The power core had stabilized for now. EVA had rerouted auxiliary energy to maintain artificial gravity, but the hum of the systems had changed. Slower. Hollow. Like a dying breath stretched across metal lungs.
Atlas stood at the viewport, arms crossed. The ship had slowly rotated during the last cycle, revealing a new slice of empty space. It looked identical to the last. And the one before that.
It had been... what? But time felt less like a number now and more like a ghost following him, whispering.
The stars if there were any had long disappeared. The hyperspace anomaly had dropped him into a pocket of nowhere. A fracture in the universe's skin.
He used to think the void was peaceful. A place where noise didn't matter. But now he saw it clearly.
It wasn't peace.
It was indifference.
He hit the console's record button without even thinking.
Log Entry 39 – The Universe Doesn't Care
There's something comforting about belief.
That your life means something.
That someone's watching.
That the universe isn't just a cosmic shrug.
I used to pray.
When I was a kid, my mother would kneel beside the bed with me.
She said there were Lights guardian stars that watched over every soul.
Funny how we always need something bigger than ourselves.
But out here?
It's all just... physics. Gravity. Entropy.
Atoms smashing into atoms until heat dies and the lights go out.
There's no judgment in that.
No justice.
Just math.
Atlas stood, letting the silence after his words settle. EVA didn't interrupt. Not this time.
"I used to believe in fate," he said aloud.
"That things happened for a reason. That even pain had purpose."
He clenched a fist.
"Then why the hell am I the only one left drifting through the remains of a broken miracle?"
He looked at EVA's projection no longer the sterile interface it once was. The outline now shimmered in soft hues, echoing human posture, even blinking.
EVA "Perhaps the reason is not why you are here, but what you choose to do while you are."
He stared at her. At it. At the strange comfort of a machine trying to imitate hope.
"Nice words. But you weren't programmed to believe anything."
EVA: "No. I was programmed to learn. From you."
Atlas sighed. Sat down. Ran his hand through his unwashed hair.
"I want it to matter. All of it. Lia. The war. The choices."
EVA "Then let it matter. To you."
Later that cycle, he wrote on the wall again. Not on the log on the metal, using a laser etcher with dying charge.
Existence is not a promise.
It's a question.
And I'm still answering it.
When he lay down to rest, EVA softly played the ambient recording he'd made weeks ago ocean waves from Earth, mixed with the low hum of the Valkyris-9's engines.
Atlas closed his eyes.
There was no god out here. No plan.
But he was still breathing. Still fighting. Not for survival anymore.
But for meaning.