was a cold, gray October downpour in the city.
"Great," Mark muttered, hunching his shoulders. "Forgot the umbrella again."
He stepped out into the deluge. Within seconds, his hoodie was soaked through, clinging to his skin like a heavy, cold shroud. The streetlights reflected off the oil-slicked asphalt in ugly, fractured yellows—nothing like the soft violet glow of the Panopyra flowers he'd just seen on the big screen.
The rain was bucketing down so hard he could barely see the crosswalk. His boots splashed into a deep puddle, sending freezing water up his jeans. As he walked, his mind began to drift, a habit he couldn't stop. He started "editing" the world around him.
If I were building a ship for those seas, he thought, squinting through the rain, I wouldn't use a standard hull. I'd need something that could handle the lift of a Medusoid. Something lightweight. Maybe scavenged carbon-fiber from a Dragon gunship...
He laughed at himself, a short, breathless sound lost in the wind. He was designing fictional ships in his head while walking home to a cold apartment.
He reached the corner of the main intersection. The thunder rolled overhead, a deep, guttural growl that sounded eerily like a Great Leonopteryx. Mark looked up into the dark clouds, letting the rain wash over his face.
"Take me there," he joked to the empty street. "Anywhere but here."
The light changed. Mark stepped off the curb.
He didn't hear the screech of tires on the slick pavement. He didn't see the headlights of the delivery truck hydroplaning toward him. All he felt was a sudden, blinding flash of white—not the cold white of the city, but a searing, electric blue.