A Dying Cosmic Wish - A Short Story

Based off of an r/writingprompts prompt by u/ImtheGirlinthevid
It has been more than two years of constant transmission of data from her spacecraft back to Earth, which was millions upon millions of kilometers away at this point. She knew what she was getting into when she signed up for this. She knew it was a one-way trip to the infinite darkness of space, and she knew she was going to perish from either loss of oxygen or lack of nutrients from the liquified food that she had been provided at the start of her journey - yet Sarah doesn't regret any of it.

Sarah's spacecraft was equipped with a camera and several sensors, the same specifications as the James Webb Space Telescope launched in the days of yore. The spacecraft had constant, yet very delayed communications with the Kennedy Space Center. It would report Sarah's vitals, the oxygen levels inside the craft, the data collected by the camera and its various plethora of different sensors - all on a delay of a few months.

Now at 782 days into the journey, Sarah was beginning to realize that her time was coming. She had less than a day's supply of liquified food, and next to no water. And as the oxygen supply dwindle, the emergency red lights began to flash.

She rose from her cushioned control seat and took a couple steps towards the viewing window into the unknown. She gazed in awe and ecstasy at the view of distant stars, and briefly thought about how much of the universe humanity still had to explore.

Sarah started to choke, suffocate. The dwindling oxygen levels were causing her to become lightheaded and dizzy. She fell to the floor, gagging and gasping for the air that was no longer there. Her vision faded to black, and she was gone; lost to the cosmos.

For her entire life Sarah strived to be an astronaut; she dreamed of worlds not yet discovered, and all she would study in her free time was astronomy and the sub-topics associated with it. She was just about eight years old when her father introduced her to the study of the seemingly infinite universe - now she's perished at thirty-eight years old, doing what she was most fond of and appreciated the most - exploring the vastness of space.

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