"What do you mean?," I nervously asked Arya, the designated assistant that had been implanted into my brain at conception.
"Connor, no need to be afraid," she replied, sensing that I had grown anxious and weary at the mere thought of the universe coming to an end, "Portum has been a dying star for millennia now. Stars don't last forever."
Portum - the only star in the universe as we knew it as every other had either become a black hole or a supernova. The name Portum meant Haven in Latin (I never thought we'd be using a long-dead Earth language trillions of years after the planet itself had perished) because it was humanity's last safe haven. The founders of the Sapiensia colony I had resided on chose that name for that one and only reason. I knew that the end of the universe was near and I was going to be alive for this - after all, I was only 346 Earth years old and humans nowadays could live for upwards of a thousand years. Even with that in mind, however, I still couldn't help but panic constantly. Arya, before I could even exhibit the slightest symptom of a panic attack, administered a slight medication that would calm me enough to act properly without inadvertently causing any damage to my surroundings - I never do well under stress.
I asked my question with a bit of hesitation: "How long do we have?"
Without missing a beat, Arya had pulled up a timer on my retinal display, which usually contained measurements of vitals such as heartbeat and stress levels as well as contact information for people of the Sapiensia colony, all of which I could summon and communicate with through telepathy. The timer had displayed, among other time measurements: 30 Earth seconds.
I had already departed Sapiensia for a short trip to a nearby asteroid to extract materials that now seemed useless in the face of the death of the universe. I was thankful enough to have said my farewells to them, but I didn't realize they would be final.
"Arya, rotate the vessel around so it faces Portum," I commanded. I didn't need to state a reason because Arya could always read my mind for it. And within the blink of an eye, the viewing window in front of me displayed the giant red star as it was slowly shrinking. The star was supermassive, to the point where Sapiensia was not even visible to my eye without activating visual zoom.
Portum was shrinking, and I could feel the vessel I was in shake as a result of the sudden decrease in energy. It was solar-powered - as soon as any vessel like mine ran out of power, it would sputter, deactivate and send a constant stress signal to the nearest colony for about 7 Earth years. My vessel will engage in that process, but there will be no point in sending a stress signal...because we'll be dead by then.
The vessel shook uncontrollably, as if I was going to be sucked out of it or it was going to detonate. I sent my last telepathic message to Arya, with one word followed by instructions to administer a heavy shock to my brain that would kill me.
One word: Godspeed.
And everything went dark.
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