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The crew of the Pioneer has been dead for a long time. I’m the only one left. We made it to our destination, and I’m the only one left.
Space, of course, is bigger than anyone comprehends, bigger than the human mind can handle. We’re able to come to some understanding of it with mathematics, and philosophy, and even art. We can look at pictures, read comparisons, and conduct complex equations to try to make sense of it. But the fact is that the biological makeup of a human brain is too simple, its neurons too few, to understand the true enormity of our universe. It is incalculably and emphatically beyond us.
When you think about breathing, you forge a connection with yourself. When you control that breathing, the connection grows stronger. And you begin to find peace.”
I’m drifting half out of the ship, half in, but even then it feels as if the infinite universe is reaching for me with inexorable fingers, with hands made of whorls of starlight, of depthless lightless chasms that hum like monsters of the cosmos. The air in my lungs feels like a dare. I’m challenging the firmament in its horrible power, and it is gazing right back at me, unimpressed.
Our knowledge is so minute, a tiny droplet in a vast sea that never ends, and we had the audacity to think we knew what we were getting into.
“Ami,” he says, my name supplicant on his lips. “I would never hurt you.”
He’s watching me with an almost overwhelming intensity, his unblinking black eyes framed by unnaturally long lashes, head tilted down slightly, as if he’s starving and I’m a meal.
His voice is little more than a whisper. “I’m whatever you want me to be, Ami.”
“Ami,” he groans. “I’ve waited so long for you.” I don’t know what that means, and I don’t care. Maybe I’ve waited for him too. I came all this way, light-years and light-years, and I found him. Why shouldn’t I surrender to this?
But once I’m safely inside Pioneer, the door sealed closed behind me, Dorian’s voice caresses my brain. I hear him as clearly as if he’s standing right next to me, soft lips brushing my cheek. No matter how many times you try to go, you always come back.
