Atlas stared at the last ration pack like it was a relic.
A single, vacuum-sealed square of nutrient gel. Brownish. Translucent. It looked like the skin of something once alive.
He didn't open it right away.
Instead, he set it down on the central console like a meal at a table he had no one to share with. His fingers lingered on the wrapper, tracing the sharp edge.
He whispered to it.
"I hope you taste like steak. Or maybe bread. Real bread. Warm. With butter…"
He closed his eyes and imagined his favorite meal. Not the synthetic kind he'd eaten aboard the Valkyris-9 for over a year but from back home. Earth. Real food. A warm kitchen.
Wood beneath his feet. The smell of garlic and herbs in the air.
His mother's voice.
His partner's laugh.
Things that were now dust, scattered in memory.
He opened the pack.
Chewed.
Swallowed.
It tasted like nothing. No a little like plastic.
He finished it slowly, forcing his body to accept it.
There would be no more meals. No more pretending. The hunger would begin tomorrow.
Log 48 – EMPTY STOMACHS
The body adjusts. That's what they don't tell you in training. First, the pangs. Then the nausea. Then the shaking.
Then silence.
I'm not afraid of starving.
I'm afraid of forgetting what food tasted like.
He drank the last pouch of purified water that night. There were reserves still collected condensation, basic filtration units.
But it was enough for only days.
No feast. No ceremony.
Just this soft erosion of necessity.
EVA, still running on emergency reserves, said nothing.
She didn't need to.
In the days that followed, Atlas began talking less and sleeping more. He spent hours lying in the crew quarters, watching old Earth footage on the dim display panel.
Cities teeming with life. Children running. People arguing in markets.
He rewound the same clip of rain falling on a glass window twenty-seven times.
Each time, he felt the same thing a pull. A yearning. Something primal.
Not for survival.
But for connection.
EVA: "Atlas, your vitals are deteriorating.
He didn't respond."
EVA: "Caloric deficit is compromising neural function."
Still nothing.
Only his hand, gently resting on the control yoke, as if preparing for a flight that would never come.
Then, finally, a whisper.
"I know."
He dreamed again that night. Not of his partner. Not of the war. But of a table long, wooden, covered in every food he'd ever loved.
A child version of himself sat there.
Next to him, a faceless woman served him a bowl of soup.
He asked her who she was.
She said, "You already forgot."
And he wept in the dream.
Log 49 – THE TABLE
I dreamed of food. Not hunger, but the memory of being full. I think that's what we're all chasing, really.
Not survival.
Comfort.
Warmth.
Enough.
He spent the rest of the day organizing his cabin.
Cleaning, gently, as if preparing it for a guest. Folding the thin blanket. Securing the logs. Adjusting the lighting to a soft, amber tone that reminded him of sunset.
There was no food left.
But there was order.
And somehow, in that order, there was peace.
At night, he looked up at the viewport and whispered, "I'm still here."
And EVA replied, quietly,
EVA: "I know."