My alarm screams at 6:15 AM like it's being murdered, and I hate it almost as much as I hate myself for setting it in the first place. Twenty-five years of breathing, and this is what I've earned, four hundred square feet of mediocrity with a view of a brick wall. Truly Boston's finest.
College was supposed to be the golden ticket for good ole. Instead, the diploma hanging crooked in my hallway might as well be toilet paper for all the good it's done me. Three years into this sales gig at TechNova, and every day blends into the next like watercolors left in the rain.
The routine is soul-crushing in its precision. Drag myself from bed. Shower under lukewarm water because the building's boiler is temperamental at best. Pull on whatever dress shirt doesn't smell like desperation. Choke down instant coffee that tastes like it was filtered through an old sock.
The subway is its own special hell, pressed against strangers who look as dead inside as I feel. I scroll through LinkedIn, pretending my life doesn't make me want to scream into the void.
Then comes the parade of trust fund babies playing entrepreneur. They nod while I pitch software packages they don't understand, using money they didn't earn. "This will revolutionize your workflow," I say, knowing full well their "workflow" consists mainly of Instagram posts from their office's bean bag chairs.
Brad, my boss, will inevitably find something wrong. "Tyler, those conversion numbers are pathetic. My grandmother could close more deals, and she's been dead for eight years." He'll laugh at his own joke while I fantasize about quitting in spectacular fashion.
By the time I drag myself home, the only relationship I have energy for is with my microwave and whatever frozen dinner is on sale this week.
I collapse into bed only to do it all again tomorrow. Rinse and repeat until retirement or death, whichever comes first.
Except today. Today feels different. But is it good different or bad different?
'I really can't tell.'
I splash cold water on my face, trying to shock myself into feeling something other than existential dread. My hair's still dripping as I stare at my phone, thumb hovering over the dating app I deleted three months ago after a disastrous date with a woman who seemed a little too into her own brother for her own good.
"Maybe this time will be different," I mutter to my reflection. "Maybe there's someone equally dead inside who wants to Netflix and pass out by 9:30 on a Friday night."
I pocket my phone without reinstalling the app. Baby steps.
The morning air hits me as I exit my building. My tie feels like a noose, but at least I remembered to wear matching socks today. Small victories.
That's when I spot the kid at the intersection, tiny backpack, scuffed sneakers, jabbing the crosswalk button like it owes them money.
"Come on, stupid thing!" the kid growls, smacking the metal pole.
I check my watch. I'm already running late, but something about the scene pulls me toward it. The kid can't be older than ten.
"Those buttons are mostly for show," I say, stopping behind him.
The kid whips around, eyes narrowed with suspicion. Smart.
"My mom says I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," he says, but keeps pressing the button anyway.
'Smart mom.'
The light still hasn't changed, and the kid lets out a dramatic groan that would put Broadway actors to shame. He shifts his weight from one foot to another, impatience radiating off him like heat.
"Screw this," he announces suddenly, stepping off the curb.
My brain registers several things at once, the walk signal still showing the red hand, the rumble of an engine, and the flash of metal as a delivery truck barrels around the corner.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I blurt, my body moving before my mind can catch up.
I lunge forward, arms outstretched. My fingers close around the kid's backpack, pushing him forward as I throw myself into his path. Momentum carries us both, and I somehow manage to roll us across the yellow line. The truck horn blares as it speeds past, driver oblivious to the near-tragedy.
We land in an ungraceful heap next to the sidewalk. My lungs burn like I've just run a marathon, and my heart hammers so hard I'm convinced it's about to punch through my chest. Years of desk work have not prepared me for heroics.
"You okay?" I wheeze, helping the kid to his feet while I remain on my knees, trying to remember how breathing works. My palms are scraped raw, and my once-clean shirt now sports a lovely collection of street grime.
The kid stares at me, mouth hanging open, eyes wide with shock. He nods slowly.
"I can't believe I just did that," I say, a hysterical laugh bubbling up my throat. "I can't believe I'm alive."
Something in the kid's expression changes. His eyes widen further, focusing on something to my left. Before I can turn, I see the reflection in his pupils, headlights, too close, too fast.
There's no time to move. No time to think. Just a split-second of clarity, this is it. This is how Tyler Walsh goes out. Not with a promotion or a retirement watch, but saving some random kid on a random Tuesday.
The impact is both everything and nothing like I expected. A flash of pain so intense it transcends anything I've ever felt before. The world spins, folds, compresses. I hear screaming, maybe mine, maybe the kid's, maybe both.
