A short story- Originally published in Savage Planets Magazine, July 2025. When the future calls, he doesn't have a choice. But in cryogenic sleep, he'll live a lifetime of nightmares before the mission truly begins. Jack never wanted to travel the stars. Drafted into a deep space mission against his will, he's not a hero-he's a terrified xenobiologist conscripted to make first contact. His only refuge? Forty-three years of cryogenic slumber aboard a sleeper ship bound for Proxima Centauri.
But there are no dreams in stasis-only waking nightmares. As the voyage unfolds, Jack finds himself trapped in recursive horrors, haunted by isolation, death, and abandonment. When he finally awakens-for real this time-he must confront what it means to be human, to be alone, and to face the unknown with nothing but memory and hope. A haunting, mind-bending journey through the psychology of deep space, Dream A Little Dream is a tale of fear, transformation, and the fragile thread of connection in an infinite cosmos.
A short story- Originally published in Savage Planets Magazine, July 2025. When the future calls, he doesn't have a choice. But in cryogenic sleep, he'll live a lifetime of nightmares before the mission truly begins. Jack never wanted to travel the stars. Drafted into a deep space mission against his will, he's not a hero-he's a terrified xenobiologist conscripted to make first contact. His only refuge? Forty-three years of cryogenic slumber aboard a sleeper ship bound for Proxima Centauri.
But there are no dreams in stasis-only waking nightmares. As the voyage unfolds, Jack finds himself trapped in recursive horrors, haunted by isolation, death, and abandonment. When he finally awakens-for real this time-he must confront what it means to be human, to be alone, and to face the unknown with nothing but memory and hope. A haunting, mind-bending journey through the psychology of deep space, Dream A Little Dream is a tale of fear, transformation, and the fragile thread of connection in an infinite cosmos.
