Day 355.

The drinking water no longer tasted weird. I can’t remember when I no longer noticed the foul taste to the recycled water. That should have worried me but I knew I was beyond caring.

I stopped writing and lazily watched my pen drift away from me. I would find it again.

Feeling a faint pang of hunger I slowly flipped over and started to head towards the cabin and the glimmering packets of food. Surveying my meagre store of choices I decided I would wait. The slow whine of the air recyc filling the spaces as I floated in place, my brain as disengaged as my body. Drifting slowly I caught a glimpse down to Earth from the window, the ash clouds no longer filling the blue marble of my home.

I kept floating until I gently bumped into the roof and shook myself. I used to have a drive to learn and discover, then the Last Word happened. I don’t know what it was called on Earth but we….now I, call it that. The day when the world lost its mind and I was left as the last guardian of our planet.

The Last Word from Central Command was “Luck my Friends, we have run out of ours here.” leaving the six of us alone, completely.

The first few days we tried to re-establish contact and discussed our options. As the days ground on to weeks and all we heard was the void we tried to ignore it and came up more and more outlandish ideas.

As the weeks relentlessly passed into months Adrik was the first to go.

He simply stopped eating.

He lasted for over a week.

We jettisoned the body.

Suni made her decision and Matty joined her. They suited up and went for a walk. They depressurised as soon as they could. It sounded like a horrible way to go. That left Paul, Natalya and me.

We watched the ash and clouds and storms on the surface. We stopped eating and sleeping properly. Our bodies atrophied without exercise as did our minds. We barely talked and floated around the station with music playing, trying to find something, anything to pass the time. But there was always that feeling of pointlessness.

On day 163 Paul made his decision and joined our friends in orbit. We didn’t use words to say goodbye. We knew in hearts that it was over and Paul was ready to accept that. Natalya and I were left. We had talked out everything in our minds; everything we have ever had in us was shared. I had a wife in my previous life, a loving wife who has built a family with me over 25 years.

She was but a pale shadow to Natalya at the end. I knew all of her, she knew all of me. We would sit there watching the ash slowly changing shape and losing its mass. We watched the Sun rise and fall thousands of times. There were no more words; we had run out, we had said all we had in us. The food shouldn’t have lasted us this long but with the absence of our friends and the little we did eat meant that we still could make the decision on our own time.

Natalya finally made her decision.

I helped her suit up, slowly, carefully. Each buckle and clasp took my full attention, she hung motionless, her composure like an Amazon princess donning her battle garb. I slipped her gloves on and bolted them in, ensured that all the seals were complete before I fetched her helmet.

We hung in the air, two bodies being gently pushed by the currents as we stared at each other. I didn’t know what to say, if there was anything to say. Her voice barely there, wavering as she spoke from emotion and lack of use.

“I wish it was not like it is”

I nodded and lowered the helmet into place, locking it gently and securely. We held hands and she slowly let them drop as she turned and floated into the pressure chamber. I watched as she drifted away from the station. The comm link crackled to life and her voice filled the small station.

“I love you.”

I thought I was beyond caring, that the ability to feel had long since been burnt out of me. I was wrong.

I cried. Great tearing sobs were ripped out of me, shattering the graveyard silence of the station.

“I love you too.” I sobbed into the room. My anguish poured out of me, my shell of a body could not contain it all. Gasping for breath and barely able to see through the sheen I watched as Natalya’s body drifted further away. I watched until I could not see her anymore, imagining her facing the earth and slowly starting to fall.

That was a week ago.

I have not yet made my decision.