As consciousness slips away, a strange thought bubbles up.
'At least I did something valuable before I died.'
And then… Nothing.
*****
I gasp awake, lungs burning as if I've been holding my breath underwater. Pain pulses through my skull in violent waves.
"Kid!" I croak, my voice strange in my ears. "The truck…"
But there's no intersection. No screaming. No blood-slicked asphalt beneath me.
Instead, dappled sunlight filters through a canopy of alien-looking trees, casting weird shadows across... wait, what the hell am I wearing?
My hands come up reflexively to check for injuries, but instead of my pale, office-worker fingers, I'm staring at gauntlets. Red armored gauntlets, scratched and weathered like they've seen combat.
"What the fuck?" I rasp, my fingers scrabbling upward to touch my face, only to connect with the smooth surface of a helmet. A fucking helmet. I paw at it frantically, feeling for clasps, catches, anything.
"Rax, Rax! Calm down," a voice chuckles nearby, deep and resonant with an accent I can't place. "You're fine."
I whip my head toward the sound and nearly scream.
Looming over me is... not human. Not even close. Blue skin stretched over an elongated skull. Massive, unblinking red eyes that seem to glow in the forest shadows. The creature is crouched beside me, wearing battered armor that makes my apparent getup look positively pristine.
"You took quite a hit when that tree came down," the alien continues, gesturing at a massive fallen trunk nearby. "Been out cold for a few minutes. Had me worried, kid."
"What?" My voice cracks as panic surges through me. "Where's the intersection? The boy? Who the fuck are you?"
The alien's expression shifts subtly, concern replacing amusement.
"Rax, it's me. Bana." He speaks slowly now, like I'm a spooked animal.
Bana laughs, a sound like gravel in a dryer, and claps me on the back hard enough to make my teeth rattle inside the helmet.
"Don't tell me you lost all your memories on me, kid? That tree must've knocked you harder than I thought!"
His words trigger something strange in my brain, like someone flipping through radio stations until they find a clear signal. Fragments of unfamiliar memories start filtering in.
I see myself training with blasters on some dusty world. I recall the smell of engine grease as I helped maintain a ship that somehow feels like... home? These aren't my memories. They belong to someone else, to me, but not me.
"I'm... Rax Orlen," I say slowly, testing the name on my tongue like it's an exotic food.
More memories cascade in. I'm a bounty hunter, well, a bounty hunter in training. This blue guy is Bana Sobill, my mentor. We're tracking someone through this forest. A Nikto named Jo-bali who skipped bail. We're supposed to deliver him to... oh shit.
"The Sith Empire," I whisper, the words feeling both foreign and familiar.
"Am I in fucking Star Wars?" I mutter under my breath, quiet enough that Bana can't hear me.
I struggle to sit up, my head spinning as I try to process these dual memories, Boston sales guy and Star Wars bounty hunter. It's like my brain has two operating systems running at once.
"Bana, I don't feel so…"
The flash comes before the sound, a brilliant red beam cutting through the forest air. My sentence dies as his head just disintegrates into smoking chunks. Blue flesh and bone fragments spray across my visor as his body crumples like a puppet with cut strings.
"No!" I scream, bile rising in my throat. The mentor I barely remember is dead as fast as I met him.
Through the ringing in my ears, I hear boots crunching on the forest floor. I look up to see a squad of troopers in gleaming black armor, their weapons trained on me. They look almost like storm troopers, but not quite. The armor design is different, more angular, more menacing than what I remember from Star Wars.
At their center stands a human woman with skin so pale it's almost luminescent. Her black robes ripple around her like living shadows, and her eyes... her eyes are cold yellow pits of hatred.
"Kill him!" she shrieks, her voice like breaking glass. "He must be with Vaelix!"
Terror freezes me for a heartbeat, just one, then my body launches into motion before my brain can catch up. I'm sprinting through the forest, legs pumping with a strength I never had in my previous life. The air in my lungs burns as I gasp through the helmet's filters.
Red plasma bolts sizzle past me, so close I can feel their heat through my armor. One strikes a tree beside me, sending splinters flying across my visor.
"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit," I pant, weaving between trees while struggling to remember how to operate the unfamiliar body I'm piloting. It responds with surprising agility, muscle memory kicking in even if my actual memories are a jumbled mess.
A bolt grazes my shoulder plate, the impact spinning me around. I stumble but somehow stay upright, using the momentum to change direction. My lungs scream for oxygen.
