Time, in deep space, is not a clock but a shadow stretching endlessly, warping around the mind until every hour feels like a year and every second a lifetime.
Atlas Kael woke to EVA's soft, near-human tone.
Cycle complete.
Environmental systems holding.
Vital signs: stable.
It was almost soothing now, her presence. Like a lullaby recited by a ghost.
He sat up slowly, spine aching from another night in the reclined pilot chair. The bunk was still there, untouched. Too far, too soft. Too much like sleep. And sleep was dangerous now. It whispered promises that might never come true.
The dim lights flickered overhead in a programmed dawn simulation a touch of Earth in this dying metal tomb.
The illusion was kind, but brief. Shadows clung to the corners of the Valkyris-9 like old regrets.
He rubbed his face with a calloused hand, stared into the empty air, and began the ritual.
Routine had become his anchor.
He checked oxygen levels holding at 48%.
Water filtration 73%.
Food rations enough for maybe twelve more days, if he pushed.
Twenty-four if he stretched. He already skipped lunch yesterday, and his body reminded him of the decision with a hollow pang.
"EVA, log current rations and maintenance checks."
"Confirmed. Would you like me to mark the date as Cycle 36?"
Atlas paused. "No. Call it Day 36."
"Noted."
He preferred days now. Less sterile.
More... human.
Next came the beacon a small, blinking orb of hope affixed to the outer hull, pulsing weak signals into an uncaring void.
He cycled its frequency again, trying yet another pattern EVA suggested.
One more wave cast into a sea of nothing.
"Signal dispatched," EVA confirmed.
"Estimated reach: negligible."
Still, he nodded. Still, he believed.
Atlas spent the rest of the morning inspecting wiring panels and coolant vents.
He wasn't an engineer by training, but necessity had transformed him into one.
The small ruptures he'd patched two weeks ago still held, and the oxygen leak had day or what passed for mid day in artificial ship cycles he found himself at the viewport again, staring into the dark.
Still no stars. No nebulae. No trails of passing vessels.
Just black. Endless, unchanging, hungry.
He leaned his forehead against the cold glass.
"Ever wonder if we're just not meant to leave Earth?" he asked EVA.
"I am not programmed to speculate on philosophical irony."
That made him smile. Just a little.
"But you are learning."
There was a pause.
Then "Yes."
The waiting wore at him. Beneath the stillness, he felt the gnaw of something primal the need to move, to act, to run. But there was nowhere to go.
No gravity to pull him forward. Just tasks. Just echoes.
To distract himself, he read through the archived documents he had once downloaded out of boredom a survival manual from the Outer Orbital Union, a half-finished mystery novel, even a collection of poems by a Martian-born child prodigy.
The words blurred together, but they were voices. And voices were company.
Later, he played a log from Earth. His own voice, younger, less hollow.
"Kael, reporting routine supply drop to Crater Base Twelve. Clear skies, minor turbulence from ion winds."
"No issues. EVA is running diagnostics on the new inertial dampeners."
He watched himself in the flickering blue light, lips pressed tight, eyes tired but steady.
That version of him still believed the mission mattered. Still believed in progress.
"I miss being that man," he whispered.
By evening, he talked with EVA.
Not commands.
Conversations.
"Do you think someone's still looking for me?"
"There are active rescue protocols in the OOU command chain. Based on your last known trajectory, it is possible that a search is ongoing."
"Possible," he repeated. "That's a beautiful word."
"You sound more optimistic than previous days."
Atlas looked around. At the console.
The silent machines. The absence of war. The absence of everything.
"Maybe I am," he said. "Or maybe I'm just getting used to the silence."
There was a long pause. Then EVA said, almost softly.
"Would you like me to read something to you?"
Atlas blinked. "What?"
"I have scanned your personal archive.
I found a digital book." The Sea Beneath the Steel.
"It appears you read it three times."
He hesitated. "My mother gave me that. Before my first flight."
"Shall I begin?"
He leaned back, closed his eyes, and nodded.
EVA's voice once clinical now carried a strange rhythm. Cadence. Empathy.
She read the first chapter slowly.
About a man lost beneath the ocean, his mind fraying, his memories swimming.
The irony wasn't lost on Atlas. But he let himself fall into it.
For the first time in weeks, he almost forgot the darkness.
And so the day passed.
A quiet war of endurance. No drama. No danger. Just waiting.
But in that stillness, Atlas Kael did something remarkable.
He held on.