Dobin watched the sun rise behind the earth, looking out the only circular window in the ship. He tried counting all of the sunrises he’d seen. How many were there? The arithmetic, although simple, felt worse than his final examinations in aeronautics. The number itself felt like a thousand needles going down his throat. It was 1278 of them without counting the first week, the week when the accident happened, the week when the fuel line exploded behind them and sent the ship hurling over 1 kilometer per second on the wrong direction, stranding him and his entire crew in the endless void, forever falling towards earth but never returning home.

Somehow, they had made it this far, eating only enough to keep their bodies functioning. But that was not enough. Now, three years and a half later, the food ran out. They would die in a few days. Dobin contemplated death. How much would it hurt? To starve to death? He found it ironic. Everything around him was meant to keep them alive in the most harsh environment known. The ship recycled water, filtering and cleaning it to perfection although the taste remained. It also replenished oxygen through a complicated machine and kept the nonexistent pressure from killing them. Yet, they would die of starvation. The one thing they could not prevent. But what if it hurt too much? Why not end it at that moment? He could use any of the complex instruments to cut something vital. Or, he could simply open the hatch and let space rip his body apart. That couldn’t hurt as much. He would freeze so fast that it would be instantaneous.

Enhat woke up, and started shouting, scaring Bilney and Donbin alike.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Donbin shouted back.

“A ship! It’s a fucking ship!” Enhat said.

“A what?”

“There’s a ship coming at our six, just look outside!”

Donbin pressed his face against the window, his breath leaving a circle on the glass. “Fuck me,” he said. “They came. They came!”

Enhat was the first one to exit the stranded pod and float his way to the ship, an unmanned explorer. Bilney and Donbin quickly followed, each taking a seat on the command module. The three cried as they started the engines. They had enough fuel to make it to the Mun and back. They would make it back home.

“Three years and a half,” Donbin said. “1278 days. 30,680 hours. We will be back home in just a couple of hours”

The engines roared and Kerbin grew in size. They all smiled.