“You don't realize how loudly people breathe until your alone,” I took a deep breath in to demonstrate this, the oxygen in my tank was so pure it hurt, it was nothing like the dusty air I was used to. The filter on my tank hissed letting out carbon dioxide. I stretched out my arms and legs, my muscles had gotten used to the constant zero gravity a few days ago, at least, what seemed like a few days. “3 hours of oxygen left- 2 days of sustenance- “Susa's computer-generated voice stuttered “3 days of water left-” Susa stopped suddenly, she wasn't the best companion to talk to. “You hear that guys?” I pulled my arm out of my suit and turned on my video and voice recorder.

“Day number...” There was no sense of time in space; I had diverted power from my clock to keep me alive a long time ago. “I'm not sure what day it is anymore. I have less than one day's worth of oxygen left and only a few days of water and food left.” The button to record blinked at me. I should divert its power to my suit, keep the lights on, keep my filter working, or maybe try to get to send another signal to my ship for the thousandth time. “If ground control can see this, send my love to my family.” I smiled to myself; I could see my reflection in my suit helmet. My hair had grown unkempt, and a few sweaty blonde locks of hair hung in my eyes. The recording blinked red in the corner of my vision. I hadn't turned it off yet.

“I guess when these make it to mission control, they're going to write about me,” I wiped a drop of sweat from my forehead and wiped it on the inside of the suit. “It's not all bad, I suppose.”

“1 h-h-hour left,” Sasa’s voice echoed in my helmet. From where I was in the universe, thousands of stars went on in every direction forever, shining brighter and clearer than the little specks my daughter and I would stare at for hours while laying on our still-warm roof.

“It's not all bad-” I wasn't sure where to go from there, how to explain how I felt. “I will miss my daughter Sophie, and my lovely Beatrice,” I smiled at the blinking red light. “But it's so...so peaceful here.”

“I'm not sure where I am anymore. You sort of drift, the lightest push, the smallest struggle, and I'm sent further from where I sent my last signal-” my voice choked up. “But I have fallen in love with the mystery, the specks of light in the dark. Not only am I home among the stars, but I am also among kin, the fallen and those yet to be.”

I realized I had gotten closer to the camera in my suit and looked crazed. I took a deep breath and backed up.

“I wish you could see them, Sophie, the stars, the way they sparkle in person, the thousands of colors in the dust. It's so tragically beautiful.”

I leaned back, my legs slowly drifted up so I was laying completely horizontal. Laying in empty space, I wasn't sure which way was up or down, but a sea of stars and color stretched out forever in front of me. I closed my eyes, and I could still see the thousands of galaxies.

“Sasa can you see it?” A soft beep alerted me that Sasa was listening. “No-o Mr. Cross,” she sputtered, “Well- sort of.”

I opened my eyes and cocked my head to the side; this was the most emotion I heard from Sasa in a long time.

“To process photos of the stars, all the lovely colors are turned into numbers. But every inch of this forever-expanding universe is charted with a number; every star and planet can be broken down into an equation, and in that-, in th-a-at, I see beauty, Mr. Cross.”

“Sasa?”

“Yes, Mr. Cross?”

“Take me to the stars and never back again...” I tried to breathe in, and all I could feel was tension; my eyes fluttered and closed. The recording button blinked and went dark.

“Good night, Mr. Cross.”