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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/CuriousWombat42 on 2025-07-01 10:38:14+00:00.

My colleagues laughed when I told them I was mounting a manned expedition to the Voidstar cluster. That laughter turned to confusion and the questioning of my mental wellbeing once they realised that this had not been a well-placed joke, but a genuine statement of my planned endeavours. Like all rational beings in the galaxy, my people feared space travel like sentient cotton candy would fear the rain, and the Voidstar cluster’s high saturation with Iota-Radiation slowed made the construction of Gateway travel anchors all but impossible, leaving that part of the galaxy mostly unexplored.

Still my decision to visit it remained, and I had a good reason for it. Well, a reason at least. It wasn’t that I was immune to the terrors of space, far from it, but I had something my peers did not: I had worked and lived with humans. And this changes you forever.

Humans, if viewed from afar, are not very impressive. They were of small to medium size, bipedal, hardworking, and generally amicable towards the other races of the galaxy.

They were also stark raving mad.

Not in the way of the Xthonian berserkers, who tended to run at you at full speed with the intend to introduce your kidneys to the inside of your eye sockets, or like the lunatic prophets of Bhaal who saw the world around them always one week further into the future, causing a vast amount of confusion to everyone around them. No, the human insanity was less direct. Not exactly „lurking beneath the surface “, unless you count a lethiathan trying to skulk inside a kiddie pool as hidden, but contained enough to only shine through once you spend more time around them and saw that glint within their eyes.

Most species across the galaxy didn’t stay around humans for long enough, partially due to exactly this reason, and also because the average human you came across didn’t stay long in one place, preferring to travel between planets and hopping from star to star hauling cargo, running rescue- and scout missions, mining rogue asteroids, repairing relay satellites or other tasks where being prolonged exposure to the horrors of the galaxy was a key part of your job description. As said before all reasonable life forms would rather have their vital parts slowly pressed through a fine metal grate, but humans could hardly be described at reasonable. They lived for it, and everyone else let them do their thing as long as they didn’t have to do it themselves.

I worked as medical staff on the local star port for over a century, so I had plenty of contact with humans. Their constant galaxy-roving made them a potential risk of spreading or catching diseases that while harmless on their planet of origin might cause fatal epidemics when brought into the sprawling cities of another species. Therefore at least half of our quarantine wing tended to be filled up with gaggles of humans.

Humans, as it turns out, are not good at quarantine.

First attempts at medical isolation ended with the human patients growing more and more aggravated to the point of damaging the rooms just so a mechanic could come in they could chat with. A variety of escape attempts and containment breeches later, communal quarantine wings were erected in most spaceports across the galaxy, and I found myself as a general minder, staying in contact with the human crewmembers who were eager for any opportunity to talk just to pass the time.

So, we talked, and I listened, and over the time I learnt. I learnt to understand the human mind, as least as much as that is possible. Humans barely understood their own minds and after a few of them agreed to get their brains scanned just for curiosities sake, that was not a surprise. Within the human skull lies a vast ocean of thoughts, emotions and memories, unsorted and untamed, and their psyche swims within it like a sailor in a cosmic storm.

Foolishly I tried to connect myself to the machine for a deeper, scientific dive of human emotion, and then it struck me. Memories of degradation and disdain, of being seen as less than a person. A haze of self-loathing and burning anger. All uncomfortable and horrid in their own right, but almost a saving lifeline against what came next.

A feeling of an oppressive grey mass, closing in from all sides at the speed of dripping tar, slowly crushing me. I could feel my very essence being pulverised and siphoned out, all while a deep, primal dread of existential fatality crashed over me like a tsunami. A million and one scenarios of what could be flooded my brain, explosions of potential all smothered and choked by the ever enduring grey, dissolving into smoke and leaving behind nothing but regret and the bitter taste of wasted moments.

I am glad that the human noticed my screams and convulsions quick enough to unplug me before I was reduced to a babbling mess. When I described to them what I saw, the human simply laughed and said something about ‘that’s why he quit working in retail’ as if those memories were not a constant avalanche of mind-shattering boredom, humiliation and wanton cruelty.

My kind of excels in repetition and order, the concept of being bored had been foreign to me up to this point, yet through the senses of Humanity it felt like my very soul was being tortured. The human spirit must have evolved some kind of internal defences against its own self, simply to maintain to function at any capacity. Not only in closing up the intensity of some emotions, but in the constant drive to new challenges and dangers, which is probably why they not only endure but enjoy space travel.

Compared to retail, the constant possibility of dying a million gruesome deaths lightyears away from help must feel like the preferred choice.

Needless to say, I didn’t try to probe the human brain after that ever again, but I did enjoy the company of humans more and more. Trying to see the world from their eyes, a galaxy of wonders with too little time to see it all, feel it all. Experience it all. An existence where staying in one place, be it your body or your mind, was slow, creeping agony, knowing that the time gone by was not only gone forever but could have been spent with doing something, anything, that kept the fire within them burning. And fittingly for having been subjected to this worldview within a quarantine wing, it was infectious.

My kind lives five times that of an average human, but in the last centuries what have I truly done? I done my job, I did it well and on schedule, and improved my skill within my field according to the needs of the institution. Not only have I never left my planet, I haven’t even left my home city for longer than a day or two. Neither had my parents or co-workers. And before recently, I never truly asked myself if this is what I want to do until my expiration date. The humans around me were only a fraction of my age old, yet they had lived more than I had.

So, I made a choice. My choice.

The ‘Indominable’ was an old cargo ship overhauled for expeditionary purposes. Filled with a human crew, it awaited me at my local star port. Saying good bye to friends and family, which was an unusually emotional event, I once more checked the inventory list for the coming journey. The Voidstar cluster was a long way off, and from what the captain told me they were planning to take ‘the scenic route’ to get there. It would take months at best, and even if all went well I would not be making it back home to safety for at least another year. If it all went well.

„This was horrifying “, This was the first thought that came to mind as I made it to the loading ramp of the human ship. „I am risking it all, just to satisfy my curiosity. And it absolutely terrifies me. “

My feet stopped just before the threshold of the cargo bay. A second thought entered my head.

„But at least it will be better than Retail “

With a faint smile, I stepped on board.