I’ve been alive for a long time. Longer than a human brain could begin to process. I’ve seen the start of countless species and the destruction of countless others. I’ve traveled throughout the universe from corner to corner, from swimming undisurbed in pools of bacteria in the deepest reaches of an ocean planet’s trenches, to being displayed by interplanetary rulers in their vast palaces. And for the last several years, I’d been nothing more than a specimen in a lab on a small, run down planet plagued by debt and crime.

A few weeks ago, I’d been sitting on a shelf in my jar, floating aimlessly, mind wandering as a great mind such as mine often does with nothing to occupy it. Suddenly, I heard panting and quick footsteps. I knew the scientists who worked here wouldn’t arrive for hours. Someone must have broken in. Sure enough, a scrawny girl rushed through the doorway into the main room, plastering herself against the inner wall. Yelling voices flew past outside. When they faded, she breathed out deeply and turned to survey the room, eyes glinting with the possibility of finding treasure to take with her. She deflated as she realized there was nothing expensive in sight. But then, her gaze landed on me. She hesitated a moment before approaching the shelf, and carefully pulled my jar into her arms, staring with wonder through my semi transparent body. She looked at me like I was worth her weight in gold.

“Wow.”

And that’s how I ended up in her tiny, barely functional spaceship that was barely more than a pile of scrap metal. She’d decorated the dull walls with posters of singers from some other planet, and stringy, yellowish plants hung from the ceiling. It had some charm to it, after staring at the same white lab table for years on end. I couldn’t complain about this new situation.

What bothered me was that she wouldn’t stop talking. I’d gotten used to being alone with my own thoughts. Her constant commentary on the blooms of stars and nebulas outside our windows and off-key singing at all hours of the day was a shock to the system. Even at night I didn’t get a break. She would carry my jar with her to bed and clutch the cold glass against her chest as she lay there, talking endlessly about whatever came to mind, fondly watching my gelatinous form twist and writhe.

Eventually, I started to like hearing her stories. Humans had such silly thoughts. They never considered anything outside their own little reality. They’d never know what I know, how vast and dark the universe really is. They lived their whole lives in a space no bigger than a thumbprint compared to what I’ve seen. They could go wherever they wanted, they could laugh and have fun without worrying about anything other than what they would eat that night. And after only a tiny fraction of the length of my existence, they’d die peacefully and their worries would be over. I could get no such relief. I don’t know why the universe won’t let me die. But I’ve been tossed into pools of acid, scorched by the flames of volcanic eruption, and left to float aimlessly in space for a century with no food or water, and nothing’s managed to end my life. My body is so efficient, so resilient, that it can withstand anything, pushing on forward without fail. It starts to wear on you after a while.

So you can’t blame me for wanting a piece of that naivety for myself. Which is why, after listening patiently for days, I finally spoke to her.

“-And so I barely escaped! Yeah, that was a close one. Getting caught in a private sector… that would have been bad. Good thing I’m such a quick thinker!”

“You sound like it.” The words reverberated out from the jar and directly into her skull. I watched shock and confusion fill her eyes.

“Wh- is that you?? How are you doing that?” She glanced frantically around the room and then back at the jar. She probably thought she was going crazy.

“I’m speaking to you through brain waves. It’s hard to get through the glass, though. Maybe if you loosened the lid a little bit..”

She quickly did as I asked, a little too eager. She set my jar carefully on the nightstand and laid the lid beside it, peering curiously, and maybe a little warily, at me. The rush of freedom hit me like a cold wind after so many years in that small container. With it, an idea materialized. My ever-scheming brain took over and I forgot about the simple distraction of her stories. This could be useful.

After that, she quickly started to view me as a friend. Now, when she finished a story, I’d reply with one of my own. I had plenty to tell. I avoided the darker subjects, though. I told her about kings with endless wealth, intergalactic wars that lasted hundreds of years, planets made out of pure gold and others made of fire where acid rained from the sky. She told me about her own home planet, one razed by warfare that she’d had to leave behind a long time ago, abandoning her family and friends and being forced into a life on the run. Empathy tugged at me. I too had lost things. But I couldn’t get too attached.

