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Survivor's Guilt

I have always dreamt of feeling space.

As I’m out here, maintaining this ark, this generation ship, I feel close to the Universe. It flows through me. I am it and it is I; there is nothing else. The closest I’ve ever been to its pure majesty is under the layers of this bulky spacesuit. It is a cocoon, an unbearably bulky and stiff cocoon. How I long to leave it, this constrictive atmosphere, and metamorphose into a butterfly, but the butterflies are no more.

Gone and lifeless, like much of our crew.

The loss of life gnaws at my soul, all the more so because many suicided out of grief, not necessity, but each less life gives us that much more chance to finish our journey, their atoms reclaimed…

This is a ship of ghosts, a raft kept afloat by the bloated bodies of the dead. All the late and listless souls cry out to me, condemning me to join them in the abyss.

I am finished.

I have always dreamt of feeling space, truly feeling it, unadulterated against my cheek. Raw vacuum.

My dream comes true today.

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