Toris Journal, End Cycle 1 by Ryan Cassano
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SUMMARY: Somewhere between home and home.A place without time. It's taken four days of consciousness to think of it that way, but that's where I am -- in the most timeless void imaginable, millions of miles away from the closest ... anything.
I still hurt. Feels like I'm on fire. But so far, nothing I wasn't warned about. Rest assured R21 worked her magic, overall her performance in my revival was a success. I'm running scans on her systems now, but she appears to be stable.
I cannot recall my first true memory of consciousness, but over the course of 30 days that R21 administered the TM94, I likely stirred only a handful of times. When I did finally come to, it was as though I was racing to escape a nightmare -- like emerging from a cave, with demons nipping at my heels. Undoubtedly this experience was remnants of my troubled mind, where concerns of a now distant world were suddenly buoyant in my consciousness again. In my cryostasis, these things do not keep track of time. They can rise again as if not a day had passed.
When I awoke -- I could see, but I could not move, my body mostly numb.
My brain scans appear normal, though chemical levels are unbalanced in places; nothing a mild case of low morale couldn't explain. And given the circumstances of my course and condition, few could argue cause of such a thing.
I expect to feel progressively better until it's time to go back to sleep. Presently unsure of how long that will be, as it depends on how the ship checks out. Still parsing event logs, but no failures seem evident. No sign of anything over the next cycle or more.
I spent an hour in the dome earlier -- I was scanning a sky I had never seen and to my amazement and sheer delight, the NGC4890 Nebula. Like a boundless jeweled teardrop of the gods, swirling with its crimson core and its wispy edges of blue. The color blue brings a flicker of relief to the pain. If only I could gaze at it behind towering, stark-white clouds -- for it is there I could rest forever.
And of that rest I speak, I need it now...I am too weak to go through the verification protocols. Trajectory readouts are unchanged, so I'll allow my fatigue to get the better of me this time. But one last thing before I sleep...
I have to go back to the dome to watch my first sunrise in a century's time -- for it will also be my last for a century to come. And while it may not be the biggest and the brightest, certainly after so long it will more than do.
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