I’m a monster. Standing at the window of the ship, I watched the universe unfolding before me. Space was darker than I’d imagined, but the empty abyss seemed mockingly fitting as I started to contemplate what I’d done. 500 years ago I had sat in my kitchen, preparing myself for the voyage. The cat was on the windowsill, and for the life of me I could not recall his name now. It says a lot that that was my most meaningful relationship on earth. The application process had been gruelling. I was drained that morning. They’d scanned my ovaries, taken sample after sample and eventually deemed my fertility sufficient, and ultimately the best. And so I was offered the place on the mission to repopulate a new planet. And I’d sat in the kitchen that morning, watching a cat whose name no longer matters. The cold metal of the craft was cooling my forehead, which was now perspiring. I pressed my head into the grey walls of the grey ship, floating through the blackest chasm I could imagine. It had been six days since I’d been unfrozen, and five days since I’d changed my mind. And one hour since my irreversible actions. I’d spent that last hour trying to minimise movement, and trying to focus my thoughts. In this past hour I could’ve been messaged, asked for my thoughts. Could I have said that I was thinking of dooming mankind? When I’d left Earth, it had been given 567 years left. Scientists had calculated the exact life span of the planet, down to the final minute. Escape schemes were conjured up, but none of them sufficient. The rare few who could afford the tickets were able to relocate their lives to a permanent craft in space. They would die there. Or, I guess, they already had and how a craft floated around with the bodies of Earth’s elite. Project Genesis was designed to be the lifeline, but not the lifeline of the people. For the organisers this was a much bigger issue than just individual people. We were the dominant species, and therefore preservation was key. Myself and an Adam were chosen, and $33 billion was invested in creating a new planet, populated by the spawn I’d birth. Except now I’d ruined that chance. There would no longer be any children, no longer a body to carry them. And eventually Adam would die on this craft, too. I padded down the empty hallway, towards the two frozen medical pods. Within lay two male doctors, frozen and due to defrost, like a Sunday chicken, in 7 months time. They’d come to my lifeless body. And they’d find the whole plan failed. They really should’ve considered sending a female doctor. I peered through the circular window on the door separating me from the iced room. My breath fogged up the glass and I could feel a lightheaded sensation take over my body. The corridor was growing cold, and I shivered. I turned to walk back to my pod, to lie down. The Adam would find me, and for that I was sorry. He’d left behind a daughter. She’d be long dead now, but I remember reading about her. They’d given me any literature on the mission I requested, and I had wanted to know everything about the man I was to repopulate the species with. His daughter was 16 the day we left. I wondered what had happened to her, where she’d gone to live, whether she’d cried. I reached the room with my pod, and I entered the code for darkness. The lights dimmed down until the room lost all light, and black hung everywhere. I felt my way to the pod, and climbed in pulling the lid down on me. The sound in the pod was muffled. I tried to steady my breathing but my body was fighting now. As my thoughts became jumbled, I clung onto the image I’d constructed of his daughter. I saw the fair hair I’d given her, blue piercing eyes, porcelain skin. As I faded, so did the image, until all that remained was my guilt. And then I gave in, apologising to mankind. I had doomed the human race.