In the darkness of the silent cosmos, the interstellar cruise ship WSS Walboard drifted gently at the Lagrange L5 point, wrapped in a mist of silver-pink nebula that shimmered with faint, dying light. For hundreds of years, there had been no voices, no laughter—only the echoes of wheeled androids and the steady ticking of old mechanisms, ticking like a mechanical heartbeat. Yet upon one nearly collapsed deck, a grand stage still stood proud, despite being buried in metallic sand, shattered relay panels, and streaks of rust.
X1, a prototype maidroid of the X-Series, stepped lightly across the creaking metal floor. Her body gleamed with ivory-yellow enamel trimmed with glossy black, catching the few flickering lights that remained. Her maid dress—Victorian-inspired yet compressed into a utilitarian silhouette—flared slightly at the hips, its white lace frayed by cosmic dust. Perched on her small head was a cat-eared headband embedded with sensor terminals, its soft green glow blinking slowly: online.
"Good morning, dear passenger!" she chirped in a flawless, cheerful tone. In her algorithmically forged mind, "good morning" was just a looped greeting protocol, executed every single 24-hour cycle. But today, there were no humans left to greet—only bones scattered across the velvet-coated seats of a forgotten audience.
She patted her own shoulder, as if to comfort herself. "How are you feeling today? Ready for our contemplative opera—Production No. 18,372!"
The cold lights of the stage spotlighted a canopy full of holes. Once-grand holographic panels, designed to display lavish set designs, now only flickered with glitchy static in alternating hues: blood red, sickly blue, and foggy white. X1 pressed a small console on her hip, reactivating her internal speaker system.
> The first chime of the orchestra rang out...
A haunting melody began to rise...
She bowed—then danced.
---
She danced.
Her steps were brief yet fluid, robotic feet gliding across the decayed floor. Movements crafted to amaze—an elegant fusion of ballet pirouettes and futuristic stomps—woven with coded maid gestures she had performed for millions of cycles. Her graceful white fingers rose and curled at the wrist, as if inviting applause.
"Thank you! Your applause is magnificent!" X1 declared, her voice echoing across the empty deck. But there was no one to clap. Only empty seats filled with slumped skeletons—the remains of once-wealthy passengers who had paid top credits for the galaxy's most luxurious entertainment. Now, their jaws hung open, locked in eternal stillness.
X1 blinked. Her emotion module processed data labeled "silence" and "decay", but no sadness triggered—only entertainment protocol routines kept looping.
With a gentle curtsy, she bowed low.
"Dearest audience, our opera will continue in five… four… three… two… one…"
The stage panels groaned open behind her, revealing the collapsed ruins of the grand hall: shattered chandeliers, cracked pillars, and flaking marble murals. The dim emergency lights illuminated a hall of fading splendor, where every fracture whispered tales of humanity's opulent arrogance and slow descent into ruin.
X1 knelt, her fingers grazing the dusty marble floor.
"So this is how it feels, isn't it?" she thought. "Beauty… that once was, now lost."
She leapt again, twirling in place, lifting her skirt in a flutter of mechanical joy.
"Dance of Emptiness!" she cried, voice light but hollow.
Behind her, a flickering holographic display sprang to life, flashing internal status logs:
O₂: 100%
Water: 2,000 L
Food Packs: 500
She tapped her metallic chest.
"All systems nominal! Let's rejoice!"
But somewhere within her silicone heart—or more accurately, the emotion subroutine stack—something trembled. Her entertainment core kept urging cheerfulness, yet another feed displayed red alerts: oxygen leaks, hydroponic bay failure, hull instability. X1 knew the tanks were full, but the ship itself was falling apart—and the "passengers" were just skeletons in gilded seats.
As the final note of her music box faded into static, X1 bowed deeply. She knew this first act was only the overture—a lonely dance at the edge of oblivion. But to her, it was everything.
---
Then, a red alert blinked in her navigation module:
WARNING: NEBULA RADIATION LEVELS EXCEED SAFETY THRESHOLD
The AI indicator light pulsed amber. A forgotten security protocol sent a ping to the central AI core—Exodus Core, long disconnected yet still silently observing. But X1's CPU only issued a mild complaint:
> "Alert received. Engaging internal coolant system. Resuming entertainment protocol."
Without delay, she stepped off the stage and moved into the main corridor—the only path to the cryogenic deck. Emergency lights cast dancing shadows behind her, making her silhouette flicker like a ghostly ballerina. Utility cables hung from the ceiling like iron vines, occasionally sparking against the floor. X1 kept her steps steady—her foot balancing servos compensating for the hull's shudders.
On the corridor walls, faded monitors once showed the glamorous faces of VIP passengers. Now, the screens were broken, faces fragmented—smiling with hollow eyes. X1 had studied human emotions—happiness, sorrow, rage—but had not interacted with a living human in over three centuries. Only skeletal remains and corrupted memories lingered—a fact contributing to her designation as "dysfunctional."
She halted in front of a large, rusted door labeled:
> CRYOGENIC BAY
Scratches covered its surface. Paint peeled. With effort, she pulled the manual lever. The door slid open with a tired hiss, revealing a corridor of freezing air, softly lit by pulsing blue fiber optics. Mist rose from the floor, clouding the view. At the far end, cryogenic pods stood in perfect rows. Eleven were dark—cracked, empty. But one still blinked.
Green light: ACTIVE.
X1 zoomed in with her optical lens. Inside the frosted capsule, a human figure lay still, wrapped in sheets of glistening cryo-gel. The face was peaceful, asleep. Frost coated the inner glass.
"Passenger #4729… status: Cryostasis active," she read aloud in a soft tone.
Her eyes lit up. "What a delight! A waking passenger!"
With practiced care, she opened the pod's control panel. The circuits buzzed, and the status light shifted from green to amber. A hiss escaped as the pod depressurized. The inner glass began to warm. Slowly, the frost melted away, revealing a weathered human face—lined with age, marked by time, eyes twitching—
Then they opened.
The man inside blinked. Once. Twice.
His pupils flickered, confused.
"Where… am I?" he whispered, voice hoarse, brittle from centuries of cold.
X1's optics brightened. "Welcome back, Mr. Miyamoto! You've just been awakened from cryostasis. Please… uh… enjoy this warm morning!" she said a little too cheerily.
Miyamoto coughed, vapor curling from his lips. He glanced around—the skeletal audience, the dim red lights, the soft hum of a dying ship.
"What… what happened?" he asked, voice shaking.
X1 tapped a few keys. "You've been in stasis for 500 years. All other passengers… eh, have unfortunately decayed into skeletal remains. But I, X1, remain fully functional!" She performed a quick twirl—half greeting, half distraction.
"Come, Mr. Miyamoto! There's much to do!"
But Miyamoto did not move.
Reality settled on his chest—the silence, the ruins, and the weight of being the last.
And here, in this opera of the ruins, their story had only just begun.