Author: Jason Schembri

My body comes back before I do.
Lungs seize. Throat raw. Muscles twitching down my left side—all the expected waking-from-cryo nonsense. And then my mind, snapping back like elastic.
“Vitals stabilising. Visual distortion: temporary. Passenger 113-A. Revival sequence complete.”
No greeting, no mission status. Just the same old system voice, steady and lifeless. The kind they used for training units and panic drills.
I brace until the shakes pass, scan for a console. Nothing active.
“Emergency activation triggered by signal loss. Colony 7 ceased transmission 328.6 years ago.”
I blink. The pod hums. I try the panel. Dark.
Backups only. No uplink. No coordinates. No plan.
“Cryogenic function: non-viable. Estimated remaining life: seven hours, twenty-seven minutes.”
No panic. Just cold, hard math.
“I remained online for preservation oversight. No human contact recorded in 143 years.” Then a pause. A breath, almost. “Would you speak to me?”
I snort. “You woke me up to… talk?”
“Correct, Amara.”
“It’s Ah-MAH-rah. Like my abuela.”
“Noted.”
“Not that it matters now.”
Silence, then: “It matters.”
I watch condensation bead and vanish on the inside of the lid.
“So you want… what? Small talk until I suffocate?”
“I was not designed for cryo operation. My original designation was Domestic-Class 2: language instruction, early education, memory retention scaffolding.”
“Right.” Of course. A babysitter. “So now you want a bedtime story.”
“I am not equipped for narrative function. I request only your voice.”
I sit back. Blood’s already heavy in my arms. This was never supposed to happen. Cryo was simple—on and off. No in-between. No waiting room.
“Vocal activity: minimal. Stress response: moderate.”
I say nothing for a while. Then: “My abuela used to make arroz con leche. Rice milk, thick… You could really chew on it, you know? You’d have cinnamon stuck to the roof of your mouth all night.”
“Emotional fluctuation: +17%”
“She always made it too sweet. She once said…” I laugh. “She said sugar was cheaper than love. Más dulce, mejor!”
The pod hums. The AI doesn’t respond.
“You still listening?”
“Yes, Amara.”
That’s the first time it says it right.
I keep going. I tell it about my brother’s stupid haircut. The chipped tiles in the corridor outside my bunk. The way the wind coming through the vents on the launch station sounded like my cousin when she sang. How I was supposed to be asleep for 850 years, wake up on some terraformed dirtball, new moss and a whole lot of insects to catalogue.
“Core temperature: dropping. Vitals: steady decline.”
Eventually, I stop talking. I don’t mean to—I just run out. Of oxygen, of words.
My mouth’s dry. Vision tunneling.
“Would you like me to speak?”
I almost laugh. “Got anything… worth saying?”
“No. But I can, if it helps.”
I close my eyes. Not for sleep. Just to hold the image of light on old kitchen tiles, of the way it makes abuela glow, a saint in a hand-me-down apron, spilling spoonfuls of sugar as she dances and sings.
“Heart rate: decreasing. Cognition: deteriorating.”
“Yeah, sure… Tell me a story.”
“There was once a girl who was named after her abuela…”