Maroukai DeWitt

As the clone vat breaks its seal, a clone of unknowable age opens its eyes and gazes out onto an unfamiliar Amarrian station.
"What year is it?" he asks no one in particular. The halls feel strange, redesigned and rebranded. Fashions, faces, even the scent of the recycled air—all different. He walks with purpose, pulled by a memory of motion more than direction.


He arrives at the hangar, drawn to the promise of asteroid belts and quiet work. New ships roar overhead—sleek, advanced, alien in their elegance. A voice behind him cuts through the haze of memory.
"Wasn't sure if you were ever coming back."
The face is aged, the uniform foreign, but unmistakably Aaron.
"Aaron? What happened? How long was I out? Where is everyone?"


The answers come not in words, but data—messages flooding in, a tidal wave of war reports, alliance rosters, lost contacts, and shifting power maps.
Aaron steadies him with a hand on each shoulder.
"Easy. We're okay. You were out for 19 years. The synaptic encryption scrambled when you died as the wormhole collapsed."
And just like that, the weight of two decades presses into his bones—and he stands anyway.