2510 十月- ア - Suspended by Cassette Invaders
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The chamber light has been amber for three months now.
She floats in the observation deck, watching Earth's storms paint themselves across the viewport in lazy spirals of white and blue. October 2510—the date marker blinks in the corner of her vision, a small rebellion against the timelessness of space. The ship drifts in high orbit, neither approaching nor departing, caught in the gravitational sweet spot between worlds.
Below, the cryo bay hums its mechanical lullaby. His vital signs pulse steady on her wrist display: heartbeat slowed to six beats per minute, neural activity cycling through prescribed dream phases. The medical AI assures her that suspension is holding, that the cellular damage is paused, that time itself has been convinced to wait.
But she knows better now. Time doesn't wait—it stretches, becomes elastic, transforms into something that moves through you rather than around you. Each day in orbit adds another layer to the silence, another degree of separation from the person she was when this journey began.
The fracture that put him in cryo wasn't sudden. It was the slow accumulation of radiation exposure from their mining runs through the asteroid belt, the gradual failure of his body's repair systems, the quiet admission that staying awake meant dying by degrees. So they made the choice: suspend him until they could reach the medical facilities on Europa, keep him locked in artificial winter while she piloted them home.
That was supposed to take six weeks.
The gravitational anomaly that pulled them off course changed everything. Now they orbit Earth like a forgotten satellite, watching seasons change on a world that no longer recognizes their transponder codes. The political map has shifted in their absence—new territories, new governments, new regulations about who can land and who must remain suspended in the dark.
She's learned to read the planet's moods through the viewport. The way storm systems build and dissolve. The night-side cities that have grown brighter, spreading like luminescent bacteria across the continents. Sometimes she thinks she can see the lights of the medical stations, the places where they could wake him safely, cure what the cold holds at bay.
Her fingers trace patterns on the glass—constellation maps of places they might land, if the communications array ever receives clearance. If the fuel holds. If the cryo systems don't fail. If her own mind stays clear enough to make the decisions that will determine whether this suspension becomes salvation or simply a longer way to say goodbye.
The ship's AI suggests entering cryo herself, joining him in the winter sleep until automated systems can negotiate landing rights. But someone needs to tend the vigil, to monitor the systems, to make the small adjustments that keep hope alive in the machinery. Someone needs to stay awake to remember what they're trying to save.
So she floats and watches and waits, suspended not in cryo but in something more complex—the space between despair and determination, between the person she was and whoever she's becoming in the long orbit. The music that plays through the ship's speakers has slowed to match her heartbeat, synthetic melodies that stretch like pulled light, ambient textures that hold her name in their frequencies.
This is her transmission from the edge of earth's gravity well: the sound of choosing to remain conscious while everything else sleeps, of tending the small flame of possibility in the vast dark. Each track a revolution around the planet, each melody a reason to continue the watch, each synthesized heartbeat a promise that suspension can be survived.
The storms below are beautiful. She tells herself that tomorrow the communications array might receive the signal they've been waiting for. Tomorrow the cryo bay might echo with the sound of awakening. Tomorrow they might finally be allowed to land.
But today, she floats and watches and tends the vigil, suspended between worlds, keeping time to music only she can hear.
// Cassette Invaders - Your Weekly Synthwave Source.
// Until the next transmission..
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Cassette Invaders
