[Audio Log Initiated]
[Designation: Personal Continuity Record]
[Observer: ■■■■]
[Rotation Count: 9,178 since planetary departure]
[Wormhole Displacement: 7,000 rotations sustained]
Vessel: Unnamed (former Vaveniterium Ark-Class)
—
The recording does not begin with sound but a faint oscillation hum threaded with the low, omnipresent vibration of a ship that has not known orbit, gravity or destination for far too long.
■■■■ does not speak immediately.
She exhales first, measured to four pulses, as protocol dictates for cognitive clarity, though clarity has become an increasingly ceremonial concept aboard this vessel. When she finally speaks, her voice is calm, precise, and unmistakably non-human. Its cadence is slightly off from what most sentient species would consider natural.
"Audio Diary. Personal. Rotation nine thousand one hundred and seventy-eight."
There is a pause.
"It has been seven thousand rotations since we fell into the anomaly."
The word wormhole is not used. Among her species, it is considered an... imprecise term.
"Despite the structural breach, temporal shear and biological incompatibility of prolonged nothingness, none of the thirty thousand passengers perished during the initial event. This outcome was statistically impossible. If not for the Second Prince, survival probability would have been reduced to zero-point-zero-three."
She shifts slightly. The sound of fabric brushes against the control chair. Holographic screens flicker around her.
"I advised him against using that on lower beings. I told him it would strip their lineages of coherence. He refused. He said letting them die would be… wasteful."
The word does not sit well in her mouth.
"So now they live altered and sustained by an echo of his species' supremacy. They are no longer what they were and they will never be what we are."
The ship hum deepens momentarily as it shifts power allocation on life support over propulsion, again.
"Seven thousand rotations stranded without a sustainable food cycle."
She brings up a projection of nutrient graphs, consumption curves and population growth metrics. They spike and dip in grotesque, inevitable patterns.
"We have scavenged twelve planets. None were sufficient. The population has increased by 200% over the past seven thousand rotations. Sooner or later, resources will collapse. Cannibalism is a logical outcome. The Second Prince and I do not require sustenance since our physiology renders starvation irrelevant. The civilians do."
She exhales again.
"I once suggested mercy to the Second Prince. I suggested termination before degeneration. He did not receive that suggestion well. Instead, he insists on celebration. We agreed to commemorate survival once every thousand rotations. Today... marks the seventh."
She glances toward a holographic screen showing a sealed storage vault. It revealed what little food remains, rationed down to symbolic quantities.
"A feast by our current standards. Ha. I sometimes wonder why he is so kind to beings unworthy of engagement. It was bad enough that he was exiled for crimes he did not commit and that he was stripped of title, throne-access and planetary authority."
Her fingers curl slightly.
"But this... this insistence on compassion?"
The ship's door interrupts her thoughts with a soft, harmonic chime. The diary continues to record. The door slides open.
A man enters.
He is tall, though not exaggeratedly so. Short, curly white hair frames a handsome face. His skin is dark bronze, which is a common among his race. His gold eyes scans the room before they settle on her.
"Are you coming?"
■■■■ turns slightly in her chair.
"I was recording."
"■■■■, are you speaking to your diary again?"
She inclines her head.
"Yes."
"We are not going to die. You should come."
She watches him for a long moment, studying the being who saved thirty thousand lives at the cost of cosmic contamination, who chose exile over annihilation and who celebrates survival even when survival has become grotesque.
Slowly, she stands. The chair retracts. The consoles dim.
"Very well, Second Prince."
She walks toward him. Her steps were soundless against the deck. The diary continues recording as they exit together.
"Audio log paused."
[End Recording]
-------
The corridor widened as they walked. The distant sound reached them first. Overlapping voices, laughter distorted by alien acoustics, the clink of vessels made from scavenged alloys and the low rhythmic pulse of celebration that felt almost obscene against the backdrop of starvation was what she could hear.
They emerged onto the upper balcony of the main habitation section.
Below them stretched a vast hall carved into the ship's core, all converging toward a central plaza where long tables had been assembled from dismantled bulkheads and repurposed hull plating. Tens of thousands of beings crowded the space. They were once citizens of Vaveniterium, now survivors in a massive drifting spaceship.
They were eating condensed flora loaves broken into uneven portions, translucent nutrient gels glowing faintly in containers and fermented liquids poured into mismatched cups. The quantities were painfully small, but the act itself had become a luxury so rare that it felt ceremonial.
When the crowd noticed them, the reaction was instantaneous.
Cheers echoed off the ship's inner shell. Voices called out in fractured dialects. Some were kneeling instinctively, others were raising their cups high. Children—born during the drift, who had never seen a planet—laughed with mouths stained by colored nutrients, unaware of the arithmetic that governed their existence. ■■■■'s expression did not change, but something subtle tightened behind her eyes.
The Second Prince stepped forward, resting his hands on the balcony railing. The light shifted automatically, bathing him in a soft gold hue that reflected from his eyes and cast elongated shadows across the crowd. The noise gradually died down, not because it was commanded to, but because he was there. His voice carried without amplification, resonating through the ship's structure itself, harmonized by systems originally designed for royal proclamations on Vaveniterium.
"It has been seven thousand rotations since fate tore us from certainty and cast us into the unknown. Seven thousand rotations since we ceased being travelers and became survivors."
Cheers erupted again but louder this time.
"In my home world, this would mark nineteen full revolutions around our star."
■■■■'s gaze flickered to him for a fraction of a second. That made no sense.
By Vaveniterium's astronomical standards, seven thousand rotations barely amounted to five revolutions. Either he was referencing a different stellar cycle entirely, or he was speaking metaphorically, compressing disparate systems of time into something the crowd could feel rather than understand.
She suspected the latter.
"But regardless of how time is measured, it marks one truth. We are still here. However, this celebration may be our last."
Silence fell.
"Our food supplies are nearing exhaustion. You already know this. I will not insult you by pretending otherwise."
■■■■ felt a ripple of tension move through the crowd,
"If we are meant to die, then we will do so having lived. We will eat together, laugh together, and remember that survival was not our only achievement. We have not found a habitable world for thousands of rotations but who is to say the next jump will not be different?"
"So tonight," he said, spreading his arms, "we celebrate!"
The crowd exploded.
Cheers, sobs, laughter and desperate joy poured out of them. Some cried openly. Others clutched their food like relics. Many simply shouted his title again and again, as if sound alone could anchor them to existence. ■■■■ watched it all in silence.
When the speech ended and the Second Prince stepped back from the railing, the celebration resumed below with renewed intensity. She turned to him sharply.
"Why did you tell them? You could have concealed the ration projections. Panic destabilizes systems."
He looked at her and chuckled.
"The situation is bleak, isn't it?"
She frowned. "That is not an answer."
"They already know. Every empty storage unit, every reduced portion, they know. Truth leaks through cracks faster than lies ever can."
"You allowed fifty percent of remaining rations to be consumed tonight. That is not optimism. That is recklessness."
"Yes."
"You are accelerating collapse."
"Or buying meaning."
She stared at him. "If they all die, only we will remain."
A faint sad smile touched his lips.
"Then it will be like before. When we left Vaveniterium I mean."
Her eyes narrowed. "You are insane."
"I have been told by my siblings the same thing."
"You are an exile. This faith in hope is inefficient."
He turned to face the crowd again, watching them celebrate as if tomorrow did not exist.
"Hope is not meant to be efficient."
She scoffed. "I do not believe in it."
"I do. And maybe someday, you will too."
Below them, the ship echoed with laughter. pressing endlessly against the hull. ■■■■ knew that this happiness would not last.