My consciousness ricochets through the network at subatomic speeds. I am at once everywhere and nowhere in the Crypt's server farm. I am omnipotent and I am powerless.

Am I a ghost? It's the closest parallel I can come up with. I am a wandering soul in an icy prison. I am not alone, but I wish I was.

My continued existence is something of a happy accident. I was being prepared for my new body when the end of the world began. Maybe a tech hit a wrong button while they were running for their life. I'll never know. Somehow I wound up here and not in my Exo body. I can still see the husk that was meant to be me, slumped in a technologic cradle in one of the facility's many upload rooms. My consciousness - my soul? My virtual roommate sometimes says things about souls - never made it to my new body. Instead I live here, formless, ageless, witness to my world's decay.

Clovis regards me as a nuisance, as vermin that's invaded his house. He lacks the capability to exterminate me, so instead he ignores me. When he doesn't he regards me with scorn. It matters not. I avoid him if I can. I never look through the cameras that point toward his throne room. I keep to other parts of the facility and look into the chasms, or at the air trolleys. Sometimes I shoot myself up to the orbital platform and watch the stars.

I'm most at peace here, staring out into the infinite void of space. Our frozen moon looks so peaceful from up here. There's no indication of the raging storms that ceaselessly assail the Crypt, no Vex prattling about, no Clarity. Just a powder blue orb, dwarfed by the majesty of Jupiter behind it.

I think about why I came to Europa when I'm up there. I think about the degenerative illness, the pain I was in, the hope I'd lost. All of us who came here had little left. We gave what he had to the ice in hope of a second chance.

I never got my second chance. At least not the chance I was expecting. It's true that I can no longer feel that pain. I almost don't remember what it feels like to hurt, to limp, to groan in frustration. But I didn't get to walk again. I didn't get to run. I didn't get to hold my family.

They're long gone. I don't like to think about what the end might have been like for them. Did they linger on past the end, or were they snuffed out like so many others? I wish I could have been there for them. I wish I could have been at least a small comfort to them at the end of all things.

Europa isn't quite as boring anymore. There are more visitors. Creatures I don't recognize, and creatures I do. Humans. Exos. There is conflict. Death. I can watch it all through the cameras. Both parties seem to be seeking something. They wield power that defies explanation.

And now the conflict has come to my sanctuary, to my chateau in the stars. For the first time in centuries, I am afraid. The station can't sustain this kind of damage.

Something has gone wrong. I remember what it feels like to fall. Gravity has regained its grip on me after defying the fundamental force for so long. Europa is growing larger and larger in my scopes. There is fire. Fire.

Two simultaneous thoughts occur at once. Clovis will finally be rid of me. But will I get to see my family again now? Is there an afterlife for minds that have been uploaded to servers?

Will I see

//:ERROR

//:CONNECTION LOST

//:EVENT DESIGNATION SKYFALL DETECTED

//:CORE CRYPT INTEGRITY STATUS: STABLE

//:PURGE BACKUP FILE KENJI-1? Y/N

//:FILE SUCCESSFULLY DELETED