"The ravine!" a voice shouts from behind. "Cut him off at the ravine!"
I have no idea what ravine they're talking about, but I sure as hell don't want to find out. I veer sharply left, charging through a dense thicket that tears at my armor. The undergrowth slows me down but provides cover from the barrage of blaster fire.
Through a gap in the foliage, I spot something, a small structure nestled against a rock face, almost invisible among the vegetation. Some kind of bunker or hideout. Without hesitation, I change course toward it.
The sounds of pursuit fade slightly as I break through the tree line. The structure is crude but solid, a mix of natural stone and metal plating that looks scavenged from a ship.
I slam against the weak make-shift door, fumbling with it, certain that at any moment a blaster bolt will punch through my spine. The door gives way, and I tumble inside, kicking it closed behind me.
Outside, the sounds of blasterfire suddenly transform into something else entirely, screams punctuated by an ominous, familiar hum that makes my skin crawl. The unmistakable sound of a lightsaber carving through armor and flesh.
I press my back against the wall, heart hammering in my chest. Whatever's happening out there, I want no part of it. Bana's corpse is still fresh in my mind, and I've hit my quota of traumatic experiences for one day.
My eyes dart around the dimly lit interior, searching for anything useful. There's a small control panel on the far wall, blinking with a faint blue light. I stumble toward it, my legs still shaky from the sprint through the forest.
"Please be something good," I mutter, pressing what looks like the main button.
The floor beside me slides open with a mechanical groan, revealing a set of stairs descending into darkness. I nearly sob with relief.
"Oh thank fuck."
I practically throw myself down the stairs, the trap door sliding closed above me. Emergency lights flicker to life along the walls, illuminating what appears to be some kind of monitoring station. Computer terminals line one wall, showing feeds from hidden cameras throughout the surrounding forest.
I collapse into a chair, my breath coming in ragged gasps. "Today is fucking crazy," I wheeze, pulling off my helmet to wipe sweat from my face. "I'm dead, then I'm not dead, then I'm in Star Wars, then my blue boss gets his head vaporized, and now…"
My words die in my throat as I focus on one of the monitors. It shows the area just outside the bunker, where the troopers who were hunting me are now being hunted themselves.
A figure moves among them with terrifying grace, a crimson blade slicing through armored bodies like they're made of paper. But it's not the pale woman from before. This one has deep red skin and sharp black horns protruding from her forehead. Her movements are precise, almost beautiful in their deadly efficiency.
"Jesus Christ," I whisper, unable to look away as she cuts down the last trooper with a casual flick of her wrist. Her eyes, glowing red even on the grainy monitor.
"That's not good," I mutter, wondering if I've just traded one horrible death for another.
"Who do you think you are, breaking into my hideout?"
The voice comes from behind me, rough and angry. I spin around just in time to see a vibroblade arcing toward my face. Pure instinct takes over, instinct that belongs to Rax, not Tyler, and I throw myself sideways. The blade misses my throat by millimeters, the vibrating edge humming past my ear.
I catch a glimpse of my attacker's face in the dim emergency lighting. Green-tinged skin. Spiky protrusions. Reptilian eyes narrowed with fury.
"Jo-bali?" I gasp, recognition flooding through me. The Nikto I've been sent to nab.
He lunges again, vibroblade humming with deadly intent. I scramble backward, knocking over equipment as I go.
"Listen, man," I stammer, hands raised. "I'm freaking out here. There's no need for us to fight!" My back hits the wall. Nowhere left to retreat. "I don't even care about your bounty anymore!"
Jo-bali snarls something in a language I don't understand, but his meaning is crystal clear. He's not interested in negotiations. The blade arcs toward me again, this time slicing through a section of my shoulder armor like it's made of cardboard. I feel the heat of it graze my skin.
I stumble, heart hammering against my ribs. That's when my hand brushes against something holstered at my hip, a blaster pistol. Of course, I have a blaster. I'm a bounty hunter, for crying out loud.
My fingers fumble with the unfamiliar weapon, nearly dropping it as I yank it free. Jo-bali sees what I'm doing and charges, vibroblade raised for a killing blow.
I squeeze the trigger in pure panic, the recoil stronger than I expected. The shot goes wide, blasting a hole in the ceiling. Debris rains down as I fire again, desperately, clumsily.
This time, the bolt catches Jo-bali square in the face. The Nikto falls instantly, his momentum carrying him forward until he slides to a stop at my feet. The smell of charred flesh fills the small room.
