LOG REF: RE‑ENTRY 0001 // INSTRUCTIONS FOR RETURNING TO EARTH
Personal transmission, unscheduled. Partial data stream. Signal unstable. May include unreliable narration.
ACT I: DRIFT
Mission Phase: Cognitive Orbit / Unscheduled Excursion
LOG 01A // Subject exhibits standard orbital deviation. Thought spiral engaged. External stimuli deprioritized.
You left again, didn’t you.
Not physically. You showed up. You answered emails. You even replied to that text about the weekend plans.
But you left.
You were halfway through making coffee when you started reworking a story that doesn’t exist yet. You were brushing your teeth and drifted into a scene you’ll never write down. You forgot where your body was. Again.
This isn’t a malfunction. It’s your base layer. You think in loops. You move through the world like it’s background ambiance to a thought you haven’t caught yet. You tell someone you’ll respond to their question in five minutes, and an hour later you’re researching lunar terminology to describe a fictional grief you’re not sure is fictional.
You watch steam rise from your mug like it’s a metaphor. You compose a monologue about emotional momentum while doing the dishes, and forget to rinse the plate.
Someone asks you if you’re alright and you say, “Just tired.” Which is technically true. Technically everything is.
LOG 01B // Systems report: high dream-index. Chrono-drift accelerating. Narrative threads multiplying.
It doesn’t feel bad. That’s what makes it dangerous.
Orbit is smooth. The ship hums. There’s no friction. Just soft silence and ideas that come easier when Earth is out of focus.
Time becomes abstract. The body becomes hypothetical. You forget what hunger means, but start obsessing over the shape of an old memory that’s been bothering you for years.
The air up here? Too clean. It makes returning feel like a contamination risk.
You build whole cities inside your head. A planet where you were better. A station where you said the right thing, or at least said it in time. A drift pattern that looks like freedom.
Meanwhile there’s socks on the floor. Unopened mail. A blinking oil change light. A friend’s text you still haven’t read.
Your ship is made of unfinished drafts and questions. The kind that end in, “…but what if that’s not true anymore?”
LOG 01C // External ping detected. Origin unknown. Initial resonance: familiar. Emotional payload embedded.
Sometimes it’s a name. A song. A smell.
And suddenly, the signal cuts through.
You don’t want to come back.
But you’re not sure if you can stay.
ACT II: REENTRY
Mission Phase: Descent / Recalibration Under Duress
LOG 02A // Atmospheric breach. Descent trajectory erratic. Begin heat shielding.
Reentry doesn’t ask. It drags.
You’re in the middle of imagining a better version of your past, and suddenly the microwave beeps. A notification lands. A voice says your name and it doesn’t sound like music anymore.
Gravity doesn’t return all at once. It creeps. A heavy tug. The pressure behind your eyes that reminds you that you’re just renting your body.
You don’t respond immediately. You try. You smile with the wrong muscles. You pretend to understand a question and hope no one notices the lag.
Everything feels louder. Edges sharper. Words more literal. You have to remind yourself that language here doesn’t bend to metaphor.
LOG 02B // Translation delay. Cognitive compression in progress. All responses filtered through adaptive sarcasm module.
You answer a message. Badly.
You wash the same dishes twice. You put on a shirt inside out and pretend it was on purpose.
You laugh in the wrong part of the conversation and someone tilts their head.
Still, something holds.
You take inventory: coffee consumed. Pants worn. Deadlines not missed yet.
It counts. All of it.
You cross something off a list and stare at the line like it means something.
LOG 02C // Signal stabilizing. Internal systems inconsistent. Emotional echo detected.
You apologize to someone and mean it. You reread a message twice before sending. You fold a blanket and sit beside it like it owes you something.
Reentry doesn’t mean you’re ready. Just that you remembered where Earth is.
Just that you’re aimed in that direction.
ACT III: RETURN (CONDITIONAL)
Mission Phase: Manual Grounding / Intermittent Presence Accepted
LOG 03A // Surface reacquired. Presence fluctuating. Resume calibration.
You are here.
Mostly.
You still misplace your thoughts mid-sentence. Still get halfway through cleaning your room and end up emotionally dismantling the time someone said you were too much.
But you’re learning how to stay a little longer each time.
There’s no grand return. No hero’s welcome. Just the moment your feet remember the ground and your brain stops sprinting.
You start naming things again. The plants. The stove. The light that hits your floor at 3:17pm and makes you want to write something you won’t show anyone.
You begin to forgive the version of you that left. You begin to trust the version that showed back up.
LOG 03B // Subject capable of tethering. Drift events logged but no longer terminal. Recommend continued observation.
You let the day happen without rewriting it. You sit through discomfort without narrating. You text a friend not to apologize, but just to say, “I was thinking of that time you made me laugh so hard I forgot the month.”
Some part of you still leaves. That’s okay. The point isn’t staying always.
The point is knowing how to come back.
Earth is still weird. But it has coffee. And grocery stores. And people who know your name without asking you to explain why you disappeared for a while.
You’re not entirely here. You never are.
But you’re close enough to reach.
LOG REF: FINAL // TRANSMISSION SUSPENDED. Return incomplete. Presence re-establishing. Coordinates stable—for now.
Ghosts of the Navigator 