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Keahu Kahuanui's tweet was what alerted Chris to the meteor shower. He didn't actually know the guy, they'd never even interacted, but he saw a tweet retweeted on his timeline, so now here he was, lying on the grass in his mom's backyard, staring up at the sky. It was late October, and too chilly for any sane person to be out at night, but Chris had on a shirt, sweater, and jacket, at his mother's insistence.
There wasn't really much to see though. It was probably a combination of light pollution and cloud cover. He thought he saw a couple of shooting stars but they were so faint he couldn't guarantee he wasn't just seeing things. The flickering light that was coming closer was however definitely not a figment of his imagination, and before he could even process what was happening, Chris was being lifted off the ground. The light came closer as he was brought to it, and he ended up completely blinded by it, squeezing his eyes shut. When he opened them again, he was lying on a flat hard surface, unable to move. There were alien faces hovering around above him and Chris felt that he should be terrified, but he was mostly just detached and blurry as his jacket and sweater were removed. Then the faces were suddenly gone and everything was silent. He slowly came back to himself and panic had just begun to set in as he struggled to move. Whatever was holding him still turned off suddenly, and he knocked his head so hard he fell right off the edge of the table onto the floor with a painful thud.
"Can you talk?" a woman's voice said, and Chris rose unsteadily to his feet to find himself face to face with a beautiful young woman. She handed him a jacket. It wasn't his, but it fit. In fact, it was a little too small, which was how he liked all of his clothes. The woman looked familiar, but he couldn't place her.
"Where am I?" he asked.
"On a spaceship. I'm Jessica. We've met before. I used to be a member of Girls Generation."
"Right, the Korean girl group. And now you're a..." he trailed off, gesturing vaguely.
"I'm still a singer. I just decided to give up on my Earth career to pursue a more intergalactic one."
"And in your spare time you rescue helpless actors from alien dissection?"
"My life has always been complicated. Excuse me." Jessica said, and left the room. She was wearing all light colors - a long white coat over pale pink pants and a lavender top. She reminded Chris of a fluffy white cat. Chris was more of a dog person. She hadn't even asked him if he was okay. He left the room, stepping over deformed alien bodies on his way out.
He walked through a very industrial looking hallway, complete with exposed pipes and important looking panels and buttons on the wall. Jessica was in the control room, where a computer screen was presumably plotting out their journey. She was seated at a keyboard, busily typing away and ignoring him completely. As he looked around, Chris realized there were no windows or any signs of movement at all.
"How do I even know we're in space?" he asked.
"Do you think I would lie to you?" she replied, not turning around and asking a question Chris had no idea how to answer. He opted to change the subject instead.
"So are you taking me home?"
"No, sorry. I need to stop at one of Jupiter's moons for a show. I'm supposed to be there soon, the aliens that owned this ship were giving me a ride but I had to kill them to rescue you from their experiments."
"How long will it take to get there?"
"A couple of hours. I'm going to go take a nap," she said, standing up and walking right past him again. He didn't bother following. Pop stars could be weird sometimes. Anyway, this was probably all just some kind of elaborate dream. While he was here, he decided to explore the ship. Really Chris just wanted to find a window to verify that he really was in space. At first it seemed like the ship was impossibly small, but then he found a door that opened into a large cargo bay. A metal ladder went up to a catwalk, and Chris spotted small windows up by the ceiling.
Chris began to climb up the ladder. It was rusty and rickety, and there were a few times he nearly slipped and fell, but he did manage to make it up without incident. The catwalk hugged the walls, and he walked all the way around until he was standing below the window. There was no way he could see out of it from here. He'd have to climb up onto the railing. He did, holding onto the wall to keep himself steady. He wasn't sure if the railing could take his weight, and it did creak ominously, but he made it up enough to see out the window.
The view was breathtaking. It was just dark, a pitch black like he had never seen before in his life, and he did see a few stars far away. He had no way to tell where exactly he was in the solar system, but Chris was captivated, and he didn't look away until he heard a noise behind him. He had to physically stop himself from trying to turn around and see what it was, slowly and gently lowering himself back onto the catwalk first.
