It’s the first day of my new job tomorrow. I can’t sleep. Not because I’m nervous or anything, it’s just that Horace keeps stealing the sheets.

Horace isn’t the best man to share a single bed with. He snores like a Volkswagen Hippy Van (sometimes backfiring in a fit of coughs), smells like boiled ham, and his overreaching gut has already pushed me out of bed four times. I wish I had a better choice of partner. Not that I’m one of those exotic men you read about in fashion magazines. As I’m not supposed to be on the ship, I’ve been forced to share a room with the ship’s janitor as there are no spare rooms available.

I had introduced myself a couple of hours earlier, maybe a bit too casually: “Hello roomy!”

“Fuck off,” Horace grunted before stripping naked and flopping into bed, switching the light off without further acknowledging me. I hope this arrangement won’t be permanent. We’ll come across an alien-form who will kill off a few red shirt Ensigns any day now. That’ll free up a couple of rooms.

It’s three-thirty in the morning. My mind has numbed from restlessness, sending my thoughts into delirium. Is it possible to breed badgers with sticks of butter? While trying to figure out who’d stick what up where, Horace’s snores transform into whale noises. A whale with sleep apnea, but soothing nonetheless. My eyelids become heavy. However, I don’t fall asleep.

Instead, I stand alone on an alien planet.

The planet is vacant except for green rocks and dust. The horizon is dark purple, merging into a urine-like yellow colour higher up in the sky. I glance forward, to my left, to my right, and then call out: “Hello?”

“Hello.” A voice behind me responds. Maybe I should’ve looked in that direction before calling out. I turn to witness – to my surprise – a bona-fide alien. It’s not the first creature from out of space I’ve encountered – my best friend at primary school was a translucent blue blob called Hardy. This is an alien alien: a human structure with slimy, scaly green skin, and head shaped like a balloon with a tumour. “I’ve been expecting you Steve Burbank.”

“How do you know my name?” My only form of ID is in my wallet. I check it: provisional driving license, Matalan reward card, £2 in extinct Earth cash. Everything’s there.

The alien’s voice is strangely mesmerising, like every vocal distortion effect from the BBC Sound Department rolled into one. “I know everything about you. You may not realise this Steve Burbank, but you are special.”

“My IQ is only just below average, thank you very much.”

“No, Steve Burbank. You are the chosen one. The remaining humans on the Expeditione depend on your existence. Your crew will one day come across a life or death situation that only you can resolve.”

“Care to tell me how to solve whatever that situation is?”

“No.”

“Go on.”

“No.”

“Awwww… Why not?”

“Because,” it reaches behind its back, “we’re the ones who are going to stop you.” The alien draws out a ray gun and zaps me in my left arm, which disintegrates in front of my very eyes. As I verbalise shock, I’m shot in the left side of my chest. My chest contracts. Gasping for air, I fall to my knees. I take one last look at the alien before…

…I wake up, with Horace laying on the left side of my body. As he snores, I try to push him off me.

“Get off!”