THE CHALLENGE: Start your story with this sentence: "Every day I wake up in the armpit of this alien world..."

a/n: I don't know what I was thinking when I started this, but I think it ended up as a sort of journal of one man's life far away in the cosmos. Maybe it can be built on later? Who knows? :) I hope you enjoy.

Every morning I wake up in the armpit of this alien world. I get out of bed, work my required hours, then go home again. It's a pretty standard life. Here, your salary is given to you daily, to promote "good money sense". I suppose it works, you don't end up spending over the quota you're allowed. A portion is deducted each time to put towards your living costs as well. It's a fair system.

I can't remember how I got here, or when. Just that I'd decided to explore the Deep Web one day and happened upon a confusing website that seemed to be about a dystopia- style alternate world in space. Being into that kind of fiction, I decided to linger a little longer on the site.

Except, as I've now discovered, this "alternate" world isn't alternate at all. It's here, now, in the universe. And I'm stuck in it.

As an "immigrant", I'm treated as a Working Class citizen. Literally. I work, that's all there is to my life. I do my work and I go home. What free time I have is spent in the company of others who work like me. Not all of them are from another world like me; humans in the Earth sense are the minority here. The natives are... Humanoid. Let's just say that and be done with it. There's a strong segregation system between the rich and the poor.

The Mothership is huge, with floors upon floors of living space, shops, archaic drainage systems, strange municipal "buildings", and what looks like a full- on cathedral shoved right in there. I've never gone inside; however I suspect it wasn't exactly a cathedral for Protestant or Catholic worship.

The only reason I know its name is because it's everywhere- in the news, in books, et cetera. People mention it in conversation. If I could liken this place to anything, it'd be like the Axiom in the film Wall- E. But somehow a lot more surreal, if that can be possible.

For one, very few people are fat. It's either a rare characteristic only the few get to experience, or rare because it's frowned upon. I can't really tell to be honest. I don't pay much attention to most of the natives.

I call my part of the world "the armpit" because it's like the "poor area of town". So I guess you can imagine what it's like here. Strangely though (although I wish it was like this back home), there isn't much crime, although I think The Deterrent is enough to stop people from doing bad things.

The Deterrent is something I'd prefer not to talk about. THAT's something I don't wish on Earth at all. People either come back as someone (or someTHING) completely different, or not at all. Fear of this is enough to make people reconsider their actions.

Anyway, enough of my rambling about this world. It's time for my Work Hours. Hopefully one day I will escape this unfortunate, strange, completely and literally alien part of the cosmos.