1/2/2029:
The sky above is a vast, endless void, a black canvas scattered with countless white specks and faint glimmers of light. They shimmer like fragile embers, too distant to warm me, too faint to guide me. Each one feels like a memory of fire, a reminder of suns that burn far away, indifferent to my isolation. I live on a lonely planet, far from Earth my home, my memory, my anchor. Rising from the ground, I brush the jagged dust from my brown leather jacket. The grit clings stubbornly, scratching against the seams, biting into the fabric as if to remind me that I do not belong here. Even the dust feels hostile, alien, unwilling to let me forget where I am.
The horizon stretches endlessly, a barren wasteland of purple gravel and jagged stone ridges that jut upward like broken teeth. The wind whistles through them, carrying a hollow sound that echoes like a dirge. Sometimes I imagine the wind is speaking, whispering words I cannot understand, syllables lost in the emptiness. Most days, I simply stare into the abyss, watching the stars drift like lanterns across a dark river. They move slowly, silently, as though mocking my stillness. There is little else to do.
Six years ago, I was transported here stranded after a mission with fellow astronauts. We had set out to explore a world beyond our solar system, chasing the promise of discovery, but instead, our fuel dwindled, and we drifted helplessly through the abyss. Months passed without communication. Our voices grew weaker, our supplies thinned, and one by one, we began to fade.
Some endured for a time, clinging to hope, but many collapsed from hunger, their bodies hollowed by starvation. Their faces haunt me still eyes sunken, lips cracked, voices trembling with despair. When we finally landed on this planet, we were stunned to discover we could breathe its air. For a moment, we thought we had been spared. Yet within hours, they all perished—whether from hunger, exhaustion, or some unseen poison in the atmosphere. Now, I am the only one left.
I endure by consuming a strange mucus buried beneath the gravelly soil. It is thick, green, and slimy, with a taste so bland it reminds me of wilted kale. I close my eyes when I eat it, forcing myself not to gag, forcing myself to survive. My stomach churns each time, but hunger is stronger than disgust. I often wonder: how far am I from home? Are there other beings here, hidden in the shadows, watching me? The silence offers no answers. The wind carries no voices. The rocks echo only my own footsteps, hollow and repetitive, like the ticking of a clock that no longer measures time.
Eventually, exhaustion drags me down, and I sleep upon the rocky ground, dreaming of Earth—dreaming of warmth, of voices, of belonging. Dreams are strange. They are not bound by logic or reason. It is almost as if you are doing things, but you cannot input anything—only output. Concepts dissolve, rules collapse, and the mind drifts into impossible shapes.
In one dream, I became something beyond even my own understanding. I could control the cosmos, bending galaxies like threads of silk. I could travel space as if it were a hallway, opening doors into dimensions stacked upon dimensions. I saw Space itself as if it were an ant, small and insignificant compared to what lay beyond. Space felt like the biggest child on the playground—loud, dominant, but still contained within something greater. Beyond it were layers of dimensions, and beyond those, emptiness. Yet in my dream, I was beyond even that. Beyond existence itself were concepts I could not describe in words, concepts you, the reader, could never comprehend, even if I could explain them.
But what if reality itself is a dream, and our minds simply cannot recognize it? What if I am not truly existing, but only existing metaphysically as a shadow of thought, a fragment of narrative? So many questions, so little knowledge. To you, this story may seem fictitious, a dreamlike tale. But I cannot view it as fiction, because I am fictional. All I can do is perceive non‑existent writing as lower levels of reality. I wonder what it is like to stand beyond such narratives, to gaze down at existence itself as if it were a page in a book. For now, the only thing I can do is dream, dream of questions, dream of possibilities, dream of escape.
I woke up, rubbed my eyes, and sighed. "Another day," I muttered in a tired voice. My words vanished into the air, swallowed by silence. I rose, brushed the rock dust from my garment, and crawled beneath the little rock I called home. It was spacious enough, since I had dug out the purple gravel‑like ground and carved a hollow chamber. My hands, raw and blistered, had shaped this refuge, each cut and bruise etched into the walls like a record of my struggle.
Digging deeper, I unearthed more clumps of green mucus. It glistened in the dim light, unappetizing, but it was all I had. Its flavor was faint, almost nonexistent, but the texture was thick and slimy, sliding down my throat like liquid despair. I closed my eyes as I swallowed, forcing myself not to retch. After eating, I examined my hand. It grew paler each day, the color draining until I was nearly white, as though the planet itself was leeching the life from me.
"William," an unfamiliar voice whispered. My heart froze. Slowly, I turned toward the entrance of my hole, but there was nothing. Crawling out, I searched the barren landscape, hoping to find someone… something… but the silence was absolute. My vision blurred, the world tilted, and I collapsed onto the gravelly ground.
Hours later or perhaps days I awoke again inside the hole. "It was just a dream," I said, disappointed. Crawling out, I leaned against the massive rock above my shelter. Its surface was cold against my back, even through my clothing, as if the stone itself rejected warmth. In the corner of my eye, I saw my astronaut uniform, torn and scattered a few feet away. The sight pierced me with memory, cutting deeper than any wound.
I closed my eyes and drifted back to Earth. I remembered running my hands through smooth, brown, curly hair. I remembered my son, Owen, curled against my chest, trembling from a nightmare. I whispered to him, held him close, and wished I could return to that moment. But the memory replayed endlessly, and when I opened my eyes, I was still here. I rubbed my face, rose from the rocks, and whispered to myself: I wish I could wake up back home. I wish I could live my old life again.
Months passed. I kept returning to that moment in my dreams, clinging to it like a lifeline. But one time, I did not wake or so it seemed. I was swallowed by a black abyss. There was nothing. Not even me. I could not see, could not feel, could not speak. It was like the paralysis of a nightmare, when you cannot move, when adrenaline surges but the body refuses to respond. Yet here, even that sensation was gone.
I wanted to die. I wanted it to stop. But this was how it was. It felt like immortality after the world had ended an eternity of emptiness, with no release. In that abyss, I could not sleep. I simply existed.
Why? Why me? Why was William Parkerson the one who was lost? It makes no sense. Just as I always say: "So many questions with so little knowledge."