There were days he was certain when he didn't even record a log.
Or maybe he did. The timestamps on EVA's internal memory were beginning to blur. Hours seemed to fold into one another like creased paper, losing the edges that once separated morning from night.
Atlas sat cross-legged near the forward viewport, the emergency lights casting dim orange shadows across the cabin. Outside, the stars refused to move. Were they always this still?
He blinked slowly.
"EVA," he murmured.
A soft tone responded. "Yes, Atlas?"
"What day is it?"
A pause.
"I cannot determine the current date. All internal chronometers have drifted due to long-term system instability. I estimate you've been adrift for 79 to 86 solar days."
"That's a wide gap."
"I apologize."
He chuckled weakly, running a hand over his stubbled chin. His hair had grown longer, brushing against the collar of his suit. Nails rough at the edges. Skin pale.
He no longer shaved. Didn't really see the point.
At first, he had made an effort log entries at regular intervals, meals at prescribed hours, even exercises to maintain muscle tone.
But that structure had begun to collapse around him like an ancient scaffold.
A stray thought haunted him lately. What if time itself was beginning to betray him?
Log Entry 27 – Fragmented Time
I can't tell if I'm dreaming between logs or logging during dreams.
There's a moment… every few hours maybe… when I feel like I've already done this. Spoke these same words. Sat in this exact place. Like a loop.
EVA says it's likely a result of sensory monotony and neural degradation. Maybe she's right.
Or maybe this is purgatory and I've been here forever.
– A.K.
Atlas walked slowly through the narrow spine of the Valkyris-9.
The ship felt longer now. Colder. Not physically, but spiritually as if space itself was beginning to stretch its fingers into the seams of his mind.
In the mess hall where once sat ration packets and hot flasks there was now silence and a single chair turned toward the window. He sometimes talked to the chair.
Not because he believed someone was sitting there, but because it helped frame his thoughts. As if the ghost of someone who once cared might be listening.
"I think… I'm forgetting things," he said aloud.
The chair didn't respond.
He found himself in the engineering bay an hour later, or was it earlier? EVA's voice chimed from the ceiling.
"Atlas. You've attempted to access this panel twice today."
"Have I?"
"Yes."
He rubbed his forehead. "I don't remember."
"You spent 19 minutes searching for a nonexistent backup battery."
He smiled bitterly. "Maybe I just wanted to pretend I could fix something."
"Pretending is not always harmful."
He looked up at the speaker. "You've changed."
"Have I?"
"Yeah."
A long silence passed between them electronic and human, drifting together in the belly of the void.
That night or what passed for it Atlas laid in his bunk, staring up at the low ceiling.
His fingers tapped a slow rhythm on his chest. He tried to recall what day of the week it would be back on Earth. What the sky over the Pacific would look like in the morning. Whether the rain still smelled the same.
He imagined waking up in a bed that didn't hum with failing life support.
He imagined time that flowed forward instead of spiraling.
"EVA," he whispered.
"Yes?"
"Would you tell me a story?"
"I have no preloaded narratives."
"Make one up."
A pause.
Once again, the A.I. surprised him.
"Once, there was a pilot who drifted too far into the stars. He forgot his name. Forgot his world. But the universe remembered him."
Atlas blinked.
"How does it end?"
EVA replied, "He became the stars he watched. Not lost. Just… returned."
Atlas smiled.
Then, he slept.