"Next stop, Blackfriars," the intercom crackled, momentarily thinning the veil of his fantasy.

He closed his eyes again. The Solaris was approaching the Great Blue Vortex. His crew—characters he’d built with intricate lore over years of commutes—waited for his command. There was Lyra, the navigator with bioluminescent tattoos, and Kael, the engineer who could fix a warp drive with a paperclip. They were more real to him than his coworkers.

Elias smiled to himself, a small, private expression that often made strangers on the train glance away. He wasn't just killing time; he was stimulating his creativity . Recently, he’d started writing these visions down in a notes app, turning his "idle" thoughts into a sprawling fantasy epic.

The train lurched to a halt. The doors hissed open. The cold morning air rushed in, dissolving the rings of Saturn and the deck of the Solaris . Elias stepped onto the platform, adjusted his bag, and merged into the sea of commuters. He was back in the "real" world, but as he swiped his badge at the turnstile, he whispered a single word to the crew still lingering in the corners of his mind: What do my day dreams look like this mental health month?