Day 23: I found my self in the workshop, building a useless machine out of sheer boredom. It’s been more than three weeks since I woke up and my best idea was to build a machine whose only purpose in its existence was to shut down when someone turned it on.

Day 31: A month happened since my awakening and for the first time, I was able to sense my libido. Being alone in a spacecraft tended to affect people both psychologically and physically, so I am somewhat glad that my little friend also had awakened. Thanks to the downloaded database of the internet that the ship’s records had, I have able to search for some porn to help my problems.

Day 35: IVA is still reproaching me about my decision of self-loathing that was ‘human sexual self-pleasure’. I told her that it was only a one-time thing, but four days in and she doesn’t stop drilling me facts. It arrived at one point I didn’t care. The ship was equipped with the best recycling systems in the world. I don’t only recycle waste, but also food, water, oxygen, energy, heat… This ship was almost a perfect machine, technology-wise. It had a performance of a 99%, while it wasn’t a perpetual motion machine, it was damn near close.

Day 60: I think I am growing closer to botany, no pun intended. IVA was the one that managed the hydroponic farms, but since I didn’t need to do anything at the ship, not a single chore, I decided to help myself with growing my own food.

Day 63: Finally, my first cabbages and potatoes have grown. I think they are a bit more delicious after I was the one who cultivated them. That ‘day’, since time was relative at these speeds, it occurred to me to ask the meaning of IVA’s name. I don’t know why it took me so much time to ask, to be honest. She responded that the acronym stood for Intelligent Virtual Assistant. She also told me some fun facts about the brainstorming during her name’s inception. In the end, her actual name was some sort of joke.

Day 64: Now I understand the joke, not a good one, but still, a word game. IVA was the Spanish term for VAT. I think the joke lies that the project was sponsored by the world government, but it was strange as I didn’t pay taxes here.

Day 90: Start of the third month. Well, technically there would be a 31-day month between those three, but for my own sake let’s say month are thirty days long. I asked IVA if communication with Earth would be possible, but she dismissed the idea. I already knew it was impossible, but I wanted to talk to a living human for a change. The craft moved through the space vacuum at near light speed, which meant I was already out of the Solar System long ago. Considering Alpha Centauri was at four light-years, I should be there around the fifth year of travel.

Day 123: Lights out.

“What’s happening?” I asked IVA while lifting weights in the gym at two times the gravity of the Moon. “What were those turbulences?” Since the beginning of the travel, nothing like that had happened before.

“We crossed a meteoroid belt.” IVA responded in her robotic but melodious voice.

That didn’t make much sense. We had already flown across the asteroid belt and the Oort Cloud at the Solar System and I hadn’t detected such disturbances. I directed towards the cockpit, the only place that contained windows to outer space.

“Open the curtains.” I demanded to IVA as I saw the metallic protectors covering the front windows of the spaceship.

“I am afraid I can’t do that, Eiichiro.” That was the first time IVA called me by my name in a long time. That phrasing scared me a little as it reminded me of the HAL 9000.

“Why’s that?” I sat in the only chair in the room, the captain’s chair.

“You wouldn’t be ready.” IVA responded. I sense a spec of wariness on her tone.

“Open the curtains.” I demanded once again, but I kept my voice calm even if I wasn’t.

I heard some beeps and boops until IVA deign to speak to me. “Reveling confidential information of the Mission Adam from the Project Ark,” IVA said some interesting things before calling the name of the mission and the whole project. “You never knew the full detail of the operation, did you Eiichiro?”

“No.” I responded blatantly.

“You were selected as the male human responsible for the Mission Adam.” She explained. “While your female counterpart from the Mission Eve was selected to colonize Alpha Centauri, you had been charged with other plans.”

“Wait,” I told her. “Wasn’t I going to Alpha Centauri? Wasn’t the second spaceship a form to maximize the survival rate?”

“You were tricked,” IVA stated, and then she rose the metallic curtains. Beyond the window, nothing could be seen except light accelerating at stupid rates. I knew what I was watching. “You were selected to verify the possibility of black holes as wormholes. What you see in front of you is the accretion disk of the black hole.”

“But…” I lost my voice in such a view. “Wasn’t the closest black hole from Earth a thousand light-years?”

“Indeed.” She responded, my body trembling.

“Then…” I couldn’t mutter my words.

“You were in cryo-sleep for a millennium, Eiichiro.” IVA reveled the sourest truth. “According to my calculations, life on Earth will have perished according to the predicted disasters and Proxima b is the new home of humanity.”

Strength left my body; my arms hang out of the chair as I looked the object of infinite density in front of me. Everyone I knew died. Hell, the civilization that I knew had also died. “There’s no turning back, I suppose.” I spoke with IVA, I no longer cared.

“No.” She responded. “We’re are getting close to the event horizon. Once there, we won’t be able to escape. Further down, time and space will swap and the dimension you are familiarized will break.”

I readied myself as the light started to vanish until there was none. I couldn’t even hear the monotonous voice of IVA. But then, in midst of total silence, a blue light appeared.

Welcome, Player! You were selected randomly through the Arcane Records to participate!