"Holy fucking shit," I wheeze, staring at the smoking corpse.
I lean against the wall, sliding down until I'm sitting on the floor, blaster still clutched in my trembling hand. My breathing comes in ragged gasps as I try to process what just happened. Apparently, Rax isn't exactly a crack shot, but it worked. That's all that matters.
"I just killed someone," I mutter, the reality of it hitting me like a physical blow. Then I laugh, a short, hysterical sound. "I died, then I killed someone."
A movement on one of the monitors catches my eye. I push myself up, legs still shaking, and stumble back to the control panel. The screens above me show the two Sith women circling each other in a small clearing, lightsabers humming with deadly intent. Everyone else is gone, just these two predators left standing.
They move faster than seems possible, red blades clashing with explosive bursts of energy. The red-skinned horned woman, the one who slaughtered the troopers outside, ducks under a wild swing from the pale Sith and drives her lightsaber forward in a vicious thrust. The blade catches the pale woman on her chest, drawing a scream of rage more than pain.
"Damn," I breathe, wincing despite myself. I can see the pale Sith's face contort with fury as she staggers backward.
The pale Sith suddenly moves with blinding speed. In one fluid motion, she slashes her crimson blade at the red-skinned woman's side. My breath catches in my throat as I watch the horned warrior's eyes go wide with shock, her own lightsaber dropping from her fingers as she falls backwards to the ground.
"Damn," I whisper, pressing closer to the monitor. The red-skinned Sith lies motionless, sprawled across the forest floor like a broken doll.
The pale woman clutches at her own chest wound, her face contorted with pain. She staggers backward, throwing anxious glances around the clearing before turning and limping rapidly away from the scene.
I switch between camera feeds, tracking her retreat. She's quite agile for someone so injured. Within minutes, she emerges into another clearing where a sleek black ship waits.
"That's definitely a bad guy ship," I mutter, watching as she stumbles up the boarding ramp. The engines fire up almost immediately, glowing an ominous red before the ship lifts off, disappearing into the sky with a scream of thrusters.
I stare at the monitors, slowly processing the scene that just played out. The pale Sith is gone, but the red-skinned warrior is still lying motionless in the clearing.
"Shit," I whisper, rubbing my temples. "What am I supposed to do now?"
My options are limited. I could stay in this bunker until I starve to death, or I could venture out and potentially get murdered by whatever other horrors this galaxy has in store for me. Neither choice seems particularly appealing.
I glance down at Jo-bali's corpse, then back at the monitor showing the fallen Sith. Something tugs at me, curiosity, maybe, or just the desperate need to understand what the hell is happening to me.
I take a deep breath, steeling myself before climbing the stairs back to the surface. The forest air smells of ozone and charred flesh, the aftermath of lightsaber combat.
Following the path I saw on the monitors, I creep through the underbrush until I reach the clearing. Bodies of the black-armored troopers lie scattered around, some cleaved nearly in half. I try not to look too closely as I step around them.
And there she is, the red-skinned Sith, lying exactly where she fell. Her wound is a perfectly cauterized, the signature mark of a lightsaber strike. Her lightsaber rests a few feet away, its metallic hilt glinting in the sunlight.
I approach cautiously, half-expecting her to spring up and cut me in half. But she remains still, her chest barely rising and falling with shallow breaths.
"Oh shit, you're still alive."
I kneel beside her, hesitant to touch her. Up close, her red skin has an almost luminous quality, and those black horns curve elegantly from her forehead. Despite the circumstances, I can't help but notice she's breathtaking in a way that defies my brain's ability to process. Like, unfairly gorgeous, even half-dead.
"Hey," I say softly, not expecting a response. "Can you hear me?"
Her eyelids flutter, then open. Red eyes, glowing faintly like embers, focus on me with startling clarity. I freeze, suddenly aware of how vulnerable I am. This woman slaughtered a squad of troops like they were practice dummies. If she wanted, she could probably kill me with a thought.
But instead of violence, I see something else flicker across her face, recognition, followed by disbelief. Tears well in those red eyes, catching me completely off guard. She reaches up to cup my face.
"Ty-Lar?" she whispers, her voice a ragged, hopeful sound.
My blood turns to ice. That name. Not Rax, not even Tyler, but Ty-Lar. Like some weird space version of my original name. Before I can process this bombshell, her eyes roll back and she slips into unconsciousness again, hand falling limply to her side.
"Why the fuck does she know my name?"