Sci-Fi

by Scribe Leaf Library · 1 min read · 0 views

Nia wasn't supposed to be the first one awake. The rotation had her scheduled for cycle four, a full ninety years after launch, but a fault in the cryopod system woke her eleven years early, alone, with the ship's low hum for company and no one else due to stir for decades. She could have panicked. Instead she did what the manual suggested for exactly this scenario, which someone, mercifully, had thought to write: keep a log, stay useful, remember the mission wasn't about her comfort. She spent eleven years maintaining systems, reading everything in the ship's library twice, and writing letters to a crew that hadn't woken up yet. When cycle four finally arrived and the others opened their eyes, they found the ship immaculate, the systems flawless, and eleven years of letters waiting for each of them, written by a woman who'd chosen, alone in the dark, to spend a decade taking care of people who weren't awake to thank her for it yet.