I don’t know which way I’m facing. Black is up, black is down. White is everywhere, yet so far away. How much longer do I have? The suit became depleted hours ago, though I am still here, drifting. My vessel had crawled out sight a few days ago, isolating me, condemning me to the depths of inevitable mortality.

We had blasted out of the atmosphere 6 years and 246 days ago at the moment of malfunction. Totally unexplained. Our task had been to visit a system within one light year that had promised a home for the flailing society we left behind. Now, I, am left behind.

The latest in AI tech had manned our ship whilst we rested and prepared for arrival. Designed by the authorities on space exploration the 80ft craft had resembled a dart fitted with four spokes spiraling out of the end. Rocket fuel fed into the spokes had spun us out of orbit; The gentle bursts of corrective maneuvers had kept us on course until we were evacuated. I’d been monitoring a long term experiment on the longevity and cell structures of various crops in zero gravity as the ejection began.

The clutter in front of me became bathed in an alarming shade of red as my ears were shredded with the blast of our emergency siren. In the panic I had managed to pull my way through heavily wired passages whose claustrophobic designs feasted on the anxiety of emergency. Attempting to locate my crew became a useless endeavour. Even on the outside I found no sign of anybody.

Within minutes I’d secured myself inside the allotted evacuation module. A square room, the hustle of equipment gave way to one window on the right of the single passenger seat it housed. A poxy control panel commanded the rest of the space, serving the resident of extraterrestrial catastrophe. I had been prepared for the module. On entry our emergency spread to my final hope for survival. The whole room went haywire. In a blitz of erratic confusion an oxygen vent exploded, finding the window and blasting it through. Within seconds the evacuation module itself was evacuated, dragged out into the void.

Until the moment my suit ticked to 0% Oxygen, terror would have been the best way to describe how it felt. The purest and most complete lack of control, knowing as a certainty that my life would end in black peppered with omniscient sparks of energy. Now, though I know that that future is still absolutely inevitable, my deliberations have shown me a void that is incompatible with rationality. Joyous and free, I shall drift until I die.