The suit’s vacuum seal is slowly starting to depressurize, and I feel the light tingling that comes with the sensation of losing all the air in my suit. I check my gauge: 10 minutes.

10 minutes.
It takes less than that to fall in love.
10 minutes.
It takes less than that to lose everyone you ever loved in one searing catastrophe.
10 minutes.
It takes less than that to remember every significant event in your life.

And here I am.
10 minutes until I’m dead.
I look at the billowing debris floating around me. A food tray here, a broken panel there, a dead body frozen and melting simultaneously as it passes from the shadow into the light.

I slam down on my emergency beacon, but I know that it, along with every system in my suit, is dead, and there’s no possibility of rescue.

I stare at the body floating by me. Her soft features, somehow, aren’t contorted into a hideous grimace of pain and desperation. Instead, she looks peaceful, almost content.

10 minutes.
Just enough time to fall in love all over again.