"What are you doing?" Jessica asked from down below.
"I was just looking out the window. How was your nap?"
"Good, thank you. You should come down. We'll be approaching the docking station shortly."
Chris walked to the ladder and climbed down, following her back into the control room. Jessica was back in her seat, and Chris sat down next to her. She pushed a button and the blank wall in front of them shimmered once before turning transparent, a giant window with a view of the moon before them, Jupiter rising beyond and filling up the view.
"That's amazing," he said.
"You understand why once I saw the possibilities in space I couldn't be happy just being on Earth," Jessica said.
"Yeah," was all he could say.
"Why are your shirts always too tight?" Jessica asked suddenly.
"What?" he said, surprised by the sudden change in topic.
"Is it because you want everyone to know how good your body is?"
"What? No, I mean, it's a nice side perk, but no, I like wearing tight shirts because it feels nice. Like I'm being hugged all the time."
"Oh. Okay. When we land, do you want to stay on the ship or do you want to watch the show? I can get you in to the front row, or you can watch from backstage." Jessica offered.
"Thank you, I'd love to watch the show. Will anyone be angry that you killed the aliens who owned this ship?"
"I don't think they'll notice. You might stand out though. There aren't many humans outside of Earth. I can get you a disguise. Give you a makeover."
"Okay, sure."
"Don't worry, I'll make sure your shirt is a little too small for you. Don't want you to be uncomfortable." Jessica said, and left the room. Chris waited for her, and she came back with a black bag and a pile of clothes. He stood up and she thrust the clothes at him, walking back out. He turned around and changed, putting on the tight green pants, blue leather top, and billowing long dark coat along with some very soft boots that were slightly fuzzy.
"Are you done?" Jessica called, and Chris was grateful that there was no mirror or reflective surface nearby because he was pretty sure he looked ridiculous.
"Yes," he called out, and she walked back in, gesturing for him to sit down and opening her bag.
"Makeup. You're going to make me look like an alien?" he asked.
"No, you're human and I can't change that, but I can make you blend in a little more. Don't move," she said.
As he had noticed before, there was no mirror or reflective surface for Chris to see what he looked like, and though Jessica had a small pocket one as part of her makeup kit, she refused to let him look. She seemed afraid that he would try to wipe it all off if he knew how he looked, but Chris was already certain he looked completely ridiculous. Jessica then left the room to go put on her own makeup and get ready for the show - she told him that usually there were people at the venue to do it for her, but she was running late and today there wouldn't be time.
They arrived at the docking station. The ship was mostly automatic and handled it on its own, but Jessica still sat at the control station to make sure that there were no problems. Chris folded his regular clothes into a neat pile and left them on his chair, following Jessica out of the ship and into a giant enclosed bubble hovering above the ground on Jupiter's largest moon. There was too much for him to properly take it all in.
Jessica was immediately escorted away by a slimy, tentacled purple alien that didn't seem to actually be able to speak - there were constant squelching noises that were presumably being translated into Korean on a screen on what should be the alien's stomach. There were people, all around - aliens, of all different shapes and sizes, though the purple tentacled species seemed to outnumber all the others. Chris had to focus on not losing Jessica to keep up as they moved quickly through the crowds and stopped before two small translucent pods.
"You get in that one, and when the show's over it'll bring you back to the ship. Have fun!" Jessica said, and got into one of the pods. Chris walked into the other one, and whatever substance it was made out of configured itself to create a chair for him to sit on. It rose up into the air and flew in one direction as Jessica's pod went in another.
Chris's pod took him to a large arena, where it hovered up in the air above the packed risers below. There were thousands of people here, all ready to watch Jessica perform, and there were maybe two dozen pods like the one he was in, which he thought was probably equivalent to the VIP section. A long, sustained bout of noise that he thought must be applause, and then Jessica came out on stage in a puff of smoke.
