I think it's been about an hour since I flipped the lights in the capsule off. My sense of time is... well, what could I say about it that would actually mean anything? It's deteriorated. It's bad. It's completely fucked.

It's been... eight rations since I woke up? Maybe five since I screamed until my throat was raw. I fell asleep at one point. I think I ate another ration when the hunger became too much to bear, even after I vomited up the previous one on what passed for my bed sheets.

How long could the rations and life support sustain me? A couple months at most? What would it be sustaining, anyways? A physical anomaly in what seemed to quite literally be a boundless void. A conscious flesh bag living in a floating metal box.

It's hard to say that my eyes have adjusted to the black; the space seems blacker than my waning mind can comprehend. Given the lack of stars, not even the window offers any ambient light.

Shapes manifest in the darkness; the line between memory and vision loses any semblance of meaning. My life doesn't flash before my eyes, per se — this isn't going to be a quick death, after all — more of an interminable highlight reel.

The orphanage. Trevor, my tormentor. The day I met Mom. My first bedroom (how I long for the clean-but-mildewy scent of the sheets that night). Kit-Kat pawing at my face before settling in and purring me to sleep. My first day at school, learning about the exosphere industry. Daniela, my first heartbreak. The Great San Juan Earthquake. Finding Kit-Kat's body. Mom's funeral.

University... wedding... divorce... rehab... academy... dates with Kat (and the jokes we made about dating my dead cat)... my first exo-trip (thinking the planet looked a lot more grey and brown than I expected from up there)... more heartbreak...

And then the fucking pyxis.

I sit up in the blackness and feel my way out of the "bed" (a slab of light cushioning on hard plastic) into the cockpit, just to give my creaky bones some other posture to rest in, seeking the slightest semblance of comfort. I close my eyes in an effort to stop the thoughts, but they keep coming. The self-flagellation is apparently preferable to the emptiness.

Why in god's name did I volunteer? I guess I always had a knack for... I don't know, being annoyed when no one would do what needed to be done. I always was the one that would just do the assignment while others sat on their asses and waited for orders. And like, I get it, but... well, nothing like rogue exotic matter approaching the solar system to bring the existential hysteria, I guess.

I always knew there was a chance I wouldn't be coming home from this trip. What was home, anyways? The only home I'd ever had was torn apart by the earth and washed away by the sea. I had nothing and no one to lose. Wormhole or dark matter black hole or what-the-fuck-ever, let's go find out.

I could handle the days of isolation punctuated by alternating, scheduled check-ins with Briar and Stills at Control; I had a virtually bottomless collection of books to keep me company (old cyberpunk mostly; Holdo the Hacker was fluffy and fun).

I should have paid more mind to the blip in the sensors. And to the anomalous acceleration. I should have predicted an anomaly would become an emergency before I could even register what was happening. I remember hearing Briar's voice: "We're working on aaaaaa"— the pitch dropping like a record player slowly spinning to a stop, as I was flattened into my seat, like a giant mattress slamming against my body, my consciousness fading away.

I woke up to the same old cockpit. But there was nothing outside. Nothing, in an absolute sense. I don't just mean like, none of the familiar solar system. I mean no asteroids. No planets. No sun or stars. No distant nebulae.

The temperature sensors didn't register anything. No stray radiation or nanostructures. The clock suggested it'd been 117 minutes since the acceleration anomaly.

I thought back to school, and to my work on the exostructures, the arguments we'd have about exotic matter, two-way versus one-way bridges, time dilation. I wished I could see their stupid, smug, laughing faces.

I don't know if the pyxis had drawn in anyone or anything else. Aliens? Trans-dimensional beings? Our sensors had never suggested any kind of life.

I scanned for something, anything else. I didn't bother to count how many times.

Nothing. No one. None of the probes we'd shot at it, no light, no matter of any kind. Not even the pyxis remained.

I turn my attention to where I know the window to be. My throat burns. I remember my first and only cigarette; an offering from one of many heartbreaks. I found it disgusting at the time, but strangely (but perhaps understandably) I find myself wishing I had one now. I can almost see the wisps of smoke as I cough.

I squint. I see something. My attention first stays with my throat. The life support shutting off is probably starting to affect me. But no, that's not what's odd. I turn towards where I know the controls to be. I turn back to the window.

I claw my way out of the seat, limping over the junk I've left lying around, crawling to the cushion by the window. A red glow softly smudges my vision. I can't make out the source. I close my eyes, and it vanishes. I take in a deep breath. It takes a surprising amount of effort to find the air. I open my eyes.

There. The thinnest glimmer, the faintest ember, more distant than I thought possible to make out. A single coal left of the campfire of the universe.

I lean my face against the freezing window, the condensation further blurring this singular vision. Maybe there is a way. Maybe there's another wormhole that somehow, in this stupid, impossible void, will get me back. Back to a cool set of sheets and a purring cat. Back to a bowl of ice cream. Back to a warm, naked body to fall asleep next to. Back to a bottle of whiskey. Back to the crumbling rock that birthed me. Back to Briar and Stills and the stupid raises and promotions they're always blabbing about so they can upgrade their shitty living capsules and ditch me again—

The red spot begins to brighten for the briefest moment. And then, without sound, without any further warning, I'm blinded by a silent, impossibly bright flash of light, brighter than any brightness I've ever seen. Finally, this is it. Death. Nothing extravagant, no gates of heaven or rivers of hell. Just a nice little light show, and settling into nonexistence.

...I notice my throat again, still struggling to find air. I hear my breath quietly strafe across my dry lips. The cold metal grazes my skin.

Not dead. Still there. A blind bundle of flesh in a frozen metal box.

The last coal has gone out.