Audio Log #002 – Elian Voss
Kepler's Drift Station – December 29, 2191
" I returned.
Two days late.
The water system froze again, as if the station itself is tired of keeping me alive "
The cold didn't bite anymore.
It wrapped around him like an old coat, worn and heavy but familiar.
He sat, hands cupped over the mic, as if trying to warm it with his breath.
" Still breathing.
Still recording.
Still pretending the echo of my own voice is a kind of company "
His eyes wandered to the corner where shadows settled like dust that no longer moved.
He hated how quiet it had become.
Not the absence of noise—no, he had learned to live with silence.
What haunted him was the absence of presence.
" I tried singing today.
Not because I remembered a melody.
But because the silence was starting to sound like forgetting '
He hummed softly. The tune wasn't anything real—just fragments shaped by longing.
" If the stars don't answer~
will the dark remember my name?~" 🎵
He stopped, half-smiling.
" I think I'm starting to confuse memory with imagination "
On the table beside him lay a folded scrap of paper—creased and smudged.
" I wrote this yesterday.
I didn't mean to. It just… happened "
He unfolded it carefully, then read aloud, voice soft and steady:
" I speak to no one,
and yet I speak.
I breathe in air
no one else has touched.
My shadow has no twin.
My name echoes only in metal "
He let the silence fall again, this time not resisting it.
---
Later, he wandered to the galley.
Half the supplies had expired, not that it mattered.
He boiled water just to hear something move.
Crushed old crackers into a bowl and called it ( dinner )
" Sometimes I stir the water just to watch it ripple.
It reminds me the world still reacts to me "
---
He found himself back at the terminal, staring into nothing.
One gloved hand reached for the old photograph again.
" We used to laugh in this place.
I remember Leena painted a comet on the wall—said it looked like home.
Carter played guitar through the comms and swore he'd release an album called 'Orbit Blues "
He paused.
" Now their voices live only in echoes I can't replay "
He closed his eyes.
" Sometimes, I speak just to feel real.
Sometimes, I record because I'm afraid that if I don't, the universe will forget I was ever here "
His voice dipped lower, not broken, but hollowed by time.
" If you're listening to this…
I don't need rescue.
I just need to be known.
Even for a moment.
Even if it's only by you "
He let the recorder run for a few seconds longer.
Breathing.
Stillness.
Then—click. It ended.
---
But far beyond the dust of Saturn's rings,
beneath layers of time,data and static.
someone heard.
And she came back.
Not because she had to.
But because
his voice wouldn't let her go.
---
Later that night, on a distant outpost orbiting a blue-white star,
a different voice played the recording again—
not to analyze, not to archive,
but simply… to feel.
The voice wasn't just data.
It was warmth where none should exist.
It was proof that somewhere, out there,
someone else was still naming the silence.
And without knowing why,
she whispered back into the void:
" I heard you "
Though the stars didn't blink,
though time did not fold or tremble—
for the first time in hundreds of days,
Elian Voss wasnt alone.