To The Stars and Back

Episode 13

The night had draped itself over the city, painting everything in shades of deep blues and inky blacks. Catra's apartment was quiet except for the soft murmur of music flowing from her AirPods. Seated on the cool wooden floor, Catra was an island of isolation amidst the sprawl of her small living room. She sat cross-legged in front of a diminutive table that bore the weight of her silver laptop, the screen casting a bluish glow that flickered with the restless cursor on a document left untouched.

The rhythmic toss and catch of a baseball provided a steady beat to the melody in her ears. Her concentration, however, was fraying at the edges. Words eluded her as she tried to focus on the document before her, the stubborn blankness of the page mirroring her growing frustration. With a muttered curse, she shut her eyes tight and exhaled sharply, the sound harsh in the quiet of the room.

Realizing her efforts were futile, she set the baseball down with a soft thump on the table. She scratched the back of her head, glasses sliding slightly down her nose, a gesture of perplexity and resignation. "Still have writer's block..." she thought despairingly, her voice silent in the confines of her mind.

Attempting to dislodge the blockage, she stretched her arms forward, fingers interlocked and pushed outward, bones in her wrists giving a satisfying crack. "Whatever," she thought, a mental shrug accompanying her physical one as she succumbed to the frustration.

In a fluid motion, Catra lay back, pulling one leg up so her knee pointed accusingly at the ceiling while her arms crossed and slid behind her head, forming a makeshift pillow. Her gaze drifted across the room, landing on the cardboard box strategically placed in front of the hole in the wall—a memento from the night when Adora's snoring through the thin walls had driven her to a fit of pique. "I should patch that hole soon," she considered idly, the task seeming as daunting as her writing.

Her eyes, heavy with exhaustion, finally closed, and she let her mind drift away from the tangible frustrations of her apartment. Almost instantly, her imagination transported her to a familiar yet distorted setting—the school corridor, surreal in its emptiness, bathed in the half-light of her subconscious.

The corridor was plastered with flyers and papers, fluttering slightly as if caught in a breeze that Catra couldn't feel. She wandered, drawn by a curiosity that filled the void left by her frustration. The sound of music interrupted her silent trek, seeping out from under a door ahead. It was an old tune, one that felt both nostalgic and out of place.

Catra approached, puzzled, her hand reaching out to push the door open, the music swelling as the barrier between it and her dissolved. Inside, a radio sat perched on the teacher's desk, its antenna quivering slightly as if excited by its own output. She stepped closer, her gaze fixed on the anachronistic device, when a rustling diverted her attention.

Turning, she found herself face-to-face with Adora, whose presence seemed to radiate an infectious joy. Adora's grin was broad, almost impossibly luminous.

"Hello neighbor!" Adora greeted, her voice a cheerful chime that seemed to reverberate off the walls of the dream-corridor.

The dream shattered abruptly as Catra jolted awake, her body reacting with a startle that sent adrenaline coursing through her veins. She found herself sitting up, panting heavily, the remnants of her dream-world clashing with the dim reality of her apartment. She drew her knees up, her hands trembling as they supported her weight. Her heart pounded fiercely against her ribs, so loudly she half-wondered if Adora could hear it through the walls.

"What the hell was that?" she wondered, her thoughts a whirlwind as she tried to steady her breathing and slow the erratic beating of her heart. The world of her dream seemed to linger on the periphery of her vision, blurring the lines between the imagined and the real, leaving her to ponder the strange interlude that had ripped her from her rest.