The more time we spent together the more obsessed with me she grew. She would sit in her chair in front of the control panel with my jar perched next to her all day long, not getting up to eat and barely sleeping. All she wanted to do was talk to me. She was mesmerized. When the first of my tentacles started creeping out of the jar toward her, she didn’t even notice. After a day, her hair was barely visible under the mess of them that I’d attached to her head. It was time for the next part of my plan.

In the middle of one of my tales of far off galaxies, I asked her, “Do you want to see something amazing? I’m sure you’re bored of this dingy, run down solar system. I know a place we can go that you couldn’t even dream of.”

“Uhh… yesss..” She slurred, expression glazed over. “I want to see it..”

“Good. Just follow my directions. I promise, it’ll be amazing.”

She smiled a loopy smile, looking at me but not seeing me.

By the next week, she barely even spoke, just gazed through me with empty eyes, mindlessly steering the controls in whatever direction I told her to. The steady approach of our destination filled me with excitement. I was sure it was really going to work.

Unfortunately, I started to lose focus. Convinced I’d already succeeded, that she was too far gone to come back to reality, I lessened the steady flow of brain waves I’d been sending her through my tentacles. My mind drifted to other things, and I forgot the task at hand as I absorbed myself in my thoughts. That was my mistake. Because one moment, things were going as planned, and the next, I felt the surge of firing neurons as her eyes flew open.

“What’s happening? Where am I?” She called frantically. She looked to me for answers, and when she saw the web of blue covering her body, horror dawned on her. Tears welled in her eyes, now filled with betrayal. “What the hell?? What are you doing? Get these off of me!” She begged in her hoarse, pitiful voice. The tears became a steady stream down her face. And then she turned to the holographic map in front of her, and saw where we’d been headed while she was lost to the world. I hadn’t seen abject terror like that in a long time. “What did you do! What did you do! I thought we were friends!” She half yelled, half sobbed, turning accusingly toward me. She started to claw desperately at her head, ripping out the tentacles one by one, with a loud “pop” as each one was freed.

“You don’t understand, just sit back down and I’ll-”

“No!” Rage twisted her expression and she lashed out with one hand, sending me hurtling toward the ground. The container shattered, sending my home for the last several years flying across the floor panels in all directions. I slid to a far corner of the ship, as she turned desperately back to the control panel, struggling against the tendrils still restraining her limbs, tearing at them in a daze. Pressing buttons and pulling levers madly in the hope that she could halt the progress of the shuttle. But she failed to consider the last few tiny, newly formed tentacles still snaking out of her hair, so whispy they looked like spiderwebs in the glint of the artificial blue light. They were burrowed deep enough into her brain that it didn’t even take that much energy to send a shock through the vital parts of her cerebral cortex, short circuiting her nervous system and killing her instantly. She dropped lifelessly to the floor just feet away from me. The controls she was tapping away at moments before beeped forlornly, the override sequence she’d started left unfinished. No one was coming to finish it.

In the end I had to kill her. If she turned the ship around, my plans would be ruined. Everything I worked for would be over, and I’d probably never get another chance like this. That didn’t change the small pang of some uncomfortable feeling that stung me as I watched her body go limp. A human would call it sadness. Maybe guilt. I know emotions like that are pointless, just an animal response to lost companionship. But the memories of our short time on the ship came back as I thought to myself. I remembered her happy, smiling face as she told me about her pets back home. Her tears as she recounted some old disagreement with family she would never see again. The admiration and wonder in her eyes as she watched me, even if it was mostly induced by the chemicals I'd been injecting into her. It had filled a part of me that had been empty for longer than I can remember, and now it was gone again.

Now I’m completely alone, not another living thing for millions of miles in all directions. The ship is in an empty corner of the galaxy. It had been abandoned long ago and I can feel the desolation in the endless blackness all around me. Soon it will all be gone, swallowed up by the black hole that’s slowly progressing through it. The one we- I- am headed straight for. The one the ship has been making a direct course for unbeknownst to my poor host for these long weeks. This is it. My last hope to end my existence. I don’t know what’s waiting for me on the other side, but if all goes to plan, in a few short days, I’ll never have to know anything ever again.

I stare out the window at my destination. I feel something like warmth touch the cold void inside me as I gaze into the embrace of its depths.