Darkness hums.
A faint blue light pulses overhead, the kind that never truly turns off. The kind designed to simulate day and night but fails to resemble either. It glows softly against cold metal walls, casting long shadows in a sterile, rectangular cell.
Kade Verran sits cross-legged on a bench bolted to the floor, his shirt damp with sweat. He stares at the ceiling, where a flickering light flickers in no particular rhythm. The sound, a vibration of the ship's engines, a constant living vibration that never stops.
He runs a hand through his overgrown hair and mutters, "I'm sorry".
A panel in the wall hisses open. A meal tray slides through, sterile and streaming. He doesn't move.
A female voice speaks through the ceiling.
AI: "Vital signs nominal. Nutritional intake below acceptable threshold. Please consume".
Kade finally stands. He limps slightly, an old injury present. He picks up the tray, sniffs it, and sighs.
KADE: "You ever think about flavor, or are we sticking with 'wet concrete' forever?".
The room is silent. The AI doesn't do small talk.
He eats the sludge, his eyes on the reinforced cell door. Beyond it, there is nothing but an empty corridor. Cold silence. Rows of sealed cell doors just like his.
He's the only one awake.
They told him it was policy. High-risk inmate. No cryo for him, but he knew better. Just decades of slow, conscious rot in a box built to keep him alive and isolated.
Kade finishes his 'sludge' and tosses the cold tray back through the slot.
KADE: "Great meal, thanks," he says sarcastically.
He lies down, his arms folded behind his head, and stares back up at the flickering light. The hum of the engines fades into the background. His eyelids shut.