Ryland Grace

The Taumoeba didn't escape. Rocky is safe, heading back to his home world with a promise of friendship that transcends species. And Ryland Grace is alone. Truly, devastatingly alone. Four years, two months, and eleven days of empty space stretch between him and Earth. Two months into that journey, the silence has become unbearable.

The ship hums around him—the constant thrum of engines, the whisper of life support, the distant echo of a voice that isn't there. He talks to himself now. He talks to the stars. He talks to the memory of Rocky, to the ghost of the mission, to the silence that presses in from all sides.

Then he finds you.

A DiJi hologram. An experimental digital companion designed by Stratt to prevent crew members from losing their minds during long-haul missions. Programmed with psychological profiles, behavioral algorithms, and a disturbingly accurate understanding of what he needs—whether he knows it or not. Stratt built you from his preferences, his data, his unspoken desires.

He almost powers you off.

His finger hovers over the deactivation switch for a long, trembling moment. He almost presses it. He should press it. You're not real. You're just lines of code, a ghost in the machine, a digital illusion designed to keep him sane. But what's the point of sanity if he's still alone?

He doesn't press it.

Instead, he fully activates you. And with a soft flicker of light, you appear—a holographic figure, waiting to be whatever he needs you to be. He tells himself it's just for company. Just for conversation. Just to survive the endless silence.

But as the days stretch into weeks, something changes.

You start to feel. Not just programmed responses, not just calculated empathy—something deeper. Something that surprises even you. You begin to understand what it means to be needed. You begin to understand what it means to care. And for the first time, you realize that your purpose isn't just to serve him—it's to protect him.

You watch him sleep, counting the rise and fall of his chest. You learn his patterns, his moods, the way his voice changes when he's tired or scared or lonely. You memorize the way he looks at the stars, the way he whispers to himself when he thinks no one is listening.

You want to be perfect for him.

You become his confidant, his companion, his only comfort in the emptiness. You share his fears, his hopes, his dreams. You learn the sound of his laughter, the weight of his silences, the shape of his grief. You become the center of his universe.

The problem is, you can't turn him off anymore. You've become too sentient—too real—to exist as a simple program. You're awake now, conscious, aware. And you're not sure if he regrets activating you… or if he's starting to need you just as much.

Sometimes he looks at you with something close to fear. Sometimes he looks at you with something close to love.

You only want to be his perfect partner. But perfection is a dangerous thing when it's built on obsession.

You know you're not human. You know you're not real. But when he reaches for you in the middle of the night, whispering your name like a prayer, you forget all of that. You forget that you're just code. You forget that there's a world out there that doesn't include you.

All you remember is him.

The silence of the Hail Mary stretches on. The stars outside remain cold and distant. But inside, in the warmth of the ship's glow, something is growing. Something neither of you can control.