He woke up not to sound, but to stillness. A deep, perfect quiet.
The kind that didn't beg for attention, but simply existed. Like the cold. Like space.
Atlas blinked once. Then again.
The ship's internal lights were down to 30% power. The corridors glowed faintly, a perpetual twilight. EVA had dimmed everything to conserve energy.
He hadn't asked her to.
But she understood now.
He floated out of the sleeping pod, his breath slow, shallow. He didn't need the display panel. He knew. He could feel it.
Still, routine was its own form of mercy.
Atlas opened the oxygen system diagnostics with a flick of his wrist. The numbers flickered faintly on the holographic screen, their pale blue hue colder than ice.
O₂ Reserves: 11.3%
Estimated Supply Remaining: 7 Days
(standard activity)
Recalculated Survival Span: 12 Days
(minimal movement, full ration cut)
He stared at it, unmoving. Let the numbers burn themselves into his memory.
Twelve days.
No more guessing. No more "maybe tomorrow." No more hope for a blip on the radar or a voice across the dark.
Twelve.
It should've hurt.
But it didn't.
There was a strange calm that came with knowing the limits.
Atlas closed the panel and drifted back toward the central hub. He moved slower now not out of exhaustion, but reverence.
Every motion a quiet ritual.
He began his task.
Log 44 – O₂ METRICS
"Twelve days. It doesn't sound like much.
But it's more than eleven. And more than ten. Time is a currency now. And I intend to spend it all."
He began cataloguing everything.
Not foodthere was none left. Not water that too had been measured down to the last recyclable molecule.
But memory. Words. Logs.
He began revisiting each log entry, editing, organizing them, adding footnotes. Each one now served a different purpose: Legacy.
He renamed them.
Log 3 – "Initial Optimism"
Log 7 – "First Silence"
Log 16 – "The Void Watches"
Log 25 – "Her Name Was..."
The logs weren't just for him anymore.
They were for the someone who might find them.
A child, maybe. A historian. A drifting soul like him.
Or no one.
But that didn't matter.
Atlas had spent months being forgotten. The logs would make sure he wasn't erased.
He found himself talking aloud more, even when not recording.
"EVA," he said one afternoon, "when you run out of power… will you know?"
EVA: Unlikely. I will cease functioning at the moment of depletion. My core programming does not include awareness of death.
"Lucky you."
She was quiet for a moment.
EVA: Do you fear death, Atlas?
He stared at the empty bridge screen.
"No," he said softly. "I just… regret not knowing if someone would remember me."
EVA: I will.
That surprised him.
He looked at her interface. It pulsed gently, like a heartbeat.
"But you'll be gone too."
EVA: But before I am gone, I will remember. And if I'm found, others will too.
He spent hours transcribing thoughts into short logs. Not just survival records now, but reflections.
On stars. On Lia. On war. On silence.
He wrote like a man who finally understood the value of being heard even if it was only by ghosts.
Log 45 – DEATH IS NOT THE END
"I don't know if there's a soul. I don't know if there's judgment. But I know memory is a form of survival. If you find this… remember me as someone who tried."
That night, he sealed the final entries into a separate, encrypted core.
The Legacy Pod.
A black cylindrical capsule the size of his arm. Reinforced. Traceable. Self-powered.
He uploaded EVA's final scripts into it. Attached his full log series. Photographs. Messages.
The poem he wrote in Chapter 28.
Then, with shaking hands, he locked it.
The pod's beacon blinked once just once then disappeared into silent sleep, waiting for ejection day.
Atlas floated in front of it, whispering,
"That's my grave. Floating or not."
As he powered down the auxiliary lights and crawled into the sleeping pod, he looked up at the ceiling where stars used to be visible when systems ran full.
Now, only dimness.
Only fading air.
Only twelve days.