Chris had to admit she was a great performer. Her backup dancers were all aliens of different types so she stood out as the only human, wearing a shiny metallic blue skirt and high black boots as she sang in both Korean and English. He wondered whether her fans here actually knew what it was that she was singing, but then he figured there were a lot of people all around the world who liked English music despite not speaking English, so it could work. After the show was over, she came back for an encore and performed several more songs. By the time it was all over, Chris could see exactly why she had such a broad appeal.
The pod he was in seemed to already be programmed to go back to where he'd first gotten into it, and when he stood up, the chair he had been sitting on melted back into the walls of the pod. The door opened, and when he walked out, he saw another pod come to a stop and Jessica walk out. She looked tired but exhilarated, tendrils of her hair sticking to her face with sweat.
"You were amazing, Jessica. You're very talented," he said, and she smiled.
"Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it."
"If you're tired we can wait to go back until tomorrow. I don't know what time it is but I'm getting kind of tired too."
"Jet lag. We can sleep on the ship. I really should be getting you home," she said, and exchanged words with her alien escort before taking her leave and walking back through the crowds to her ship. She spent about twenty minutes in the control room, presumably plotting their course back to Earth, and when she was done, she showed him where it was that she had taken her nap earlier. It turned out that one of the many panels on the hallway actually was a door that led to a very small room with just enough space for a cot with a pillow. It was a little shorter than Chris would have liked, because the gray aliens that had owned this ship were not very tall, but he thanked Jessica and curled up, falling fast asleep within moments.
When Chris woke up, he had a moment of not remembering where he was. His body was cramped and sore and he was wearing clothes that he knew weren't his. He had drooled a little in his sleep and when he brought his hand up to wipe his mouth, it came away blue - with not blood, but lipstick. He remembered where he was and sat up, getting out of the small room and back into the hallway. He found Jessica in the control room, the front window transparent once again so that he could see that they were approaching Earth again.
"It's gorgeous," he said, and Jessica turned around. She looked fresher, like she had taken a shower, and she had changed back into her pale clothes out of the metallic outfit she'd performed in.
"It is, isn't it? I was just going to come and wake you. We'll be there in just a few minutes," she said, and he picked up his clothes.
"I should probably change, then. I don't know what my mom would say if I walked in the house wearing this."
"You need to wipe off your makeup too. If you go back to the room where the dead aliens are, you will find a faucet with hot water."
"Thanks," Chris said. He took the clothes and went into that room, gingerly stepping over the gray bodies and finding the sink. He took off the space clothes and washed up, using them to wipe himself dry as he couldn't find a towel. He felt weird putting his own clothes back on, they weren't as comfortable as the space clothes, and he felt like a different person now than the man who had put them on that morning, seemingly ages ago.
He walked back into the main room, and Jessica turned to look at him.
"It was nice to meet you. I'm sorry about the circumstances," she said.
"Aren't you going to land?" he asked.
"No, you'll go back the same way you got here. It's been a few days though, so you may have to deal with some people who are angry that you dissappeared with no warning."
"It's only been a few hours though! Maybe one day at most."
"Time doesn't work that way in space. Good luck. We might meet again someday."
"Hopefully this time I'm not being abducted by aliens."
"My sister, Krystal, is in her own girl group. They do come to the United States sometime. If she's in California I'll tell her to look you up."
"Sure. Good luck with your career. Thank you for everything. I had a great time."
He opened his arms for a hug. She kind of looked at him, and then decided to walk over and let him hug her. She even hugged him back, stepping aside after a few moments.
"This is going to feel weird," she said, and Chris was suddenly surrounded by a bright light, feeling fuzzy and blurry again. He squeezed his eyes shut, and felt a rushing wind. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself standing in his mother's backyard. It was night, just as it had been when he'd left, but he thought it probably wasn't the same night. His theory was proven correct when he heard a door slam and his mother coming out into the backyard.
"Chris! Where have you been? I was worried sick - " his mother was saying, but Chris was staring up at the sky. One of the stars was brighter than the others, and it was moving, flickering. Maybe it was Jessica in her ship, miles above, but maybe it was just a figment of his imagination.