#i KNOW i'm ignoring my other wips. but. this concept took over my brain briefly

[youssefguedira]

hello everyone! wrote a new thing

Rating: Teen

Summary:

“This is Joe, transmitting from Orbiter 3. It’s” – he checks the computer’s clock – “day 11,689 of the experiment. Uh, all medical checks came back normal, plants show no abnormal growth or change, soil levels all fine. Drank about three bottles of water. No technical faults to report.” There’s never much to say during these reports, but they’re the closest thing he gets to talking to someone else. “Earth looks particularly beautiful today. And I’m running out of paper.”

Joe has spent his entire life on a small ship orbiting Earth, as part of an experiment on the viability of long-term human space travel. His routine has been the exact same for thirty-three years: at forty, he will be allowed to return to Earth. But when things begin to go wrong, and an engineer - the first person he has spoken to since he was sent into orbit - is sent to carry out maintenance on the ship, Joe begins to realise that the experiment may not be what he thought it was.