The Biomass

Wishing to Fly

The unfinished, unedited last entry of a Gaspid into his electronic journal.

Date: 3 eons, 14,160 eras, 13 elapses, and 12,843 time units

I was shut into the antechamber of the quarantine because the Biomass has been seeping in and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don't have much time to live. [Consider leading with life expectancy, but rephrasing to be less cliché]

Our sensors detected a breach, so I suited up and went to investigate. The second I reported an infection to the headquartrs, they shut off the door and air supply to this room. So soon I will suffocate.

One one wing, I'm mad that I was sent out and then left for dead. On the other wing, I undersand that there was no way for me to come back without bringing the infection with me [Consider flipping order of "wings."]

I suppose in the long run it doesn't really matter. As a colony of only about 100 survivors, the incest would kill us even if entropy or the Biomass didn't first. Even if we did arranged courtship, we could only go 6 generations before inbreeding becomes inevitable. We can't increase in number because the space has limited capacity. Too many rounds of incest means that population will have higher rates of developmental deficits, rendering them incapable of maintaining the delicate life support in the quarantine.

So in the long run [re-phrase later, repetitive] I would be dead and my children would be dead anyway. And life wasn't really exciting on the inside. Without the freedom to fly, Gaspids tend to get pretty depressed.

I think the most exiting part of life was sending electronic messages to people in some of the other quarantines. The saddest part of life is when my online friends were killed by invading Biomass. One quarantine would fall to acidic secretions, another to a nightmarish monster, another to punctured ventilation ducks.

This message goes out to everyone who I have messaged, so that you will know specifically why I stopped messaging you. Assuming I can finish it before I run out of oxygen. [Consider removing, redundant].

I sort of wish I could leave the antechamber and go to the solid green landscape of Trillitus. I would die instantly from the toxic fumes in the air and my body would be incorporated into the Biomass, but for just a few seconds I would see the outside that I have been prevented from seeing for so many elapses. I could spread my stiff wings and fly. But the exit is impossible to open, probably due to the immense mounds of viscous green slime on the other side.

Hopelessness is finally winning, I think. The quarantines are failing one by one. Nobody has the manufacturing capability to create enough cure. The colany on the next planet to the sun failed. Satellites only have a limited amount of time before they crash down through the atmosphere. The highly acclaimed Bradificies is useless.

And yet, for some reason, we all want to live. Well, not everyone, the galactic suicide rate is phenomenally high. But still more than half of all living sentient beings choose to try to live. I suppose that is the nature of life. [Consider cutting this paragraph]

At this point I hold onto my faith. I Walk in Oneness. I will pour my will to live into the universe, bending the universe to my will even as I bend to its will. [sounds preachy, try to work this in more naturally]

I really only type because it is the only recourse I have against boredom. My death will be painless, unless boredom is a kind of pain. I don't even know if I wan to send this to anyone. It's too depressing. Basically the whole thing was I used to be dying slowly but now I'm dying a little bit faster.

[Consider cutting that paragraph]

I want to fly again.

[Cut more paragraphs?]

[Delete and start again?]

These are my last words before I pass.

[Still too cliché]

[Just quit writing?]

Sometimes when my pen pals stop communicating, it's because they died. Sometimes I don't know why for sure, so I presume them dead. I write to inform