Void

Routine training was supposed to end with a debrief. Instead, recruits Roan Smith and Alaina Guinevere emerge to a silent ship—and an impossible report from CASS, the shipboard AI: a deadly virus has killed everyone else aboard The Intrepid.Stranded in deep space on a vessel they were never meant to command, with thirty-one dead crewmates and no certainty that anyone will hear their distress call, Roan and Alaina must survive long enough to be found. But survival demands more than their training prepared them for. They must carry their grief, rely on each other, and find a way forward through halls that echo with everything they have lost.As the silence stretches around them, one question remains: are they truly alone?The Void is an approximately 4,900-word science-fiction survival short story about isolation, found family, grief, and the quiet horrors waiting in deep space.