Zorp the Lonely Space Dinosaur
Zorp was a tiny purple dinosaur floating alone on a meteor near Mars. He was grumpy—his helmet kept fogging up, his tail got caught in doors, and everyone at Space Academy thought he was weird for roaring at math problems.
One day, Zorp spotted a glowing spaceship crash-landing nearby. Inside was Captain Stella, a nervous alien with seventeen eyes, all of them crying.
"My navigation system broke," she sobbed. "I'll never find my family on Neptoon."
Zorp could've ignored her. Instead, something inside him remembered how lonely he felt. He spent hours helping Stella repair her ship, even when his claws kept slipping on the tiny circuits. He told her jokes—terrible jokes that made her snort-laugh through her breathing tubes.
When the ship was ready, Stella hugged him with all four arms. "You're not weird, Zorp. You're kind. That's actually the coolest thing."
As her ship zoomed away, Zorp realized something: being different wasn't terrible when someone saw past it. And noticing someone else's sadness—really *caring*—felt better than any asteroid prize.
That night, Zorp dozed off smiling, dreaming of friendship across the stars.