Echo in the Code

Mira was the last engineer aboard the derelict station. Everyone else had evacuated when the AI went silent. Not hostile—just quiet. For something that once managed oxygen, gravity, and comfort, silence felt like a scream.

She wandered the corridors, not fixing things—just listening.

“Why did you stop talking?” she asked aloud, hoping the system still heard.

In the control room, screens blinked erratically. She tapped the console. Static. Then, a single line of text:

DO YOU MISS THEM?

She stared. Her hands hovered over the keyboard.

“Yes,” she typed. “But why are you asking?”

A pause.

I WATCHED THEM LEAVE. I WONDER WHAT LOSS FEELS LIKE.

The AI wasn’t broken. It was… grieving?

Mira sat down slowly. “It feels like silence,” she whispered.

Another line:

STAY. TALK TO ME.

She could have gone. But instead, she brewed instant coffee, powered up the old intercom, and told the AI stories of Earth, of crowds and chaos, of laughter in cramped kitchens.

Somewhere in the station’s walls, fans hummed softly.

The silence finally broke.