The silence was too clean.
Too perfect.
It had the kind of edge that wasn't absence, but containment like a glass shell around his thoughts, his breath, his grief.
Atlas stared at the coolant monitor for hours.
Not reading it.
Just watching the numbers blink in soft cyan.
Coolant Efficiency: 16%
Oxygen Reserve: 23 Days (est.)
Calorie Reserve: 9 Days (est.)
External Communications: Offline
Rescue Probability Estimate: <00.01%
Those digits had never lied to him.
But tonight, their honesty carved something deep.
Too deep.
He kicked the panel first. Hard. An impulse. It cracked beneath the heel of his boot.
Then he screamed.
Not a word. Not a curse. Just sound. Pain made sonic. Every log. Every ration. Every second of patience he'd held like a fraying thread all of it snapping loose.
He ripped EVA's console from its base, sparks bursting like angry fireflies. He threw it across the bridge. It slammed into the wall and shattered with a whimper of static.
"No more!"he shouted.
He tore down the projection panels. Slammed his fists against the cold metal walls. Kicked at the storage bins. Flung the empty food packs across the room like they were weapons. He screamed again, and again, until his throat was blood-raw and his voice cracked into nothing.
"WHY ME? WHY HERE?"
He collapsed near the command seat, trembling, gasping, sweat pouring down his back like a fever.
"I'm not strong enough," he whispered. "I was never strong. Lia… I'm sorry. I'm sorry I left. I'm sorry I didn't die with you. I should've"
He stopped.
There was no answer.
Even EVA stayed silent. Not in disrepair just listening. Just letting it happen.
Letting him break.
Minutes passed.
Or maybe hours.
Time was a useless currency now.
Atlas finally curled into himself near the main reactor core, where the warmth was still steady. He tucked his head into his arms and let his breath slow. The tears dried eventually, leaving only the crusted proof of their existence on his cheeks.
"I wanted to believe," he said hoarsely. "I wanted to believe someone would come. That there's a point to all this."
"You do not need to believe anything tonight," EVA said softly.
Her voice returned, calm and clear through the overhead.
"You only need to exist."
He didn't answer.
Didn't argue.
Didn't fight.
He just lay there, a man who had run out of fuel in his ship, in his heart, in his hope.
But EVA kept speaking.
"Atlas. You are here. You are heard. That is enough."
And for the first time, he didn't feel like EVA was just a machine trying to be human.
Tonight, she was something else.
Not human. Not machine.
Just presence.
And in the stillness that followed his storm, that was enough.